Can you help me with this please, I don't understand it :/


Ash'ariyya and Mu'tazila

2. Cosmology

Popular accounts of the teaching of the Mu'tazilites usually concentrate on their distinctive theological doctrines. To the philosopher, however, their cosmology, which was accepted by the Ash'ariyya and other theological schools, is a more appropriate starting point.

To the Mu'tazila, the universe appears to consist of bodies with different qualities: some are living while others are inanimate, some are mobile while others are stationary, some are hot and some are cold, and so on. Moreover, one and the same body may take on different qualities at different times. For instance, a stone may be mobile when rolling down a hill but stationary when it reaches the bottom, or hot when left in the sun but cold after a long night. Yet there are some qualities which some bodies cannot acquire; for example, stones are invariably inanimate, never living. How are the differences between bodies, and between one and the same body at different times, to be explained?

The answer given by the Mu'tazilites is that all bodies are composed of identical material substances (jawahir) or atoms (ajza'), on which God bestows various incorporeal accidents (a'rad). This view was first propounded by Dirar ibn 'Amr (d. c.ah 200/ad 815) and elaborated by Abu al-Hudhayl (d. ah 227/ad 841 or later), both of whom were early members of the Basran School. Abu al-Hudhayl held that isolated atoms are invisible mathematical points. The only accidents which they can be given are those which affect their ability to combine with other atoms, such as composition or separation, motion or rest. Conglomerates of atoms, on the other hand, can be given many other accidents such as colours, tastes, odours, sounds, warmth and coldness, which is why we perceive them as different bodies. Some of these accidents are indispensable, hence the differences between bodies, whereas others can be bestowed or withdrawn, thus explaining the differences between one and the same body at different times.

This account of the world gained rapid acceptance amongst Islamic theologians, although to begin with it was rejected by two Mu'tazilites of the Basran School, al-Nazzam (d. ah 221/ad 836) and Abu Bakr al-Asamm (d. ah 201/ad 816?). The former, who was Abu al-Hudhayl's nephew, argued that atoms which were mere mathematical points would not be able to combine with one another and that, rather than being composed of atoms, bodies must therefore be infinitely divisible. Abu al-Hudhayl replied that God's bestowal of the accident of composition on an isolated atom made it three-dimensional and hence capable of combining (see Atomism, ancient). Al-Asamm, on the other hand, objected to the notion of accidents, arguing that since only bodies are visible their qualities cannot have an independent existence.

http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H052

Would be grateful, thanks!