Texts and Studies on the Development and History of Kalam, Vol. II: Early Islamic Theology: The Muʿtazilites and al-Ashʿarī

399 Pages·2007·17.287 MB·English

by  Richard M. Frank, Dimitri Gutas (editor)

Also in the Variorum Collected Studies Series:
RICHARD M. FRANK, (Ed. Dimitri Gutas)
Philosophy, Theology and Mysticism in Medieval Islam
Texts and Studies on the Development and History ofKalam, Vol. I
NORMAN CALDER, (Ed. Jawid Mojaddedi and Andrew
Rippin)
Interpretation and Jurisprudence in Medieval Islam
JULES JANSSENS
Ibn Sina and his Influence on the Arabic and Latin World
PATRICIA CRONE
From Kavad to al-Ghazali
Religion, Law and Political Thought in the Near East, c.600-c.l 100
MICHAEL COOK
Studies in the Origins ofEarly Islamic Culture and Tradition
ANDREW RIPPIN
The Qur’an and its Interpretative Tradition
DIMITRI GUTAS
Greek Philosophers in the Arabic Tradition
M.J. KISTER
Concepts and Ideas at the Dawn oflslam
G.H.A. JUYNBOLL
Studies on the Origins and Uses of Islamic Hadith
GEORGE MAKDISI
Religion, Law and Learning in Classical Islam
FRANZ ROSENTHAL
Muslim Intellectual and Social History
A Collection ofEssays
WILFERD MADELUNG
Religious Schools and Sects in Medieval Islam
VARIORUM COLLECTED STUDIES SERIES
Early Islamic Theology:
The Mu tazilites and al-Asharl

Richard M. Frank
Early Islamic Theology:
The Mutazilites and al-Asharl
Texts and Studies on the Development
and History of Kalam, Vol. II
Edited by Dimitri Gutas
13 Routledge
Taylor & Francis Croup
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2007 by Publishing
Ashgate
Published 2016 by Routledgc
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon 0X14 4RN
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Rout/edge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition © 2007 by Richard M. Frank
Richard M. Frank has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Frank, Richard M.
Texts and studies on the development and history of kalam
Vol 2: Early Islamic theology : the Mutazilites and
al-Ash arl. - (Variorum collected studies series)
1. Islam - Doctrines - History
I. Title II. Gutas, Dimitri
297.2’09
ISBN 13: 978-0-86078-978-9 (hbk)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2006935669
VARIORUM COLLECTED STUDIES SERIES CS834
CONTENTS
Foreword vii-x
Acknowledgements xi
I The metaphysics of created being according to Abu
1-Hudhayl al-'Allaf: a philosophical study of the
earliest kalam iv+1-53
Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut, 1966
II The divine attributes according to the teaching of
Abu 1-Hudhayl al-cAllaf 451-506
Le Museon 82. Louvain, 1969
III Several fundamental assumptions of the Basra School
of the Mutazila 5-18
Studia Islamica 33. Paris, 1971
IV Al-madum wal-mawjud: the non-existent, the existent,
and the possible in the teaching of Abu Hashim and
his followers 185-209
MIDEO 14. Cairo, 1980
V Abu Hashim’s theory of ‘states’: its structure and
function 85-100
A etas do Congressu de Estudos Arabes e Islamicos,
Leiden, 1971
VI Elements in the development of the teaching of
al-Asharl 141-190
Le Museon 104. Louvain, 1991
VII The structure of created causality according to
al-Asharl: an analysis of the Kitab al-Luma, §§ 82-164 13-75
Studia Islamica 25. Paris, 1966
vi CONTENTS
VIII Al-Asharl’s conception of the nature and role of
speculative reasoning in theology 136-154
Proceedings of the Vlth Congress of Arabic and Islamic
Studies, Stockholm, 1972
IX Al-Ash arl’s Kitab al-Hathth cala l-Bahth
[contains text and translation] 83-152
MIDEO 18. Cairo, 1988
Index 1-12
This volume contains xii + 384 pages
FOREWORD
This is the second of three volumes reprinting the collected papers on Islamic
subjects by Richard M. Frank, Professor Emeritus at the Catholic University of
America. The first, published in 2005,1 contains articles that study the lexical and
intellectual context of Islamic theology (kalam) and explore its interactions with
philosophy and mysticism. The present volume brings together studies on early
kalam, the Mutazilites and the development of the thought of al-As an, while
the third will be devoted to articles on the As arites and the As arite tradition.2
The studies in the present collection represent an original attempt to make
philosophical sense, and in particular understand the theoretical underpinnings,
of what is in essence the great theological tradition in early Islam, the Mutazilite
school of Basra. It opens with two pieces (I—II) on one of its greatest exponents,
Abu 1-Hudayl al-‘Allaf (whom some of his successors considered, perhaps
rightly, as the real founder of kalam), continues with the masters of its classical
period, the Gubba is, father and son, and their followers (III-V), and ends with
their most famous, but rebel, student, al-As ari (VI-IX). The first selection, the
classic short monograph describing the theological system of Abu 1-Hudayl,
lays the foundation for those that follow, for it articulates Frank’s original
approach to understanding kalam. In sharp contrast to all previous studies in
Western Islamic studies, which viewed kalam as “little more than a superficial
and relatively unsophisticated way of stating and of arguing and defending one
or another point of basic religious doctrine,”3 Frank’s monograph views the
task of kalam as one “of discovering analytically and setting forth objectively
in formal language the underlying structure of the created world as it manifested
the logos,” the divine Word, “revealed in the Koran.” In the performance of this
1 Philosophy, Theology and Mysticism in Medieval Islam. Texts and Studies on the
Development and History of Kalam, Vol. I, ed. Dimitri Gutas, Ashgate: Aldershot, 2005.
2 Acomplete bibliography of Richard Frank’s publications, compiled by James E. Montgomery
and Monica Blanchard, is published in the volume, Arabic Theology, Arabic Philosophy. From the
Many to the One: Essays in Celebration of Richard M. Frank, ed. by James E. Montgomery,
Peeters: Leuven, 2006.
3 R. Frank in his memoir “Ya Kalam,” selection I in the first Variorum volume cited in the
first note above, p. 3. The memoir provides indispensible orientation to the development of Frank’s
researches over the years.