ILM al-KALAM

Ilm al kalam is the offspring of Islamic experience of intellectual works. A lot of scholars concentrated the reality of the world, existence of God and His manifestations and ethos. The History and discourse of Ilm al kalam had a very role in Islamic History and intellectual field. Muslim mentality seemed to have tended to these subjects for a long time.

Impact of Greek and Roman philosophy on Muslim scholars made them extremely rationalized in their theological works also. Some of them tried to defend Islam from those unislamic tendencies by the opponents’ philosophical methodology. Some were fascinated by the new philosophy which from the outside of Islamic boundaries, and preferred to those ideas. They even viewed Islamic philosophy in terms of Greek and Roman philosophy.

Several causes can be traced for the emergence of Ilm al kalam. Simple faith of Islam is the great manifestation of it, and Islam is the simplest religion of all religion of the world. In the course of time and period, the unislamic thoughts were introduced to Muslim minds because of their greedy for pursuit of knowledge. They went by beyond the boundaries and took knowledge whatever they got.

According to De Boer, the Ilm al kalam “an assertion expressed in logical or dialectical fashion, was called by the Arabs, a kalam, the name was transferred from the individual assertion to the entire system. Our best designation for the science is the kalam is theological dialectics or simply dialectics. The name Mutakallimun which was at first common to all the dialecticians was in later times applied especially to the anti Mutazilities and orthodox theologians.

The fundamentals of this discourse are five

1. Divine unity

2. Divine justice

3. The promise of reward and the threat of punishment

4. The state between belief and un belief

5. To order the doing of right and prohibit the doing of wrong

In these debate, some Islamic groups got involved like as Mutazilities, Murjieties, Kharijities ,qadirities,asharities and maturities. Even though, the main groups in this are Mu’tazalities, Murjieties Kharijites and qadirities.

Mutazalities

Mutazalities are called generally as the rationalists in Islam. The leader of Mutazalities was Wasil bin Ata (birth 699 AD). He was a student of imam al Hasan al basri. The name Mutazaliities got from a warm discussion between the both teacher and student.

One day someone went to Hasanul basri and said to him” o, imam, there some today who say that grave sinners are unbelievers. For them grave sin is unbelief by which one is cast out of the community. This group is the wajidiyya sect of the Kharijities. On the other hand, there are others who refer judgment on grave sinners. For them grave sin does not adversely affect a person as long as he has faith. Deeds, they hold, do not form on integral part of faith, sin therefore, does not adversely affect one having faith. Just as obedience is of no avail to one without faith, these are the Murjities( postpones). What in your opinion should we believe?

While Hasan was considering this, wasil interrupted and said” I do not regard the grave sinner as a believer in as absolute sense, nor yet an unbelievers in an absolute sense. He is, in my opinion, in an intermediate position, neither believer or nor unbeliever”

After this he arose and moved away to another pillar of the mosque where he began to explain what he had said to a group of Hasan’s followers. Hasan then remarked ‘Wasil has separated himself from us’. From then on Wasil’s followers were known as the mu’talities (the separatists).

1) Divine unity

A) THE Qur-an has described God as the knower, the powerful, the living. It means that God possesses the qualities of knowledge power, life etc. But they had objection to this because they thought that by describing these qualities, plurality comes to Him which amounts to polytheism. They described divine attributes by saying that God knows, it powerful and so in and not that He possesses these qualities. It means that qualities are not in the essence of God but are His expose, for example God is omnipotent by His omnipotence and it is His essence and not in His essence.

B) The Qur-an is called the divine of speech of God, Muslims hold that The Qur-an is uncreated and has existed from all eternity with God, its revelation to the prophet of the course is an event of time. But Mutazalities denied the eternity of the Qur-an on the plea that God alone is eternal. According to them believing in uncreatedness of the Qur-an and making it co-eternal with God amounts to two Gods and hence polytheism.

C) All the Muslims including Mutazalities maintain that the beatific vision is the basic aim of life. They differ in the nature of the vision. Mu’talities holds that God cannot be seen with physical eyes but he can be seen with our mind’s eye. They give the following Qur-anic verse for this

“No vision can grasp him. But His grasp is over all vision” (an’am 103)

This verse for them is of general application and means that physical eye cannot see God in this world or the next.

D) In the holy Qur-an, these are many anthropomorphic expressions about God

So glory to him in whose is the dominion of all things, and to Him will go all brought back (yasin 83)

The Lord said, "O Iblis, what has prevented you from prostrating yourself before him whom I have made with both my hands? Are you assuming arrogance, or are you one of the high ones?" (Swad 75)

She floats under our eyes (al Qamar)

(God) most gracious is firmly established on the throne (of authority) (thwaha 5)

They interpreted all the anthropomorphic statements in the Qur-an such as the face, the hands and the eyes of God or His sitting upon the throne as merely metaphorical expressions

2) Divine justice

It is maintained that God is not bound to do justice. He is absolutely free in what he does. The Mu’tazalities opposed this view and hold that good and evil can be apprehended by and distinguished through the activity of reasoning. There some evidences from quran;

God never wishes injustice to His servants (gafir 31)

Verily Allah does not wrong men (yunus 44)

We shall set upscale of justice for the Day of Judgment so that not a soul will be dealt with unjustly in the least (anbi’a’ 47)

They behaved in freedom of human beings and Gods justice/ therefore they called themselves people of justice and unity of God. They maintained that God would be justifies in punishing the sinners only if they were in their actions

1) The promise of reward and the threat of punishment

Their views of in this issue are on the basis of divine and punish the wrong and that he can’t do otherwise, while it is assigned by others that it is certain that God will do so but if he has no discretion in this, then God is reduced to a dependent which is against His attributes. Their proof from Qu-ran

If anyone does good, the reward to him better than His deed but it any does evil, the doers of evil are only punished (to the extent) of their deeds (al-qasas 84)

To this verse, God has already conveyed the formula of reward and punishment.

(People who do all this so) that Allah may reward them in accordance with the best of their deeds; indeed He will bestow upon them more amply out of His Bounty, for Allah grants to whomsoever He wills beyond all measure” ( al nur 38)

2) The state between belief and unbelief

This principle is the foundation of them. They hold that if a believer commits a grave sin, he is neither believer nor unbeliever but comes in middle position. If he repents, he may be executed but if dies without repentance, he will go to hell-fire but His punishment would be lesser than an unbeliever

3) To order the doing of right and forbid the doing of wrong

They considered this as compulsory upon every Muslim and they practiced this with the use of force also against those who did not subscribe to their views.

Other beliefs

1. They deny that punishment and reward is given to the dead in the grave and he is questioned by the angels known as Munkar and nakir in grave

2. They deny the existence of kiraman katibin(respected writers) as recording angels on the plea that God is well aware of all the deeds done by His servants

3. They deny that heaven and hell already exist. They believe that they will come into existence in the Day of Judgment.

4. They deny the miracles of saints

5. They consider angels who bring message of God to the prophets superior in rank to the prophets

Leaders and groups

Wasil ibn ali –a; -wasiliya (80 A.H-131 A.H)

Abdul hudhail allaf – al-hudhailiya (131 A.H -226 A.H)

Ibahim ibn sayyar ibn nazzam – alnazzamiya (birth not known-231A.H)

Bishr ibn al-Mutamir al- bishriya ( birth not known- 210 .H)

Mu’ammar ibn abbad al- sulami – al –Mu’ammariya (death -228 A.H)

AL –Jahiz – (156 A.H- 255 A.H)

ABU Hashim( d. 321 A.H) ,Ahmad ibn hayyat ,Fazal al-Hadathi,Ash-shahham