Kalam

For other uses, see Kalam (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with Qalam.

ʿIlm al-kalām (Arabic: عِلْم الكَلام, literally "science of discourse"),^[1] usually foreshortened to kalām and sometimes called "Islamic scholastic theology" or "speculative theology", generally speaking, is the philosophical study of Islamic doctrine ('aqa'id).^[2] It was born out of the need to establish and defend the tenets of the Islamic faith against the philosophical doubters.^[3][4] However, this picture has been increasingly questioned by scholarship that attempts to show that kalām was in fact a demonstrative rather than a dialectical science and was always intellectually creative.^[5] It is also important to note that the definition of Kalam has changed depending on the time and context and who it was used by.^[3]

The Arabic term Kalām means "speech, word, utterance" among other things. There are many possible interpretations as to why this discipline was originally called so; one is that one of the widest controversies in this discipline, in the second and third centuries of Hijra, has been about whether the "Word of God" (Kalām Allāh), as revealed in the Quran, is an eternal attribute of God and therefore not created, or whether it is created words in the sense of ink and sounds.^[3][6] A scholar of Kalām is referred to as a mutakallim (plural: mutakallimūn), and it is a role distinguished from those of Islamic philosophers, jurists, and scientists.^[7]

Origins

As early as in the times of the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258 CE), the discipline of Kalām arose in an "attempt to grapple" with several "complex problems" early in the history of Islam, according to historian Majid Fakhry.^[8] One was how to rebut arguments "leveled at Islam by pagans, Christians and Jews".^[8] Another was how to deal with (what some saw as the conflict between) the predestination of sinners to hell on the one hand and "divine justice" on the other (some asserting that to be punished for what is beyond someone's control is unjust). Also Kalam sought to make "a systematic attempt to bring the conflict in data of revelation (in the Quran and the Traditions) into some internal harmony".^[8]

Ahl al-Kalām

In early Islam, Ahl al-Kalām essentially referred to the Mu'tazilites, in addition to other smaller schools. Historian Daniel W. Brown describes Ahl al-Kalām as one of three main groups engaged in polemical disputes over sources of authority in Islamic law during the second century of Islam -- Ahl ar-Ra'y and Ahl al-Hadith being the other two. Ahl al-Kalām agreed with Ahl al-Hadith that the example of the Islamic prophet Muhammad was authoritative, but it did not believe it to be divine revelation, a status that only the Quran had (in its view).^[9] It also rejected the authority of the hadith on the grounds that its corpus was "filled with contradictory, blasphemous, and absurd" reports, and that in jurisprudence, even the smallest doubt about a source was too much.^[10] Thus, they believed, the true legacy of Muhammad was to be found elsewhere, i.e. in the sunnah, which is separate from the hadith. Ahl al-Hadith prevailed over the Ahl al-Kalām (and Muslims, or at least mainstream Muslims, now accept the authority of the hadith), so that most of what is known about their arguments comes from the writings of their opponents, such as Imam al-Shafi'i.^[10] Brown also describes the Muʿtazila as "the later ahl al-Kalām", suggesting the ahl al-Kalām were forerunners of the Muʿtazilites.^[11]

Later schools of Kalam like the Kullabis, Asharites and Matuiridis would develop systems that would defend the core orthodox creedal points of Islam completely on rational grounds, and were open to engaging in philosophy alongside the Quran and hadith.^[6] This was unlike the Mutazilites, whose kalam instead prioritised reason over revelation to the point where the Quran and hadith would only be accepted if it aligned with their interpretation of rationalism.^[12] The Hanbali school and followers of Ahmed Ibn Hanbal would generally avoid kalam and philosophical talk all together, seeing it as an innovation, and only address it out of necessity.^[13]

As an Islamic discipline

Although seeking knowledge in Islam is considered a religious obligation, the study of kalam is considered by Muslim scholars to fall beyond the category of necessity and is usually the preserve of qualified scholars, eliciting limited interest from the masses or common people.^[14]

The early Muslim scholar al-Shafi‘i held that there should be a certain number of men trained in kalam to defend and purify the faith, but that it would be a great evil if their arguments should become known to the mass of the people.^[13]

Similarly, the Islamic scholar al-Ghazali held the view that the science of kalam is not a personal duty on Muslims but a collective duty. Like al-Shafi‘i, he discouraged the masses from studying it and that only the most able do so.^[14]

Despite the dominance of kalam as an intellectual tradition within Islam, some scholars were critical of its use. For example, the Hanbali Sufi, Khwaja Abdullah Ansari wrote a treatise entitled Dhamm al-Kalam where he criticized the use of kalam where as the Shafii hadith scholar Al-Bayhaqi approved of it in the correct framework.^[12]

Major kalam schools

 

Sa'id Foudah, a contemporary Ash'ari scholar of kalam (Islamic systematic theology).

Sunni

• Ashʿari
• Maturidi
• Muʿtazili

Shiʿi

• Twelver (Theology of Twelvers)
• Ismāʿīlī
  • Nizari
  • Musta'li
    • Hafizi
    • Tayyibi

Ibadi

• Ibadi

See also

• Al-Fiqh al-Akbar
• Apologetics
• Jewish Kalam
• Kalam cosmological argument
• Logic in Islamic philosophy
• Logos (Christianity)
• Mihna
• Qadr (doctrine)
• Scholasticism
• Tawhid

References

1. Abdel-Haleem, M. A. S. (2008). "Part I: Historical perspectives - Qur'an and hadith". In Winter, Timothy (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 19–32. doi:10.1017/CCOL9780521780582.002. ISBN 9781139001816.
2. Mutahhari, Murtada; Qara'i, 'Ali Quli (translator). "An Introduction to 'Ilm al-Kalam". muslimphilosophy. Retrieved 29 March 2018. {{cite web}}: |first2= has generic name (help)
3.  • Treiger, Alexander (2016) [2014]. "Part I: Islamic Theologies during the Formative and the Early Middle period - Origins of Kalām". In Schmidtke, Sabine (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 27–43. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199696703.013.001. ISBN 9780199696703. LCCN 2016935488.
    • Abrahamov, Binyamin (2016) [2014]. "Part I: Islamic Theologies during the Formative and the Early Middle period - Scripturalist and Traditionalist Theology". In Schmidtke, Sabine (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 264–279. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199696703.013.025. ISBN 9780199696703. LCCN 2016935488.
4. Madeleine Pelner Cosman, Linda Gale Jones, Handbook to Life in the Medieval World, p. 391. ISBN 1438109075
5. Shihadeh, Ayman; Thiele, Jan (2020-05-06). Philosophical Theology in Islam: Later Ashʿarism East and West. Brill. p. 299. doi:10.1163/9789004426610. ISBN 978-90-04-42661-0. S2CID 216289385.
6. Gardet, Louis (1978). "Kalām". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E. J.; Heinrichs, W. P.; Lewis, B.; Pellat, Ch.; Dumont, C.; Paterson, M. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Vol. 4. Leiden: Brill Publishers. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0421. ISBN 978-90-04-16121-4.
7. Clinton Bennett, The Bloomsbury Companion to Islamic Studies, p. 119. ISBN 1441127887.
8. Fakhry, Majid (1983). A History of Islamic Philosophy (second ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. pp. xvii–xviii.
9. Brown, Rethinking tradition in modern Islamic thought, 1996: p.51
10. Brown, Rethinking tradition in modern Islamic thought, 1996: p.13-5
11. Brown, Rethinking tradition in modern Islamic thought, 1996: p.15
12. Jeffry R. Halverson, Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam, 2010: p 37. ISBN 0230106587
13. Black Macdonald, Duncan (2008). Development of Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence, and Constitutional Theory, Chapter=III. The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. p. 187. ISBN 978-1584778585.
14. Bennett, Clinton (2012). The Bloomsbury Companion to Islamic Studies. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 119. ISBN 978-1441127884.

Bibliography

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• Caspar, Robert (1998). A Historical Introduction to Islamic Theology: Muḥammad and the Classical Period. Studi arabo-islamici del PISAI. Vol. 11. Rome: Pontifical Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies. ISBN 9788885907102. OCLC 42577199.
• Halverson, Jeffry R. (2010). "The Doctrines of Sunni Theology". Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam: The Muslim Brotherhood, Ash'arism, and Political Sunnism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 12–31. doi:10.1057/9780230106581_2. ISBN 978-0-230-10658-1.
• Kars, Aydogan (2019). Unsaying God: Negative Theology in Medieval Islam. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190942458.001.0001. ISBN 9780190942458. LCCN 2018048099. OCLC 1147875085.
• Madelung, Wilferd; Schmidtke, Sabine, eds. (2016). "Al-Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād, Promoter of Rational Theology: Two Muʿtazilī kalām texts from the Cairo Geniza". Al-Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād Promoter of Rational Theology. Islamic History and Civilization. Vol. 132. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. i–102. doi:10.1163/9789004323735_001. ISBN 978-90-04-32373-5. ISSN 0929-2403. OCLC 952470870.
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• Rudolph, Ulrich (2015). Al-Māturīdī and the Development of Sunnī Theology in Samarqand. Islamic History and Civilization. Vol. 100. Translated by Adem, Rodrigo. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. doi:10.1163/9789004261846_001. ISBN 978-90-04-26184-6. ISSN 0929-2403. LCCN 2014034960. OCLC 900892852.
• Sabra, A. I. (January 2009). "The Simple Ontology of Kalām Atomism: An Outline". Early Science and Medicine. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. 14 (1-3: Evidence and Interpretation: Studies on Early Science and Medicine in Honor of John E. Murdoch): 68–78. doi:10.1163/157338209X425506. ISSN 1573-3823. JSTOR 20617778. PMID 19831225.
• al-Salimi, Abdulrahman, ed. (2021). Early Ibadi Theology: New Material on Rational Thought in Islam from the Pen of al-Fazārī (2nd/8th Century). Islamic History and Civilization. Vol. 182. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. doi:10.1163/9789004459571. ISBN 978-90-04-45957-1. ISSN 0929-2403. OCLC 1256592318. S2CID 243595906.
• Thiele, Jan (December 2018). "Recent Scholarship in the Field of kalām". Studia Islamica. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. 113 (2): 223–243. doi:10.1163/19585705-12341378. hdl:10261/173270. ISSN 1958-5705. S2CID 159335485.

Further reading

• Brown, Daniel W. (1996). Rethinking tradition in modern Islamic thought. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521570778. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
• Eissa, Mohamed. The Jurist and the Theologian: Speculative Theology in Shāfiʿī Legal Theory. Gorgias Press: Piscataway, NJ, 2017. ISBN 978-1-4632-0618-5.
• Wolfson, Harry Austryn, The Philosophy of the Kalam, Harvard University Press, 1976, 779 pages, ISBN 978-0-674-66580-4, Google Books, text at archive.org

External links

• Kalam and Islam by Sheikh Nuh Keller
• Kalam and Islam, Living Islam
• Islamic Kalām: Rational Expressions of Medieval Theological Thought, Encyclopedia of Mediterranean Humanism