al-Ash‘arī

Muslim theologian

• Born: 873 or 874
• Birthplace: Basra, southern Mesopotamia (now in Iraq)
• Died: 935 or 936
• Place of death: Baghdad, Iraq

Al-Ashՙarī initiated a theological movement that gave human reason only a limited role in demonstrating religious truths. To al-Ashՙarī, dialectical argument was acceptable if it remained subordinate to revealed facts.

Early Life

Al-Ashՙarī (ahl-ash-ah-REE) was born in Basra in southern Mesopotamia. He may have been a descendant of the famous Abū Mūsā al-Ashՙarī (d. 662 or 663), a companion of the Prophet Muḥammad. Nothing is known about al-Ashՙarī's early life, though it is evident from his subsequent activities that he received the usual education of his time: studies in grammar, the Qur՚ān, traditions of the Prophet Muḥammad, canon law, and Scholastic theology. It can also be assumed that he was deeply influenced by the intellectual turmoil of an age of violent ideological conflict, during which renewed interest in Greek philosophy intensified the clash between the ultrarationalist Mutazilites and the fundamentalist theologians. He became a pupil of the leading Basran Mutazilite, Abū ՙAlī Muḥammad ibn ՙAbd al-Wahhāb al-Jubbā (d. 915 or 916), and flourished as an aggressive debater in law and dogmatics.

At about the age of forty, in 912 or 913, al-Ashՙarī underwent a radical conversion away from the extreme rationalism of his master al-Jubba’i, and made a declaration of repentance in the mosque, announcing his return to strictest orthodoxy and rejecting outright the subordination of religious beliefs to rational principles. About this abrupt change of direction two different stories are told, which, although they are later embellishments to al-Ashՙarī's biography, are significant because they reflect his role in the development of Islamic theology.

The first story tells of three dreams; in two of them the Prophet orders al-Ashՙarī to return to traditional orthodoxy, but in the third he commands him not to abandon dialectical theology either. In the best-known version of the second story, al-Ashՙarī silences al-Jubba’i with an unanswerable riddle of three brothers, one dying as a baby (hence too young for Paradise or Hell), one rewarded with Heaven for his virtuous life, and one sent to Hell for his sins. The infant challenges God on his fate: Why was he not allowed to live and earn salvation? Al-Jubba’i replies that God would say that God knew that the child would grow up to be a sinner, and out of divine justice, he brought his life to an early end. On hearing this, the third brother now cries out from Hell: Why did he not kill me too, before I had a chance to sin? Al-Jubba’i, naturally, is incapable of resolving the dilemma. It was this demonstration of the incapacity of human reason that was said to have turned al-Ashՙarī away from the Mutazilite movement, one of whose central beliefs was that God could not be anything but absolutely just.

Life's Work

There are two ways to approach al-Ashՙarī: evaluating him either by his reputation or by his writings. He is credited with a large number of works (106 titles are known), but not all of the few that have survived are accepted as genuine. Furthermore, their character varies according to whether they were composed before or after his conversion.

Four works may be considered representative of al-Ashՙarī's output. His Maqalat al-Islamiyin wa-ikhtilaf al-musallin (Discourses of the Muslims, 1930) is noteworthy as one of the first treatises on the Islamic sects and was an important source for later historians of religion. It is divided into two parts, one dealing with the Muslim sects and the other with the views of the Scholastic theologians (mutakallimun). There may also have been a third part examining the opinions of the philosophers. Al-Ibanah ՙan usul al-diyanah (The Elucidation of Islam's Foundation, 1940) is an outline of the principles of Islam, perhaps written soon after his conversion to strict orthodoxy and therefore extremely hostile to the unbridled use of human reason in theological argument. A third work, Risalat isthsan al-khawd fi ilm al-kalam (best known as al-Hathth ՙala al-bahth; Incitement to Investigation, 1953), strongly defends the use of reason and is critical of those same orthodox thinkers whose ranks al-Ashՙarī had so dramatically rejoined. To their claim that rational speculation is heretical, al-Ashՙarī replies that to prohibit the use of reason in the absence of all Qur՚ānic and extra-Qur՚ānic support is itself a heresy. Finally, the Kitāb al-luma (Book of Highlights, 1953) should be mentioned. It is a late work, similar to Incitement to Investigation in its rigorous defense of Islam by the use of dialectic, and it was probably al-Ashՙarī's most popular treatise, to judge by the commentaries and refutations it provoked.

Far more significant than al-Ashՙarī's writings is the body of ideas attributed to him and constituting the theological system named for him. Ashՙarism's general aim was to achieve a true synthesis of purely logical argument and the transcendental elements of revealed religion. A non-Muslim is likely to be unimpressed by the apparent contradictions this method produces, but it would be a gross error to devalue the absolute importance of all the issues involved by relegating them to the status of mere Scholastic quibbles.

Al-Ashՙarī's method typically combines rational argument with an appeal to Qur՚ānic authority, so that each reinforces the other. Thus, to refute the Mutazilite preference for mechanical causality (which threatened to make God subject to natural laws), al-Ashՙarī attacks on two fronts. Rationally, it is self-evident that humans are not in control of the universe and cannot create themselves; humankind's continued existence therefore must be attributable to a higher cause. Hereupon, al-Ashՙarī invokes Qur՚ānic verses to confirm by revelation what he has just established by reason. God's unity is similarly demonstrated by pointing out the logical absurdity of predicating omnipotence of more than one deity, and again the case is supported by Qur՚ānic quotations.

By this type of argument, Ashՙarism constructed a theology that resolved or at least acceptably accounted for all the major points of doctrinal dispute. The rather numerous individual topics may be conveniently subsumed under two broad categories: dogma relating to God and dogma in which humans are the main focus.

The Qur՚ān and the subsequent tradition are very explicit regarding God's qualities. Logic is equally insistent that the oneness of God is incompatible with the medieval scientific principle of substance and accident, that is, that all beings are complex insofar as their attributes are additional to their substance. There are two extreme solutions to this dilemma: One is to prohibit inquiry into the question altogether, which was approximately the position of the fundamentalists, and the other is to affirm the unity of God by denying that he has any attributes at all, which was essentially the view of the Mutazilites. Either way, the theological consequences were disturbing: The fundamentalists were obliged to accept things that they could not understand (God's location, for example; the Qur՚ān describes him as sitting on a throne), while the Mutazilites reduced God to a construct of the mind ruled by the laws of thought (the faithful will not see him in the afterlife, because it is inconceivable that he should be anywhere to be seen).

Al-Ashՙarī and his followers arrived at a reconciliation of this type of contradiction by combining belief in revealed truth with acceptance of logical arguments designed to show that God's attributes were of a different nature from humankind', thus neither depriving him of attributes nor negating his oneness. It is important to stress here that al-Ashՙarī was seeking not a compromise between the two opposing views but a total victory for fundamentalist theology, expressed in terms that would silence both sides. The weaknesses of the two extremes are clear, but the intention of al-Ashՙarī's reasoning was to make the fundamentalist position logically unassailable.

Humankind's theological status was equally problematical, especially in the matter of free will. The fundamentalists naturally adhered to the Qur՚ānic assertions of God's unqualified omnipotence, while the Mutazilites had to argue that there could be no responsibility (hence no reward for virtue or punishment for sin) without free will, thereby restricting God's powers. Al-Ashՙarī's solution is simply brilliant. Human actions are indeed all created by God, including even the accountability for those actions that a person “acquires” as he or she performs them. This “acquisition” (kasb) is one of al-Ashՙarī's most inspired theological insights: Drawing on a commercial metaphor in the Qur՚ān (“every man must stand surety for what he has acquired” that is, he will be judged accordingly), he elaborated a perfectly coherent doctrine of individual responsibility. A person “buys” his or her actions, which is to say, he or she accepts them exactly as a purchaser does under Muslim law, with eyes open and with full satisfaction (rida). The concept is ethically watertight: A person acts as he or she is predestined to act, but does so always knowing what God has determined to be right or wrong, and it is the acceptance (kasb) of that knowledge that will send the individual eventually to Heaven or Hell.

Significance

A brief description of Ashՙarism cannot give an adequate impression of the subtlety and breadth of al-Ashՙarī's ideas, which ranged from the most abstruse questions of metaphysics to practical matters of worldly ethics. What must be stressed, however, is that his solutions were found acceptable by numerous Muslims of undoubted intellectual superiority, of whom the greatest is al-Ghazzālī (1058-1111), the single most influential Muslim thinker. Ashՙarism clearly answered Islam's need to harmonize the intellectual's insistence on systematic coherence with the fundamentalist's refusal to question matters of revelation. Even Sufi mystics are among his followers, and the foundation of the Nizamiyya College in Baghdad in 1070 represents the elevation of Asharism to an officially sponsored state doctrine. Ironically, this reconciliation of faith and reason is exactly what al-Ashՙarī's bitterest opponents, the Mutazilites, strove for and failed to accomplish.

Although al-Ashՙarī's position in the history of Islamic theology is clearly defined in the Muslim tradition, there is still much uncertainty about him in Western scholarship. Disagreement among non-Muslims springs from the difficulty of accepting Islamic religious premises and an understandable inclination to regard Islamic theological speculation as sterile and abstract. Al-Ashՙarī is thus a somewhat contradictory figure to non-Muslims; indeed, he has been called a “man with two faces” for his apparent vacillation between the extremes of blind fundamentalism and radical enlightenment. To see al-Ashՙarī in this polarized way, however, is to deny the very synthesis he created. In theological terms, he was never anything but ultraconservative, yet he also managed to remove from Islam (or at least to make it possible through his champion al-Ghazzālī) that fear of intellectualism that had made the Mutazilites so unpopular despite their pious intentions. In fact, al-Ashՙarī's hostility toward the unthinking kind of Muslim who believes by mere “imitation” (taqlid) was far stronger than his opposition to the inquisitive Mutazilites.

How much of Ashՙarism is al-Ashՙarī's personal achievement and how much is attributable to natural adjustments within Islam as it progressed toward doctrinal maturity may not be very important to determine. Ideological movements in Islam usually spring from the teachings of a major figure and then take on a life of their own, so that the question of originality retreats into the background. None of al-Ashՙarī's ideas is totally without precedent; the use of reasoned theological argument (kalam) to analyze and defend religious doctrine, the tone of uncompromising orthodoxy, and concepts such as “acquisition” (kasb) can all be observed in or traced to earlier sources. In the end, therefore, al-Ashՙarī should perhaps be judged in terms of the tradition that bears his name, which gives a full and satisfying role to the powers of a person's intellect in working with a set of revealed Islamic beliefs.

Bibliography

Abdul Hye, M. “Ashՙarism.” In A History of Muslim Philosophy, edited by M. M. Sharif. Vol. 1. 1963. Reprint. Karachi, Pakistan: Royal, 1983. Chapter 9 contains a detailed and informative account of al-Ashՙarī and his ideas from the Muslim perspective. Clearly and concisely summarizes doctrinal issues, setting al-Ashՙarī in the wider context of Islamic theology.

Ashՙarī, ՙAlī ibn Ismail al-. Abūl-Ḥasan ՙAlī ibn Ismāl al-Ašՙarī’s Al-Ibānah an ՙuşūl ad-diyānah (The Elucidation of Islām’s Foundation). 1940. Reprint. Edited and translated by Walter Conrad Klein. New York: Kraus, 1967. Translation of a major work, with a convenient introduction giving a brief outline of al-Ashՙarī’s life and doctrines.

Ashՙarī, ՙAlī ibn Ismail al-. The Theology of al-Ashՙarī. Translated by Richard J. McCarthy. Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1953. Accurate and well-annotated translation of two of al-Ashՙarī’s most important works, the Kitāb al-luma and the al-Hathth ՙala al-bahth, with the original Arabic text and useful biographical and bibliographical material. A reliable rendering of the key ideas and issues.

Frank, Richard M. Al-Ghazzālī and the Asharite School. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1994. Presents a history of the Asharite school of Islamic law and the work of al-Ghazzālī in that context. Bibliography, index.

Frank, Richard M. “Elements in the Development of the Teaching of al-Ashՙarī.” Muséon 101 (1988). Thorough analysis of al-Ashՙarī’s views on the rational approach to theology, the attributes of God, and the nature of the Qur՚ān. Emphasizes the consistency of al-Ashՙarī’s thinking in spite of his apparent changes of allegiance.

Goldziher, Ignaz. Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law. Translated by Andras and Ruth Hamori. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981. The classic treatment of the topic, this work is widely accepted. This edition contains an updated bibliography and notes. Chapter 3, “The Growth and Development of Dogmatic Theology,” discusses al-Ashՙarī.

Hourani, George F. Reason and Tradition in Islamic Ethics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Chapter 9, “Ashՙarī,” is a short, lucid account, supplemented by many other references that help to locate al-Ashՙarī and his school in the general context of Islamic theology.

Makdisi, G. “Ashՙarī and the Ashՙarites in Islamic Religious History.” Studia Islamica 17-18 (1962-1963): 37-80, 19-39. A radical reassessment of al-Ashՙarī that rejects the authenticity of the Incitement to Investigation and argues that al-Ashՙarī’s real opponents were not the Mutazilites or Hanbalites but the Shāfՙī school of law.

Martin, Richard C., Mark R. Woodward, and Dwi S. Atmaja. Defenders of Reason in Islam: Mutazilism from Medieval School to Modern Symbol. Boston: Oneworld, 1997. Examines Mutazilism in Islam during the Middle Ages and through the twentieth century. Bibliography, index.

Watt, W. Montgomery. The Formative Period of Islamic Thought. Boston: Oneworld, 1998. Part 2 of this historical work includes the chapters “The Attraction of Reasoning” and “The Great Mutazilites.” Extensive bibliography, index.

Watt, W. Montgomery. Free Will and Predestination in Early Islam. London: Luzac, 1948. Chapter 6 describes al-Ashՙarī’s solution to the problem of free will and offers some valuable corrections to common misconceptions regarding al-Ashՙarī’s true position in the debate between fundamentalists and rationalists.

Watt, W. Montgomery. Islamic Philosophy and Theology: An Extended Survey. 2d ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995. The best starting point: concise and readable summaries with guidance for further reading, placing al-Ashՙarī in the wider theological context.