Signs from Allah: History, Science and the Soul in Islam
18.The Rise and Fall of Philosophy and Its Impact on Religion and Science (Part 2)
By Prof Dr Nazeer Ahmed, PhD
Concord, CA
The challenge to the Mu’tazilites came from the Usuli (meaning, based on principles) ulema, the best known among whom was Imam Hanbal (d. 855). A great scholar, he learned the principles of Fiqh from all the Schools prevalent in his generation, namely, Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i and Ja’afariya, as well as the Kalam (philosophical) Schools of the era.
Mu’tazilite ideas were causing a great deal of confusion among the masses. Stability was required and innovation had to be combated. Imam Hanbal argued for strict adherence to the Qur’an and the verified Sunnah of the Prophet. Any principle, legal or philosophical, not based on the Qur’an and the Sunnah was to be considered bida’a (innovation). Imam Hanbal took issue with the principle of ijma (unless it was sanctioned by the Sunnah) and totally rejected istihsan and qiyas as methodologies for Fiqh. His position was a direct challenge to the Mu’tazilites who enjoyed official patronage from the Caliphs. Consequently, Imam Hanbal was punished and jailed for most of his life. His sustained and determined opposition galvanized those who fought the Mu’tazilites.
Imam Hanbal was joined in his fight against the Mu’tazilites by the inductive (as opposed to deductive) philosophers. The inductive philosophers derived their inspiration from those Ayats in the Qur’an that call upon man to use both his senses and his reasoning to witness the signs of God. In other words, the Qur’anic approach is both empirical and rational as opposed to the purely speculative reasoning championed by the Mu’tazilites. The Mu’tazilite neglect of the empirical and their dependence solely on the rational proved to be their undoing. The struggle of Imam Hanbal bore fruit and Caliph Al Mutawakkil abandoned the Mu’tazilite School in 847 CE. In turn, when the Asharites gained the upper hand, the Mu’tazilites were punished, jailed and silenced. Such is the fate that differing ideas have suffered at times in Islamic history!
The Hanbali School flourished in Arabia and western Iraq until the Wahhabi movement in the 18th and 19th centuries co-opted it. Because the Wahhabi school was considered disruptive of accepted practices, it came into conflict with the Ottomans in the 18th century. The Ottomans accepted tasawwuf as a legitimate mode of knowing and, since they were Hanafis, were much more liberal in their interpretations. After the Wahhabis captured the Hijaz from the Ottomans in 1917, the Hanbali Fiqh became the official jurisprudence in Arabia (later known as Saudi Arabia). As practiced in Arabia, the Hanbali Fiqh is known for its abhorrence, indeed condemnation, of anything that is bida’a (innovation, a practice not in strict accordance with the Qur’an and the verified Sunnah of the Prophet).
The four schools of Sunnah Fiqh-Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i and Hanbali-are mutually recognized and there have been moves in recent years to bring the Ithna Ashari and Zaidi Fiqhs also under the “mutual recognition” umbrella. Historically, however, there have been occasions when frictions between them played an important part in the outcome of historical events. Specifically, just before the invasions of Genghiz Khan (1219), one reads of overt hostility between the followers of the Hanafi, Shafi’i and Ja’afariya Fiqh in Khorasan and Persia, a situation that played to the advantage of Genghiz in his war against the Shah of Khorasm (1219-1222 CE).
The school of thought that had perhaps the most pervasive impact on Islamic thinking was the Asharite. Indeed, one may take the position that Asharite ideas have been a primary driver of Islamic civilization since the third century after the Hijra. The vast majority of Muslims through the centuries have followed one of five schools of Fiqh (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, Hanbali, Ja’afariya) plus the Asharite philosophy. The difference is that the five schools of Fiqh are overtly discussed and have been the source of cooperation and friction, whereas Asharite ideas have been absorbed into Islamic culture like water in an oasis. The direction, achievements and failures of Islamic civilization have been influenced in no small measure by Asharite thinking. From Al Gazzali of Baghdad (d. 1111) to Muhammed Iqbal of Pakistan (d. 1938), Asharite ideas have burst out on the Islamic landscape like an ebullient fountain and have influenced the direction of collective Muslim struggles.
Named after its architect, al Ashari (d. 935), it was the Asharite School that finally defeated the Mu’tazilites. Al Ashari was initially a Mu’tazilite. The Mu’tazilite School had placed reason above revelation and had come to the erroneous conclusion that the Qur’an was created in time. Such views were repugnant to Muslims. Al Ashari turned the argument around and placed revelation ahead of reason. The crux of the Asharite argument lies in its definition of the phenomenon of time. Al Ashari was well aware of the Greek view that matter may be divided into atoms. He extended this argument to time and postulated that time moves in discrete steps. At each discrete step and all times in between, the power and Grace of God intervenes to determine the outcome of events. This conceptual breakthrough enabled the Asharites to preserve the omnipotence of God. Whereas the Mu’tazilites had failed on this score precisely because they assumed (much as Newtonian Mechanics does today) that time is continuous so that a given action automatically and mechanistically leads to a reaction. If the outcome of an event is completely determined by the action that causes it, then there is no room for the intervention of God and the world becomes secular.
We may summarize the Asharite pyramid of knowledge as follows: Atoms and the physical world are at the lowest rung of the ladder. The physical world is subject to reason. But reason itself is subject to and superseded by revelation. By contrast, the model presented by the Mu’tazilites (as well as the Greeks and the modern secular civilization) places both the physical world and revelation subject to understanding by reason.
Two other important elements of the Asharite philosophy need to be stated. The Asharites asserted that only God is the owner of all action (Qur’an, 10:100). Man has no independent capacity to act but is merely an agent who has acquired this capacity as a gift from God. This doctrine, known as the doctrine of Kasab, was misunderstood and misinterpreted by later generation of Muslims as predestination. Indeed, some Muslims raised predestination to be the sixth pillar of Islam. One may put forward the argument that it was a contributing factor in the stagnation that was to envelop the Muslim world in later centuries.
Second, the Asharites held that there is a divine pattern in nature but no causality. The cause and effect that we perceive is only apparent and is only a reflection of the attributes that are inherent in nature. This doctrine was a central argument in Al Ghazzali’s famous treatise, Tahaffuz al Filasafa (The Repudiation of the Philosophers, circa 1100) that provided the death-knell for philosophy in Islam and fundamentally changed the course of Islamic history. Ibn Rushd (1198), perhaps the greatest philosopher the world has produced since Aristotle, provided a counter-argument to this doctrine in his famous treatise, Tahaffuz al Tahaffuz (Repudiation of Repudiation, circa 1190). The Muslims adopted Al Gazzali, whereas the West adopted Ibn Rushd and the two civilizations went in different directions. The consequences for the unfolding of global history were enormous.
The appearance and development of the Mu’tazilite and Asharite doctrines more than a thousand years ago is essential to an understanding of Islamic history and of contemporary Muslims. The Mu’tazilites stood on the shoulders of the Greeks but made the error of applying their methods to the Qur’an and forcing their views on fellow Muslims. For this error, their ideas were banished from Islam into the Latin West. The Asharites stood on the shoulders of the Mu’tazilites but repudiated their methods and called them kafirs. Later generation of Muslims misunderstood the Asharites, confused their doctrine with predestination and went to sleep! It is only in the last hundred years that Muslim thinkers such as Muhammed Iqbal of Lahore have made an attempt to reconcile the doctrines of predestination and the free will of man.
Summarily, the Mu’tazila School flourished for almost two hundred years and at times was the dominant school of thought among Muslims. Its influence was comparable to the Schools of Imam Abu Haneefa, Imam Ja’afar as Saadiq or Imam Malik. The Mu’tazilite School was challenged by Imam Hanbal (d. 855) and Hasan al Ashari (d. 935) and was finally vanquished by al Gazzali (d. 1111). This battle of ideas had a profound impact on Islamic history. It influences Muslim thinking even to this day.
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