Comments on: The Unquenchable Thirst for Knowledge- Imam Al-Ashari

By: mujahid7ia

mujahid7ia — Wed, 09 May 2007 18:34:00 +0000

Yes, I’ve read Sherman Jackson’s rendering of faysal al-tafriqa and it was excellent. I am currently reading Abdullah bin Hamid Ali’s work that you mentioned, “The Attributes of God”.

By: sheilaX

sheilaX — Wed, 09 May 2007 00:49:00 +0000

Shalom friends,

First, my apologies for publishing your comments late. I have been extremely busy lately.

Now, to respond to some of your questions:

1. Faramir, anything that is indented and has a footnote is from an external source. In this case, yes, it was from Hourani's excellent tome. Might I also recommend Bernard Lewis' "The Middle East".

2. Abu Muhammad, I received illumination about the term bila kayf from Abdullah bin Hamid 'Ali's noble translation of Imam Jawzi's "Attributes of God".

3. Mujahid7ia, you are right. On hindsight, it was sloppy of me not to qualify my statements on the eminent Imam Ahmad Hanbal. A careful reading of Imam Ahmad Hanbal's position would betray the opposite of what many of his later followers would inadvertantly stumble into. Dr Sherman Jackson's translation of Imam Ghazali's Faysal al-Tafriqa has quite an astute exposition on this.

4. Jinnzaman, pls be my guest.

5. Knewonce, I will try to correct the typos ASAP.

6. Anonymous, who is an adherent to the Maturudi school; might I humbly recommend Dr Sherman Jackson's translation of Imam Ghazali's Faysal al-Tafriqa. Contrary to popular belief, different theological frameworks can exist side by side, as Madhhabs have done for so many centuries. The only people who exploit such differences are those who stand to benefit from the disunity.

By: Yaser

Yaser — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:37:00 +0000

I am often impressed in how concisely you can summarize and interwine the history and the theology/jurisprudence and contribute some meaningful commentary as well. As always, jazakallah khair.

By: sophister

sophister — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 14:48:00 +0000

This is an excellent biography/commentary on Imam Ash’ari. I am interested to know though, how Imam Abdal Qadir Gilani formed his texts while being in the literalist school of Imam Hanbal.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 18:46:00 +0000

Salaam Alaykum,
Thats a really cool and informitive write up on Ash’rism (I don’t know if thats the proper term, but I’ve got to work with english conjagations, for there all I know!). I’m not really in whole agreement with Ash’ri theology,(I vastly perfer Maturidi Thoght) but your article put in a positive light, which is a refesing read after reading again and again articles that paint Ash’rism in a very negitive light and never explain why exactly it had such a large following.

By: Jinnzaman

Jinnzaman — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 02:46:00 +0000

Excellent post!

By: KnewOnce

KnewOnce — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 07:47:00 +0000

Salams Sheila,

Thanks for the succinct summary of Imam Al-Ashari's (RAA) life and school of theology. It seems like certain people have been trying to bash Asharism in the blogosphere lately, so hopefully this will balance that effort.

Four typos that I noticed in the Hourani quotation at the end of your piece for you to fix: "discursuve", "trie", "interprtations", "whould".

I miss the previous frequency/regularity of your insightful posts...

--KnewOnce

By: Jinnzaman

Jinnzaman — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 14:46:00 +0000

excellent post!

would you mind if i posted this on the shield of islam forum?

By: Irving

Irving — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 16:10:00 +0000

A very interesting excerpt, from which it can be seen that the beginnings of Islam were much like the beginnings of Christanity as a religion that fought to maintain an orthodox hiarachy, often through brutal means in the quest for power.

By: mujahid7ia

mujahid7ia — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 23:31:00 +0000

Jazak Allahu khayr, great post. I would, however, hesitate to call the literalism of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and his early followers “extreme”; Imam Ahmad used metaphorical interpretation when absolutely necessary (such as the hadith about the two “fingers” of Allah), and this distinguished him from the true literalists, such as al-Dhahiri and ibn Hazm. It is true that later Hanabila went to extremes and were criticized by ibn al-Jawzi.