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Al-Ash'ari established a middle way between the doctrines of the aforementioned schools, based both on theological rationalism (kalam) and the interpretation of theQuran andSunna.[1][2][5][8] His school eventually became the predominant school of theological thought within Sunni Islam.[4][5][9][10][11] By contrast,Shia Muslims do not accept his theological beliefs, as his works also involved refuting Shia Islam.
A depiction of Baghdad from 1808, taken from the print collection inTravels in Asia and Africa, etc. (ed.J. P. Berjew, British Library); al-Ashʿarī spent his entire life in the tenth-century in this city.
According to the traditional account, al-Ashʿarī remained a Muʿtazilite theologian until his 40th year, when he allegedly saw theIslamic prophetMuhammad in his dreams three times during the month ofRamaḍān. The first time, Muhammad told him to support what was narrated from himself, that is, theprophetic traditions (ḥadīth).[16][17][18] Al-Ashʿarī became worried, as he had numerous strong proofs contradictory to the prophetic traditions. After 10 days, he saw Muhammad again: Muhammad reiterated that he should support theḥadīth.[17][18] Subsequently, al-Ashʿarī forsookkalām (dialectical theology) and started following theḥadīth alone. On the 27th night of Ramaḍān, he saw Muhammad for the last time. Muhammad told him that he had not commanded him to forsakekalām, but only to support the traditions narrated from himself. Thereupon, al-Ashʿarī started to advocate in favor of theauthority of theḥadīth reports, finding proofs for these that he said he had not read in any books.[17][18]
After this experience, he left the Muʿtazilite school and became one of its most distinguished opponents, using thephilosophical methods he had learned from them in order to refute their theological doctrine.[12] Then, al-Ashʿarī spent the remaining years of his life engaged in developing his views and in composing polemics and arguments against his former Muʿtazilite colleagues. Al-Ashʿarī wrote more than 90 works during his lifetime, little of which have survived to the present day.[1]
In line with Sunni tradition (Ahl us-Sunnah wal Jama’ah), al-Ash'ari held the view that a Muslim should not be considered an unbeliever on account of a sin even if it were an enormity such as drinking wine or theft. This opposed the position held by theKhawarij.[24] Al-Ash'ari also believed it impermissible to violently oppose a leader even if he were openly disobedient to the commands of the sacred law.[24]
Al-Ash'ari spent much of his works opposing the views of theMuʿtazila school. In particular, he rebutted them for believing that the Qur'an was created and that deeds are done by people of their own accord through their direct creation of them.[21] He also rebutted the Muʿtazili school for denying that Allah can hear, see and has speech. Al-Ash’ari confirmed all these attributes stating that they differ from the hearing, seeing and speech of the creation.[21]
He was also noted for his teachings onatomism.[25]
According to scholarJonathan A.C. Brown, although "the Ash'ari school of theology is often called the Sunni 'orthodoxy,' "the original Ahl al-Hadith, early Sunni creed from which Ash'arism evolved has continued to thrive alongside it as a rival Sunni 'orthodoxy' as well."[28] According to Brown this competing orthodoxy exists in the form of the "Hanbali über-Sunni orthodoxy".[29]
The Ash'ari scholarIbn Furak numbers Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari's works at 300, and the biographerIbn Khallikan at 55;[30] Ibn Asāker gives the titles of 93 of them, but only a handful of these works, in the fields of heresiography and theology, have survived. The five main ones are:
Maqalat al-Islamiyyin (The Treatises/Teachings of the Muslims and the Differences of the Prayerful/Worshippers), an encyclopaedia of deviated Islamic sects.[31] It comprises not only an account of the Islamic sects but also an examination of problems inkalām, or scholastic theology, and the Names and Attributes ofAllah; the greater part of this works seems to have been completed before his conversion from the Muʿtaziltes.
Al-Luma' al-Kabir (The Major Book of Sparks), a preliminary to Idah al-Burhan and, together with the Luma' al-Saghir, the last work composed by al-Ash'ari according to Shaykh 'Isa al-Humyari.
Al-Luma' al-Saghir (The Minor Book of Sparks), a preliminary to al-Luma' al-Kabir.[32]
^Namira Nahouza (2018). Wahhabism and the Rise of the New Salafists: Theology, Power and Sunni Islam. I.B. Tauris. pp. 121–122.
^Zhussipbek, Galym and Nagayeva, Zhanar. "Epistemological Reform and Embracement of Human Rights. What Can be Inferred from Islamic Rationalistic Maturidite Theology?" Open Theology, vol. 5, no. 1, 2019, pp. 352.https://doi.org/10.1515/opth-2019-0030
^abJeffry R. Halverson, Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam: The Muslim Brotherhood, Ash'arism, and Political Sunnism, p 77.ISBN0230106587
^Brown, Jonathan A.C. (2009).Hadith: Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World. Oneworld Publications (Kindle edition). p. 180.
^Brown, Jonathan (2007).The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunnī Ḥadīth Canon. Leiden and Boston: Brill. p. 137.ISBN9789004158399.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
^McCarthy, Richard J. (1953).The Theology of Al-Ashari. Imprimerie Catholique. p. 232.
^Makdisi, George. 1962. Ash’ari and the Asharites and Islamic history I. Studia Islamica 17: 37–80
^Ignaz Goldziher, Vorlesungen uber den Islam, 2nd ed. Franz Babinger (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1925), 121;
^Richard M. Frank,Early Islamic Theology: The Mu'tazilites and al-Ash'ari, Texts and studies on the development and history of kalām, vol. 2, pg. 172.Farnham:Ashgate Publishing, 2007.ISBN9780860789789
^Jackson, Sherman A. “Ibn Taymiyyah on Trial in Damascus.” Journal of Semitic Studies 39 (Spring 1994): 41–85.
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