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A re-examination of al-Ash‘arī's theory of kasb according to Kitab al-Luma‛

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Binyamin Abrahamov
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Extract

Man's moral responsibility for his actions is a tenet of Islamic revelation which no Muslim has ever tried to reject. Likewise, the notion of God's omnipotence, which the Qur'ān teaches, has never been challenged by Muslims. However, there is a great difficulty in explaining how true moral responsibility coincides with God's omnipotence; if God creates all things, He also creates man's actions, and this being the case, man cannot be responsible for them. As is well known, the Mu'tazilite solution to the antinomy of God's omnipotence and man's responsibility consists in affirming man's capability, granted to him by God, of creating his own works. Adhering to their principle of God's justice, the Mu'tazilites asserted that if God were to create a man's unbelief while commanding him to believe, He would be unjust in punishing him for unbelief, since the man could not, in this situation, help but disbelieve. According to them, ought implies can. In upholding man's responsibility for his own actions, the Mu'tazilites saved God's justice, but according to the Ash'arites, detracted from God's omnipotence. The Ash'arites taught that since God is the sole creator, He creates human actions. In order to safeguard both God's omnipotence and man's responsibility, al-Ash'arī, having been influenced by the teaching of al-Najjār, developed a theory of kasb (lit. acquisition) according to which God creates man's actions while man appropriates them and thus becomes responsible for them.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 121 , Issue 2 , April 1989 , pp. 210 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1989

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References

1 Cf. Wolfson, , Kalam, p. 663fGoogle Scholar. The debate between the Mu'tazilites and the predestinarians concentrated from a very early stage of the Kalām on the question of who creates man's act: is it God or man himself? See Schwarz, , “Acquisition”, p. 355Google Scholar.

2 The verb used is aqdara, i.e., to grant a man a qudra (power or capability), or to cause him to have a qudra. See al-Ash'arī, , Maqālāt, p. 199Google Scholar, 3–6. For the term qudra in the teaching of 'Abd al-Jabbār see Peters, , God's Created Speech, pp. 200–4Google Scholar.

3 See Watt, , Free will, p. 69Google Scholar.

4 Cf. Schwarz, , “Acquisition”, pp. 368, 375Google Scholar. Al-Najjār was in turn influenced in this issue by the Ibāḍī theologian 'Abd Allāh Ibn Yazīd, who wrote an anti-Qadarite tract not long after 179/795. See Madelung, W., “The Shī'ite and Khārijite contribution to pre-Ash'arite Kalam”, in Islamic Philosophical Theology, ed. Morewedge, P., New York 1979, p. 128Google Scholar. Idem, Streitschrift des Zaiditenimams Ahmad al-Nāsir wider die ibaditische Prädestinationslehre, Stuttgart 1985, pp. 10, 58–63.

5 Other renderings of this term are as follows: a. “appropriation” according to Watt, W. M., “The origin of the Islamic doctrine of acquisition”, JRAS (1943), p. 237Google Scholar. Idem, Free Will, p. 104. b. “endossement” according to Brunschvig, R., “Devoir et pouvoir. Histoire d'un problème de théologie musulmane”, SI 20 (1964), p. 19Google Scholar. c. “toeëigening” according to Bakker, F. L., De verhouding tusschen de almacht Gods en de zedelijke verantwoordelijheid van den menchin de Islam, Amsterdam 1922, p. 72Google Scholar. Cf. Schwarz, , “Acquisition”, p. 357Google Scholar.

6 According to Schwarz, the verb kasaba was employed by early thinkers, as well as by al-Ash'arī and his contemporaries and successors in the meaning of “to do”, “to practise”, “to carry out”, “to perform” an action. See “Acquisition”, pp. 375ff. Idem, “The Qāḍī”, p. 229f.

7 See Schwarz, , “Acquisition”, p. 367Google Scholar. On Ḍirār see Ess, J. van, “Ḍirār ibn 'Amr und die ‘Cahmiya', Biographie einer vergessenen Schule”, Der Islam 43 (1967), pp. 241–79, 44 (1968), pp. 1–70, 318–20Google Scholar. Watt, , The Formative Period, pp. 189ffGoogle Scholar.

8 See al-Baghdādī, , al-Farq, p. 130Google Scholar. Wolfson, , Kalam, pp. 667–70Google Scholar.

9 Al-Najjār died in the earlier half of the third/ninth century. See Ess, J. van, Der Islam 44(1968), pp. 56ffGoogle Scholar. Watt, , The Formative Period, pp. 199–201Google Scholar.

10 See Wolfson, , Kalam, p. 670Google Scholar.

11 See al-Ash'arī, al-Luma', par. 92.

12 See ibid, par. 89.

13 See ibid, par. 93.

14 See Wolfson, , Kalam. p. 691Google Scholar.

15 See Schwarz, , “The Qādī”, p. 244fGoogle Scholar.

16 See ibid, p. 229f. Idem, “Acquisition”, pp. 355ff and the references given there.

17 Studio Islamica 25 (1966), pp. 13–75Google Scholar.

18 See ibid, p. 31. Basically, Gimaret, (Theories, p. 84fGoogle Scholar) accepts Frank's approach without elaborating on it.

19 See ibid, p. 26.

20 Al-Jubba'ī, al-Ash'arī's master, and other Mu'tazilite thinkers admitted that man's power of creation of his acts is granted to him by God, but it precedes the occurrence of the act and thus is independent of God's creation; man is the sole creater of his acts. Cf. Frank, ibid, p. 24f. Idem, “Remarks on the early development of the Kalam”, in Atti 3 cong. studi arabi e islamici, Ravello 1966 (publ. 1967), p. 322.

21 See Wansbrough, J., Quranic Studies, Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation, Oxford 1977, p. 91Google Scholar. Idem, BSOAS 43(1980), pp. 361–3.

22 See “The Kalam, an art of contradiction-making or theological science? some remarks on the question”, JAOS 88 (1968), pp. 295–309Google Scholar.

23 Schwarz's articles (“Acquisition”, “The Qāḍī”) and other articles mentioned in “Acquisition” par. III belong to the first two aspects.

24 See al-Luma' par. 122 (McCarthy's translation): “Q. Why do you say that man is capable in virtue of a capacity which is distinct from him? A. He is sometimes capable and sometimes impotent, just as he knows at one time and does not know at another, and now moves and again does not move. Therefore he must be capable in virtue of something distinct from him, just as he must be knowing in virtue of something distinct from him, and as he must be moving in virtue of something distinct from him. For if he were capable of himself, or in virtue of something inseparable from him, he would not exist save as capable. But since he is sometimes capable and sometimes incapable, it is true and certain that his capacity is something distinct from him”.

25 See al-Luma', p. 42, 11. 1–2 of the Arabic text. Cf. al-Ash'arī, , Maqālāt, p. 542, 11Google Scholar. 8–9. I shall try to explain later the meaning of bi-quwwa muhdatha.

26 See Frank, , “The structure”, p. 54Google Scholar.

27 See Jolivet, J. and Rashed, R., “al-Kindī”, EI2, vol. V, p. 122fGoogle Scholar.

28 See on him Madelung, W., “Hishām ibn al-Ḥakam”, EI2, vol. III, pp. 496–8Google Scholar.

29 See al-Ash'arī, , Maqālāt, p. 40fGoogle Scholar. Wolfson, , Kalam, p. 672fGoogle Scholar.

30 See Frank, , “The structure”, p. 40, n. 1Google Scholar.

31 See ibid, pp. 30, 40.

32 See ibid, pp. 64–8.

33 See al-Luma', pars., 93–4.

34 See ibid, pars. 49, 65, 159.

35 See Frank, , “The structure”, p. 63 and passimGoogle Scholar.

36 See Schwarz, , “The Qāḍī”, p. 249, nn. 80–2Google Scholar.

37 See al-Jurjānī, , Sharh al-mawāqif, p. 246Google Scholar. Cf. Pines, S. and Schwarz, M., “Yaḥya ibn ‘Adī’s refutation of the doctrine of acquisition (iktisāb)”, Studia Orientalia Memoriae D. H. Baneth Dedicata, Jerusalem 1979, pp. 68, 78–9, 92–4Google Scholar.

38 See Schwarz, , “The Qāḍī”, p. 232, n. 17Google Scholar.

39 Cf. Frank, , “The structure”, p. 60Google Scholar.

40 See Schwarz, , “The Qādī”, p. 246, p. 258, n. 126Google Scholar.

41 See Frank, , “The structure”, p. 54fGoogle Scholar.

42 See al-Luma', par. 127.

43 See Frank, , “The structure”, p. 55fGoogle Scholar.

44 See W. Wright, A Grammar of the Arabic Language, rep. Cambridge 1967, p. 163f.

45 Cf. al-Ash'arī, , Maqālāt, p. 542, 11. 2–3Google Scholar. Gimaret considers the phrases waqa'a bi or yakunu bi as signifying, in this context, only a cause-effect relation. See Theories, p. 84.

46 See al-Jūrjānī, , Sharh al-mawāqif, pp. 237, 245Google Scholar. Schwarz, , “The Qāḍī”, p. 248, n. 78Google Scholar.

47 See Schwarz, ibid.

48 See al-Juwaynī, , Irshād, pp. 207–10Google Scholar. Idem, Luma' fī qawā'id ahl al-sunna, ed. M. Allard (Textes apologetiques de Guwaini), Beirut 1968, p. 165, 1. 8.

49 See al-Luma', par. 82.

50 See ibid, p. 40, 11. 9–10. Cf. Gimaret, , Theories, p. 85, n. 39Google Scholar.

51 See ibid, par. 97. By way of implication this charge might also be drawn from par. 90.

52 See ibid, pars. 89, 97.

53 See note 24 above and pars. 125, 131.

54 See Goodman, , “Causality”, p. 101Google Scholar.

55 Cf. Wolfson, , Kalam, 704fGoogle Scholar and my “al-Ghazālī's theory of causality”, Studia Islamica 67 (1987), pp. 75–98Google Scholar.

56 McCarthy's translation reads as follows: “Q: Is it not true that the nonexistence of the limb entails the nonexistence of the act? A. The nonexistence of the limb entails the nonexistence of the power, and the nonexistence of the power entails the nonexistence of the acquisition. For if the limb does not exist, the power will not exist. But it is because of the nonexistence of the power that the acquisition is impossible – when the limb does not exist – and not because of the nonexistence of the limb. If the limb were inexistent, and the power existed, the acquisition would take place. Furthermore, if the acquisition were impossible only because of the nonexistence of the limb, then when the limb existed the acquisition would exist. But since the limb can exist in conjunction with impotence, whereas, when the power is inexistent there is no acquisition, we know that the acquisition does not take place, because of the nonexistence of the capacity, and not because of the nonexistence of the limb.”

57 See al-Ash'arī, , Maqālāt, p. 229, 11, 15–6Google Scholar.

58 See ibid, p. 232, 11. 5–6.

59 See ibid, p. 406, 11. 14–5. Goodman, , “Causality”, p. 101fGoogle Scholar.

60 See ibid, p. 309, 1. 13- p. 310, 1. 1. Goodman, ibid, pp. 102–4.

61 The use of the term ajrā al-'āda (“He made a custom”. See al-Ash'arī, al-Luma', par. 131) is a significant indicator of this belief.

62 “Moreover, if the act could begin to exist, despite the nonexistence of the power, and if the act could take place in virtue of an inexistent power, then burning could be effected by the heat of an inexistent fire after God had turned the fire into cold, and cutting could be effected by an inexistent sword after God had turned the sword into a reed, and the cutting could be done by an inexistent limb – all of which is impossible. So if that be impossible, the act must begin to exist with the capacity at the very moment that the latter begins to exist” (McCarthy's translation).

63 See ibid, par 135. Schwarz, , “The Qāḍī”, p. 233f, n. 22Google Scholar. For al-Ash'arī, omitting a thing (not doing a thing) means doing its contrary. See al-Ash'arī, , al-Luma', p. 20, 11, 1–2Google Scholar.

64 See Peters, , God's Created Speech, p. 142fGoogle Scholar.

65 See Frank, , “The structure”, p. 63Google Scholar.

66 See ibid, pp. 66, 68.

67 Al-Bāqillānī, however, mentions the terms “choice” (ikhtiyār) and “intention” (qaṣd). According to him, “intention” is created. See al-Tamhīd, par. 527. Schwarz, , “The Qāḍī”, p. 238, n. 38Google Scholar. In my opinion, in establishing the creation of “intention”, al-Bāqillānī seems rightly to interpret al-Ash'arī's notion of kasb.

68 I am indebted to Prof. Lenn E. Goodman who read this article and made valuable comments.