Notes Introduction 1. See Mohammed Arkoun, The Unthought in Contemporary Islamic Thought (London: Saqi Books, 2002). 2. Wael B. Hallaq, A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunni Usul al-Fiqh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 59. 3. Quoted in Abdullahi A. Gallab, The First Islamist Republic: Development and Disintegration of Islamism in the Sudan (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), 7. 4. Bruce Lincoln, Holy Terrors: Thinking About Religion after 9/11 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 5. 5. Ibid, 6. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid, 7. 8. Mu‘awiyyah’s reign as the first Umayyad caliph brought relative stabil- ity to the empire, but unresolved questions from the first fitnah (“trial”) during the reign of ‘Ali remained. After Mu‘awiyyah’s death (680 CE) the Umayyads turned the caliphate into a hereditary monarchy with the designation of his son, Yazid (d. 683 CE), as his heir. During Yazid’s reign, a second fitnah was initiated, unleashing further conflict through- out the provinces for the next twelve years. The violence and divisions of the second fitnah greatly exceeded that of the first, and involved further conflict with factions of Kharijites, Shi‘ites, and the supporters of the rival caliphate of ‘Abdallah ibn al-Zubayr (d. 692 CE) at Mecca. Among the many tragic events of this period, the most shocking was undoubt- edly the death of the Prophet’s grandson Husayn (who was hailed by the Shi‘ah as the rightful imam) in 680 CE at the hands of Yazid’s armies at Karbala. Another disturbing incident was the destruction of the sacred 160 ● Notes Ka‘aba in Mecca when it was besieged by al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, the lieu- tenant of the Umayyad caliph ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (d. 705 CE). If the idea of the ummah of believers had survived the first fitnah at all, it was now in disarray. The general consensus (ijma) of the Muslim community and their common cause had formed the primary basis for Islamic norms and ideals, and more importantly the legitimacy of the Umayyad caliphate. But Umayyad rule had done little to maintain that cohesion or achieve the just and righteous order the community had long demanded. Quite apart from what we know of the Prophet Muhammad, the Umayyads envisioned Islam as an exclusive inheri- tance of the dominant, and essentially Arab, ruling class, reigning over the nations of nonbelievers. The Umayyad caliphate thus discouraged conversion among the subjugated peoples, and even when permitted the new converts were attached as clients to Arab tribes and typically forced to continue paying the jizya (the obligatory tribute tax on non- Muslim subjects) and barred from receiving equal shares of the booty during military campaigns. They also proclaimed Arabic the official administrative language of the empire to fend off the growing pres- ence of Persian and other non-Arabic speakers. These policies generally continued until the reign of the very pious and popular, but somewhat inept, caliph ‘Umar ibn ‘Abdul-‘Aziz (d. 720 CE), appointed in 717 CE. Subsequent Umayyad caliphs generally failed to follow ‘Umar’s exam- ple and reinstituted many of these policies until their overthrow during the ‘Abbasid revolution of 750 CE. Chapter 1 1. Wilfred Madelung, Religious Schools and Sects in Medieval Islam (London: Variorum Reprints, 1985), 166. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid, 167. 4. See Mas’ud ibn ‘Umar al-Taftazani, A Commentary on the Creed of Islam, trans. Earl Edgar Edler (New York: Arno Press, 1980). 5. Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, trans. Andras and Ruth Hamori (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 95. 6. George Makdisi, “Ash‘ari and the Ash‘arites in Islamic Religious History I,” Studia Islamica, no. 17 (1962): 40–52. 7. W. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Philosophy and Theology: An Extended Survey (Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, 1985), 67. Notes ● 161 8. See Fazlur Rahman, Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 27, 133, 152. 9. Oliver Leaman, An Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 161. 10. Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, vol. 3, trans. Franz Rosenthal (New York: Princeton University Press, 1958), 63–64. 11. Abu al-Ma’ali al-Juwayni, A Guide to the Conclusive Proofs of Belief (Kitab al-Irshad ila Qawati al-Adilla fi Usul al-I’tiqad), trans. Paul E. Walker (Reading, UK: Garnet Publishing, 2000), 57–74. 12. Muhammad ibn Abd al-Karim al-Shahrastani, Muslim Sects and Divisions: The Section on Muslim Sects in Kitab al-Milal wa’l-Nihal, trans. J.G. Flynn and A.K. Kazi (London: Kegan Paul International, 1984), 80. 13. Abu al-Qasim Abd al-Karim al-Qushayri, “Al-Fusul fi’l-Usul,” trans. Richard M. Frank, in Philosophy, Theology, and Mysticism in Medieval Islam: Texts and Studies on the Development and History of Kalam, vol. 1, ed. Dimitri Gutas (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), 81. 14. Abu al-Qasim Abd al-Karim al-Qushayri, “Luma’ fi’-I’tiqad,” trans. Richard M. Frank, in Philosophy, Theology, and Mysticism in Medieval Islam: Texts and Studies on the Development and History of Kalam, vol. 1, ed. Dimitri Gutas (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), 68. 15. Shahrastani, Muslim Sects and Divisions, 83. 16. Abu Bakr ibn al-Baqillani, Kitab al-Tamhid, ed. R.J. McCarthy (Beirut: Librairie Orientale,1957), 286, as translated and reproduced in Tilman Nagel, The History of Islamic Theology: From Muhammad to the Present, trans. Thomas Thornton (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2000), 88–89. 17. Qushayri (Al-Fusul), 82. 18. Juwayni, A Guide to the Conclusive Proofs, 86. 19. Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, al-Kitab Qawa’id al-Aqa’id (The Foundations of the Articles of Faith), trans. Nabih Amin Faris (Lahore: Kashmiri Bazar, 1974), 68–69. 20. Juwayni, A Guide to the Conclusive Proofs, 217. 21. Shahrastani, Muslim Sects and Divisions, 85. 22. Qushayri (Al-Fusul), 88–89. 23. Ghazali, al-Kitab Qawa’id al-Aqa’id, 100. For a comprehensive study of the concept of tasdiq in Sunni theology, see Wilfred C. Smith, “Faith as Tadiq,” in Islamic Philosophical Theology, ed. Parviz Morewedge (New York: SUNY Press, 1979), 96–119. 162 ● Notes 24. Harry A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Kalam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), 202–205. 25. Shahrastani, Muslim Sects and Divisions, 79–80. 26. Binyamin Abrahamov, Islamic Theology: Traditionalism and Rationalism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), 34–35. 27. Shahrastani, Muslim Sects and Divisions, 80. 28. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Kalam, 216. 29. Shahrastani, Muslim Sects and Divisions, 67–68. 30. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Kalam, 173–174. 31. Fathalla Kholeif, “Analysis of the Contents,” in Abu Mansur Muhammad al-Maturidi, Kitab al-Tawhid (Beirut: Libraire Orientale, 1986), xv. 32. Ibid. 33. Juwayni, A Guide to the Conclusive Proofs, 236–237. 34. Shahrastani, Muslim Sects and Divisions, 87. 35. Madelung, Religious Schools and Sects, 110. 36. Ibid., 111. 37. See Harry A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Kalam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976). 38. See Binyamin Abrahamov, Islamic Theology: Traditionalism and Rationalism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998). 39. Wilfred Madelung, “al-Maturidi” in The Encyclopedia of Islam: New Edition (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1991), 846. 40. Wilfred Madelung, “al-Maturidiyya,” in The Encyclopedia of Islam: New Edition (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1991), 848. 41. Ibid., 847. 42. Madelung, Religious Schools and Sects, 122. 43. Ibid., 123. 44. Madelung, “al-Maturidi,” 846. 45. Abu Mansur Muhammad al-Maturidi, Kitab al-Tawhid (Beirut: Libraire Orientale, 1970), 10. Passage translated by Fathalla Kholeif in “Analysis of the Contents,” in Abu Mansur Muhammad al-Maturidi, Kitab al-Tawhid (Beirut: Libraire Orientale, 1986), xx. 46. Shahrastani, Muslim Sects and Divisions, 86–87. 47. Ibid., 86. 48. Maturidi, Kitab al-Tawhid, 59. Passage translated by Mustafa Ceriç, in Roots of Synthetic Theology in Islam: A Study of the Theology of Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (Kuala Lumpur: IISC, 1995), 186–187. 49. Abu Hafs ‘Umar al-Nasafi, al-‘Aqa’id, as reproduced in al-Taftazani, A Commentary on the Creed of Islam, 58. 50. Ceriç, Roots of Synthetic Theology in Islam, 184–187. 51. Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, 100. Notes ● 163 52. Kemal Pashazade, “The Disagreements Between the Ash‘aris and Maturidis,” trans. by Marifah.net (2009): 1. 53. Ibid., 2. 54. Ibid.; see footnote 5 of the cited document. 55. Maturidi, Kitab al-Tawhid, 226, trans. in Kholeif, “Analysis of the Contents,” xxxiii. 56. J. Meric Pessagno, “Irada, Ikhtiya, Qudra, Kasb: The view of Abu Mansur al-Maturidi,” in The Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 104, no. 1 (Jan.–Mar., 1984): 182. 57. Madelung, “al-Maturidi,” 847. 58. Maturidi, Kitab al-Tawhid, 217–218, trans. in Ceriç, Roots of Synthetic Theology in Islam, 218. 59. Madelung, “al-Maturidi,” 846. 60. Ceriç, Roots of Synthetic Theology in Islam, 43. 61. Ibid., 181. 62. Ibid., 173, 181. 63. Maturidi, Kitab al-Tawhid, 41, trans. in Kholeif, “Analysis of the Contents,” xxx. 64. Abu Hafs ‘Umar al-Nasafi, al-‘Aqa’id, as reproduced in al-Taftazani, A Commentary on the Creed of Islam, 74. 65. Kholeif, “Analysis of the Contents,” xxxi. 66. The Murji’a or Murji’ites (i.e., the partisans of postponement) advo- cated the view that judgment over the status of a grave sinner, including the imam, should be deferred until the Day of Judgment. In a relatively short time, the idea of irja’ gained increasing support, and its partisans extended their line of thinking to a broader range of theological con- cerns. Of particular importance was their understanding of iman, or faith, the very basis by which one defines who is (or is not) a believer (Mu‘min) and thus a member of the community.