, Thank you for your response, Buddha!

Yup, I read that. I agree with some of the arguments of Mutazilists and with some of that of Ash’arites. But then that’s my personal belief so I won’t go into that.

Al-Ash’ari was first a Mutazilist but then he changed. I consulted both MM Sharif’s book and M. Saeed’s. The former book at many a times says that Ash’arites took up an intermediary position between the libertarian(Mutzalists) and fatalistic( I think these were the Jabarites, Sifatis, Habalites, and Zahirites? ) views. The Ash’arites struck a middle path.

So according to this we have two extremes: rationalists( Mutazilists) and the orthodox( Jabarites, Sifatis, Habalites, and Zahirites)…So, umm, aren’t the Ash’arites the moderate ones here? They believed in revelations and also left some space for the reason in religion. What do you think?

The founders of both Ash’arism (relatively) and Mu’tazilism were sane, scholarly people but the subsequent followers, as happens with every ideology/philosophy, diverged into more extreme positions. However, Ash’arism later degenerated into a sugarcoated version of orthodox Islam and contributed handsomely in the downfall of science and philosophy in the Muslim world.

Mu’tazilites also believed in revelation. They also believed in the fundamental percepts of faith such as creation out of nothing, life after death and such. However, they believed that revelation and reason both can be used to know good from evil, which is a perfectly sane view. The Ash’arites, on the other hand, insisted that only revelation tells what is good and what is not. Besides, in many of their fundamental doctrines, Ash’arites ended up accepting the views of the orthodox (the case of free will, for instance, when they started out as an esoteric notion mixing free will with determinism and, unable to defend it for long, ended up embracing orthodox determinism). A confused position, I’d say.

This ‘middle path’ of Ash’arites was something like the middle path of modern day ideologues like Moududi. He struck out an independent path and was virulently attacked by the orthodox clerics and equally criticized by relatively liberal scholars. But does that make him moderate? What he did was take reason and use it to defend concepts like killing of apostates, taking and distributing women slaves in war, completely literal interpretation of Qur’an, and such. I’m sure this can’t be called a “moderate” approach and “middle path” (although this is generally accepted “moderate” approach in Pakistan, I understand).

Mu’tazilites, on the other hand, would be modern day scholars who clearly identify the faults of blind dogma and advocate the reconstruction of it taking guidance from reason. They did not deny revelation and the fundamental tenets of faith. They advocated the interpretation of anthropomorphic verses of Qur’an in the light of reason, and symbolic interpretation of the teachings of religion that are in clear clash with reason. A modern day example would be Ghamdi. Most often than not, such people are driven into exile or killed. In case of ordinary educated people, they earn the label of ‘liberal fascists’. My assessment is that it will take a century or so of blind bloodshed for Muslims to arrive at the same conclusion that Mu’tazilites did long ago.

So yeah, Ash’arites was more of a confused, reactionary lot rather than ‘moderates’. They were also one of the most important reasons of the downfall of Muslim civilization. What Buddha said (Ash'arites were basically Orthodox scholars using philosophy for defense of their position) perfectly describes their predicament. While they advanced some ingenious arguments in certain matters, the way they employed philosophy overall was horrendous.

Haha, ok I feel philosophy is quite interesting, deep and at the same time a bit scary. One starts questioning his or her own beliefs just the way I am doing now. :p Alright, what do you think of the following points:


1. The Asharites, as against Mutazilists, held that “God has attributes which inhere eternally in Him and are eternal. If God’s attributes are not distinct from His essence, then the meanings of the different attributes will be exactly the same. For example the meanings of knowing, willing and living would be exactly the same and thus knowledge would mean power, or power will mean life, and so on. This they claimed would be an absurdity.

2. God created everything by His word kun (be) and this word which is in the Quran, could not have been a created one, otherwise a created word would be a creator which is not possible.

3. The Ash’arites maintained that the vision of God is possible even without any impression on our sense organ. (Okay now I believe, this is absurd. Mutazilists had a point)
4.The Ash’arites said that revelation is more fundamental as a source of ultimate truth and reality, and reason should merely confirm what is given by revelation. The Asharites prefer revelation to reason in case of a conflict between the two. As a matter of fact, this is one of the fundamental principles in which the rational Kalam of the Mutzailists differs from the orthodox Kalam of the Ash’arites. The problem of good and evil is one of the most controversial problems of Islamic theology. The Mutazilists held that reason, and not revelation, is the criterion or standard of moral judgement, i-e the goodness and badness of an action. The Ash’arites, as against the Mutzalites, held that revelation and not reason is the real authority to determine what is wrong and what is right. Goodness and badness of actions are not qualities inhering in them; these are mere accidents. Divine Law makes them good or bad.

(Okay, so we know that norms and values differ from society to society. For example, in one society drinking maybe considered normal but our religion prohibits that. How will you apply reasoning here? Similarly you might be aware of the jirga system where women are paid as ransom price. So where is the concept of reasoning here. Don’t they understand that it’s wrong? Islam elevated the position of women but these very women were ill-treated by the barbarous Arabs. Why didn’t they apply the concept of reasoning here? Why couldn’t they distinguish between right and wrong? Take another example of ribba. Our religion says it’s haram but people still exercise this system. Then people often backbite. Where is their concept of reasoning that it’s a bad thing? The examples can go on and on. Our religion has laid rules for us on the basis of which we distinguish between right and wrong.
So yes I am confused about this point. Help me to understand this point please. )

So they didn't believe in revelation as such?



5.The Ash’arites claimed that God is the creator of human actions and man is the acquisitor. Man cannot create anything; he cannot initiate work. God, alone can create because absolute creation is His prerogative. God also creates in man the power to make a free choice between the two alternatives—between right and wrong. God then creates the action corresponding to the choice made by man. Man in making the choice, acquires either the merit of appreciation and reward from God if he makes the right choice, or the demerit of condemnation and punishment if he makes the wrong choice.

( Up till now i-e before taking up philosophy as a subject, I used to and I still believe that yes, we, humans have a free will in making different choices. God, however, already knows what choice we’ll make because He is All-knowing. So after reading this point of Ash’arites I agree that God creates the will/ power of performing the action in us in correspondence to the choice that we already made. This is because He is All-powerful…Have I gone too deep into this subject?! :/ )

So what do you think? Please, help me to understand these topics properly. Thank you.

I have gone through the MM Sharif's book chapter and now I know where this confusion is coming from. The writer of the chapter M. Abdul Hye is very biased towards Ash'arites and in an attempt to paint them in favorable light have distorted many things.

The only middle ground they seem to have taken is between Jabrites' determinism and Qadarites' or Mutazilites' free will which is the doctrine of acquisition (kasb) that God creates the acts of human beings by creating in them the power to perform each act but this doctrine is just a cloak over Jabrites' determinism and a confused belief.

For the rest, they ask just like the orthodox doctrines to accept the Quranic anthropomorphic passages BILA KAYF -without asking how- which was the position Imam Hanbal took.

The biggest confusion that the writer has created is in their (Mutazilites' and Ash'arites') preference over reason and revelation. The actual thing is Mutazilites used the reason to understand revelation and Ash'arites took revelation literally. Ash'arites preferred literal reading as in the hand of God is an actual hand and we should accept it Bila Kayf(without asking how). It was not that Mutazilites preferred reason over revelation which the writer suggested.

I agree with Gypsified.

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He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow (Ecclesiastes 1:18)

Oh ok. You two seem to have a lot of knowledge and your argumentative skills are also really good. Thanks for helping me out and clarifying it to me (and I do hope to receive guidance agey bhe ap se). Now I get it.
Since MM Sharif's book is biased, I mustn't read it. Apart from Saeed Sheikh's book can you please refer to me one more book for Muslim philosophy? And sorry for asking here, can you please also suggest some disinterested book for Pakistan studies?

I don’t think the question of God’s attributes (as well as the problem of eternal and non-eternal word of God) and His essence can be resolved. It’s an impossible problem. But it only reveals that Mutazilites, facing the problem, made a resource to reason to resolve it while Asharities chose to take it literally.

No, they held that while revelation does indicate what is right and what wrong, reason can also be used to decide the same. Moreover, in cases where revelation is not clear or where it is in clash with reason, latter should be used to resolve the issue. Asharites, on the other hand, exclusively took revelation as the standard of good and evil.

They did. Had they not believed in revelation, shouldn’t they have rejected all the Qur’an in the first place? They just did not take everything in a literal sense while affirming revelation.

Again, the issue of free will has always eluded the philosophers. I personally believe we should look toward science, and not philosophy, to resolve it but that’s a different topic. Whatever arguments philosophers have given for or against free will are based on their own reasoning without much bearing on facts. The reason why Mutazilites stressed on free will is because the people in power, after committing every atrocity, maintained that since every action is from God, they should not be held responsible for their actions. Mutazilities rejected this view and stressed that man is responsible for his actions otherwise punishment and reward simply do not make any sense. The detailed arguments for and against free will are not as important as this main thesis. As for Asharities, as I already mentioned, they kept alternating between different positions. Starting out as a relatively sophisticated argument the kind of which you’ve stated above, they ended up on square one by embracing determinism.

To my knowledge, every essay in the book had been written by a different author.

Finally, here's an excerpt about the misconception regarding the Mutazilites:

"It is not surprising that opponents of the Mu'tazila often charge the Mu'tazila with the view that humanity does not need revelation, that everything can be known through reason, that there is a conflict between reason and revelation, that they cling to reason and put revelation aside, and even that the Mu'tazila do not believe in revelation. But is it true that the Mu'tazila are of the opinion that everything can be known through reason and therefore that revelation is unnecessary? The writings of the Mu`tazila give exactly the opposite portrait. In their opinion, human reason is not sufficiently powerful to know everything and for this reason humans need revelation in order to reach conclusions concerning what is good and what is bad for them."

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu'tazi...and_revelation

MM Sharif's book is an anthology, it's a collection of chapters written by different writers. So I'm not sure how other chapters turn out to be. Majid Fakhry's book on Islamic Philosophy is a really good book- I couldn't find its pdf version and still trying to find one- but I guess M. Saeed Sheikh's book will suffice for exam prep.

The Idea of Pakistan by Stephen Philip Cohen. For exams you have to be biased and for that Rabbani's book will be perfect.

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He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow (Ecclesiastes 1:18)

you can concrn with sir yasir sultan in GC univrsty... he is adept in logic papr and theortcl papr too

Aspirants who are opting Philosophy in CE 2015 should initiate a discussion or debate about it because thing will become clearer if we do so .

Aslamelikum! Yeah sure. If you want to discuss some topic, you're most welcome to post on this thread. I don't and I won't mind. If I know(which I don't :p at the moment) something, I'll contribute as well. But I am sure both sir @Gypsified and Buddha would be able to entertain your queries. They are quite helpful.