An Introduction to Islamic Theology: Imam Nur al-Din al-Sabuni’s Al-Bidayah fi usul al-din 9780985565992, 2020939697

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AN INTRODUCTION TO ISLAMIC THEOLOGY

AN INTRODUCTION TO ISLAMIC THEOLOGY Imam Niir al-Din al-SabiinI's

Al-Bidiiyahfi U$ill al-dtn

INTRODUCTION, TRANSLATION, ANNOTATION, AND APPENDICES

BY PARAZ A. KHAN

I

ZAYT UNA COLLEGE

This book is part of the Zaytuna Curriculum Series, a project ofthe Depanment of Publications ofZaytuna College, and is published by Zaytuna College (Berkeley, California) in conjunction with Sandala, Inc. © 2020 by Fara.z A. Khan. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may bt UStd or reproductd in any manner whatsotutr without prior writtm pmnission from Faraz A. Khan orfrom Zaytuna Colltge, acqrt in tht form of brief quotations miboditd in artidt.s and mrinvs. For information, pltQS( contact publications@)zaytuna.edu. First edition 2020.

Printed in the United States of America. Editor-in-chief: Hamza Yusuf Hanson Editors: Safir Ahmed, Najeeb Hasan, Uzma Husaini Copy editors: Jude Berman, Yusuf Mullick, Tom Devine Cover and text design: Ian AbdaUateef Whiteman English-Arabic typesetting: Ismael Nass-Duce I SBN: 978-0-9855659-9-2 LIBRARY OF CONGR..ESS CONTROL NUMBER: 2020939697

---------~ In the Name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful

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Table of Contents Foreword xi Introduction 1 An Introduction to Islamic Theology 29 THE EXISTENCE AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

35

On Epistemology 36 On the Temporality of the Cosmos and Necessary Existence of the Creator 42 On Divine Oneness 48 On Divine Transcendence above Temporal Qualities 54 On the Attributes of God, the Exalted 62 On the Name and the Named 70 On Divine Uniqueness and Dissimilarity from Creation 72 On the Eternality ofDivine Speech 76 On the Act of Creating and the Created 86 On the Possibility of Seeing God, the Exalted 96 On Vision During Sleep 106 On Divine Will 108 Annotations n3 PROPHETS, MIRACLES, AND EARLY ISLAM 161

On Affirming Messengers 162 On Evidence of the Prophethood ofMubammad~ 168 On Traits Specific to Prophets 178 On Saintly Miracles 180 On Political Leadership and Related Matters 182 On the lmamate of the Rightly Guided Caliphs ~ 186 Annotations 195

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE, HUMAN AGENCY, AND ONTOLOGY OF THE WORLD 223

On Ascription ofJustice or Injustice 224 On Potency and Human Agency 226 on Ontology of Human Action 234 On Occasionalism and the Negation of Secondary Causation242 Annotations 247 PREDESTINATION AND THE EXISTENCE OF EVIL 267

On Placing a Burden Beyond One's Capacity 268 On the Generality ofThings Willed 272 On the Nonexistent 280 On Denial oflncumben_cy upon God to Do What Is Best [for People] 282 On Provisions 286 On Lifespans 288 On Predestination and the Divine Decree 290 On Guiding and Misguiding 294 Annotations 299 HUMAN SIN AND DIVINE FORGIVENESS

3II

On Those Who Commit Enormities 312 On Intercession 318 On Whether or Not God's Pardoning Disbeliefls Logically Possible 320 On Whether or Not Divine Omnipotence Includes Oppression, Foolishness, or Lying 322 On Enormities and Minor Sins 324 Annotations 327 FAITH_, BELIEF, AND THE INTELLECT

On Faith and Submission 336 On the Reality ofPaith 340 viii

335

TABLE OF CONTENTS

on the Faith ofOne Who Merely Emulates 344 On Whether or Not Faith Increases 346 On Necessary Tenets of Faith Deduced from Revelation 350 Annotations 357

Appendix A: The Kalam Cosmological Argument 367 Appendix B: Descriptions of the Prophet~ 423 Transliteration Key 435 Bibliography 437 Acknowledgments 447 Index453

ix

C.&',)

Foreword HAMZA YUSUF HANSON

I

N THE EAR.LY PERIOD oflslam, during the generations following the Prophet's life, Muslims relied upon an ethos of trust in the teaching, and faith was not fortified with discursive reason. The first creeds were simple and easy to grasp, and the reasons within the revelation were deemed sufficient. The Prophet llf,. himselfhad warned his followers not to delve too deeply into abstruse questions about fate and destiny, and his counsel instilled in early scholars a hesitancy to tread the waters of theology. The emergent Muslim community followed an elementary and effective creed drawn directly from the Qur'an and the hadith of the Prophet llf,. and best exemplified in the initial traditionalist (athan") work of Imam aI-TaJ:iiiwi (d. 321 AH/933 CE), which had the assent of the great schools of Islam despite the differences among Muslim theologians. Another important creed of that period that eschewed speculative theology or scholastic sophistication-known as subtle dialectical theology (daqiq al-kalam)was the work oflbn Abi Zayd (d. 386/996), a great Ma.liki jurist of Tunisia, who summarized early Muslim beliefin the introduction to his AI-Risalah (The epistle). The nascent fideistic creeds of Malik b. Anas (d. 179/795), Abii I:Ianffah aI-Nu'miin (d. 150/767), and Al:imad b. I:Ianbal (d. 241/855) had no prescriptive methodology to address the questions that confronted scholars ofthe second century, other than to

xi

AN INTRODUCTIO N

TO ISLAMIC THEOLOGY

. f d avoid wading into uncharted theological ·1 b Ch · · countenance belie an s had been charted heav1 Y Y nst1ans ( h f: • waters. But those wat e r sser extent by the Jews w ose a1th was l d ' • · · d ti before them, an to a e . • th that of orthodox Chnsuamty an ocused on more fide1st1c an praxis). · d th an e great As Mus1ms I. encountered the Byzantines . . • h ols of the Levant and Persia, they had to grapple Peripatetic sc o . . with questions from sophisticated theologians and philosophers who wanted to know the nature of God. For example, they asked whether God's attributes, such as God's speech, ~ere eternal; if so, given that Jesus was the logos (kalimah) ac~ordmg to both the New Testament and the Qur'an, they asked if Jesus was coeternal with the Creator. As Greek thought-especially the works of Aristotle, Plato, and Plotinus translated into Arabic-entered into the Muslim ethos, it posed perplexing philosophical questions for Muslims. These challenges opened up new avenues of interest for intellectually thirsty Muslim thinkers and subsequently led to creedal disputes that arose from the metaphysical debates such challenges evoked. The dialectic that emerged in the incipient Muslim intellectual tradition had its genesis in two distinct schools of thought: staunch traditionalist schools, which prioritized faith over reason, and the rationalist school of the Mu;l1 Jk ~'11 ;Gb ~ ~!l;:l-1

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AN INTRODUCTION TO ISLAMIC THEOLOGY

And the opinion of those who deem Mary ~ a spouse and Jesus ~ a son is even more despicable, for it entails affirmation ofneed and composite parts for God, the exalted, both of which are signs oftemporality. As for the rebuttal against the naturalists, we state that heat, coldness, moisture, and dryness are all accidents, unable to subsist in and of themselves or remain by themselves. In fact, they are regenerated every moment, and their loci are loci of temporal things. So they too are temporal and thus undoubtedly in need of an originator. As for the rebuttal against the astrologers, we state that even according to them, all of these planetary bodies rotate, revolve in orbits, and constantly change positions and states-such as positions indicating good omens, positions indicating misfortune, solar eclipses, lunar eclipses, planetary combustion, apogee, and perigee. All of these are signs of their being subjugated and under control. The Creator then is only God, the exalted, the one, the overpowering. ON DIVINE .TRANSCENDENCE ABOVE TEMPORAL QUALITIES

· To proceed, it is impossible for the Creator ofthe universe 28 to be a body, a particle, an accident, a possessor ofform, in a direction, or in a place. The Jews (al-Yahiid), the extreme Shia (ghulat al-rawaji4), the anthropomorphists, and the Karramiyyah think He is a body; Hisham b. al-1:Iakam 29 [d. ca. 190/805] would describe Him as having a form. The anthropomorphists and Karramiyyah state that He is seated upon the throne, while some of them say He is on top of the throne, without the meaning of being seated, yet affirming the direction of above. The Najjariyyah state that

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AN INTRODUCTION TO ISLAMIC THEOLOGY

• ·n every place with His entity; the Mu'tazilites state that He He1s1 .h . is in every place with His knowledge'. not wit His entity. All of this is absurd since it entails elements of temporality, and God is absolutely transcendent above that. A body is a composition, and every composition ~an be separated. It is also of a particular size, which could conceivably be larger or smaller, so for Him to be of that particular measure could not obtain, except by the specification of a determiner [who would impose his will upon God and determine God's physical size; this is logically absurd). Likewise, forms are manifold, and His having all of them at once is impossible; to specify some, again, would require a determiner. Similarly, were He seated upon the throne, He would necessarily be either of its particular measure [or] smaller or larger. lf He were of its measure or smaller, He would be limited and finite, and finiteness is a quality of temporality. If He were larger than it, then the part [of God] that is parallel to the throne would be the same size [as the throne], which would entail that He be composite and divisible, and divisibility is a quality of temporality. Moreover, [were He seated upon the throne,] He would be finite in the downward direction, such that He could sit upon it, and that which can end in one direction can possibly end in all directions. Finally, since His being free of place and direction is established in eternity-as we and our opponents are in agreement that everything besides God, the e~alte~, is originated (muf:idath)-then, if sitting and directionality were to be affirmed after their negation in eternity,

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there would have occurred in His entity a meaning ~at was not eternally His, rendering Him a locus for temporal thmgs, which is impossible. Regarding His statement, exalted ~e He, "The All-Merciful has assumed the throne" (20:5), there 1s more than one possible meaning, for "to assume" (istiwn') can be used to mean "to assume authority over" (istila') or "to seek out" (qa~d) or "to be completed" (tam am) or "to [physically] sit and be firm in" (istiqrar wa tamakkun). So, in light of these possibilities, the verse cannot be a definitive proof for our opponent. And, in any case, the stronger possibility is in our favor, due to what we have stated, for verily, God, the exalted, praises Himself in the verse, and [even] if the mention of "assumption" had been a praise with respect to creation, the meaning of "sitting and being firm" would not be understood thereby, as the poet said:

Bishr has assumed [control] ouer Iraq Without a sword or spilled blood. That is, praise is that which distinguishes its subject from those who neither approach him nor equal him; but if "assumption" (of the throne] meant" sitting," then every low and vile person would be equivalent in that meaning, rendering it void of much praise. _The opini~n ~f those who claim He is present everywhere with His ver~ entity 1s even more unfounded, as it is impossible for someth1~g.that occupies space to be in two places simultaneously; ~o how_ is it pos_sible for the One for whom placement itself is impossible to (literally] be in all places? The opinion that He is everyw~ere with His knowledge but not with His entity is also false · mcorrect · 1·t is " .' smce . to say about one who knows a place that he is m that place with his knowledge."

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