The Classical Ashʿari Theory of Aḥwāl

Juwaynī and his Opponents

Bibliographic Data

ID12236336
AuthorsFedor Benevich (0000-0001-7338-6731, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume27
Issue2
Pages136-175
Publication date2016-03-08
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Islamic Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0955-2340 • E-ISSN: 1471-6917
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/jis/etw013
OpenAlexW2327916303
LanguageEN
Citations received4

Perhaps the most well-known feature of Islamic dialectical theology, kalām, is its assumption that created things are atomic ‘substances’ whose properties are called ‘accidents’. Within kalām itself, there were debates as to whether this twofold analysis of created reality was sufficient. For there are not only concrete accidents like ‘this black’, that is, but the features shared by such individual accidents—for instance ‘blackness’. To handle such features was one of the reasons why some mutakallimūn introduced the notion of aḥwāl (modes/states), which in turn met with opposition from other mutakallimūn . This article concentrates on the classical Ashʿari theory of aḥwāl , and investigates arguments for and against the reality of aḥwāl , found mainly in Juwaynī, Anṣārī and Shahrastānī. The aim is to clarify the main developments in the metaphysical thought of the Ashʿari mutakallimūn of the eleventh century, as well as certain epistemological and theological premises that lurk behind the arguments. Along the way, distinctions are also drawn between the ontologies of Ashʿarī and Muʿtazilī aḥwāl proponents

Dialectic · Eleventh · Epistemology · Islam · Metaphysics · Opposition (politics · Physics · Political science · Theology · Families in Therapy and Culture · Islamic Studies and History · Islamic Thought and Society Studies · Law · Philosophy

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