Takfir in Islamic Thought by Hussam S. Timani

Author:Hussam S. Timani
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2012-04-14T04:00:00+00:00

Takfīr in the Ash‘arite Thought

The Ash‘arite theological movement takes its name from its founder Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ash‘arī (d. 935) “whose works marked a turning point in the history of Islamic theology.”[75] Al-Ash‘arī, a former Mu‘tazilite, devoted himself to “strengthening attachment to Tradition while defending it by the rational arguments of kalām.”[76] In the words of David Waines, “The purpose of the broad movement which flourished after al-Ash‘arī was to challenge and modify the conclusions reached by the Mu‘tazilites.”[77] The following pages will discuss the Ash‘arite theology of takfīr based on al-Ash‘arī’s two major works, Kitāb al-Ibānah and Kitāb al-luma‘, and will demonstrate how this theology had emerged as a response to the Mu‘tazilite views on takfīr.

Scholars have argued that al-Ash‘arī’s position on the concept of takfīr is quite obscure and difficult to define because al-Ash‘arī himself did not intend to define the concept as much as to refute the Mu‘tazilite views on takfīr. Since al-Ash‘arī’s intention of defining takfīr “is chiefly polemical,” according to Izutsu, this perhaps led to some difficulty grasping the Ash‘arite position regarding the concept of īmān and takfīr. Izutsu attributes this difficulty to the “divergent” accounts of the Ash‘arite position on īmān and takfīr that have been handed down to us.[78] Walter C. Klein tells us that al-Ash‘arī is “obscured by his work and its effects. . . . He left behind no confessions . . . virtually all his writings are polemical.”[79] Although the Ash‘arite position on takfīr and īmān was not intended to define these concepts, it did, however, strengthen the meaning of īmān as it is defined in the Sunni tradition.

In his al-Ibānah ‘an Uṣūl al-Diyānah, al-Ash‘arī dedicates two chapters to the topic of īmān: “On the Exposition of the Belief of the Deviators and Innovators” and “Concerning the Exposition of the Belief of the Followers of the Truth and the Sunnah.”[80] In the first chapter, he begins by attacking the Mu‘tazilites for deviating from the traditional Sunnite teachings about the nature of God; good and evil; the punishment of the grave; and the eternity of the Qur’ān. He rebukes the Mu‘tazilites for interpreting the Qur’ān according to their opinions rather than following interpretations derived from Muḥammad’s tradition, and he accuses them of opposing the traditions of the Prophet’s Companions (al-ṣaḥābah) and “approximating the belief of the Magians.”[81] Citing Muḥammad’s words, he refers to the Mu‘tazilites as “the Magians[82] of this community” because, according to him, “they have adopted the religion of the Magians and copied their tenets, and think that there are two creators, the one for good and the other for evil, just as the Magians think.”[83] They are “deviators in their innovations,” al-Ash’arī writes, “who dissent from the Book, and the sunnah, and that upon which the Prophet and his Companions take their stand and the Community have unanimously agreed.”[84] It is important to ask that if al-Ash‘arī believed that the Mu‘tazilites deviated from orthodoxy, why did he then call them Magians and deviators and not kuffār, hypocrites, or fāsiqūn

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