Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought: Can Allah Save Us All? 9781350070240, 9781350070325, 9781350070301

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Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought

Also available from Bloomsbury Alternative Salvations, edited by Hannah Bacon, Steve Knowles and Wendy Dossett The Composition of the Qur’an, Michel Cuypers Sufis and Salafis in the Contemporary Age, edited by Lloyd Ridgeon Piety, Politics and Ethics in Southeast Asian Islam, Robert Rozehnal

Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought Can Allah Save Us All? Marco Demichelis

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP, UK BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2018 The paperback edition published 2020 Copyright © Marco Demichelis 2018 Marco Demichelis has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. vi constitute an extension of this copyright page. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Demichelis, Marco, 1979- author. Title: Salvation and hell in classical Islamic thought : can Allah save us all? / Marco Demichelis. Description: London : Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018001795| ISBN 9781350070240 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350070301 (epdf) Subjects: LCSH: Islamic eschatology. Classification: LCC BP166.8 .D46 2018 | DDC 297.2/3--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018001795 ISBN: HB: PB: ePDF: ePub:

978-1-3500-7024-0 978-1-3501-4779-9 978-1-3500-7030-1 978-1-3500-7031-8

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Contents Acknowledgements Notes on Dates and Transliteration Introduction

1 2 3 4

Islamic Piety and Annihilation Kalām and the Eschatological Interpretation of the Material and the Empyrean Islamic Philosophy (Falsafa) and the Annihilation of the Non-Body Rationally Explained The Islamic Definitive Understanding of the Fanā’ al-Nār: Neo-Ash‘arism and Neo-H.  anbalism’s Elucubrations (Twelfth–Fourteenth Centuries)

Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

vi viii 1 27 61 97

127 163 171 207 223

Acknowledgements This academic project was prompted by reading the study by M. Hassan Khalil entitled Islam and the Fate of Others: The Salvation Question (Oxford University Press, 2012) and his edited work Between Heaven and Hell: Islam, Salvation and the Fate of Others (Oxford University Press, 2013), both of which I was invited to review for the Marginalia Review of Books. M. Hassan Khalil’s scientific work is an eminent achievement in which the salvation of others is investigated within the thought of four prominent Islamic Scholars: al-Ghazālī, Ibn ‘Arabī, Ibn Taymiyya and Rashīd Rid. ā. This book, on the other hand, aims to investigate the heterodox theory of Fanā’ al-Nār, an expression used by Ibn Taymiyya in al-Radd ‘alā man qāla bi-­fanā’ al-­ janna wa-­l-­nār (the enjoinder to those who maintain the annihilation of the Garden and the Fire). According to this, there will be an unclear post-­mortem time when Hell will be empty or no longer inhabited. However, different primary sources report that the Eschatological salvation of Muslims and non-Muslims in Islamic thought emerged as a topic of consideration from at least the 230s AH (eighth-­century ce). This is the main reason why this work will examine the Fanā’ al-Nār from the formative age (second/eighth–fourth/tenth centuries) to the speculations of scholars already analysed, such as al-Ghazālī (d. 1111/504) and Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328/728), but also considering the philosophical thought of al-Kindī ( d. 873/259), al-Fārābī (d. 950/338) and Ibn Sīnā (d. 1037/428), the mutakallimūn al-Ash‘arī (d. 936/324) and al- Māturīdī (d. 944/332), and lastly Ibn Qayyim alJawziyya (d. 1350/751). I worked on this project from the second year of my Research Fellowship (post-PhD) at the Department of Religious Studies of the Catholic University of Milan until the end of the fourth year, when I started the publication process. For this reason, I first wish to thank Prof. Paolo Branca for his total support, suggestions and advice in highlighting the academic interest in this project. In parallel, I would also like to express my gratitude to the University of Yale and in particular the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies for having given me the opportunity to spend nine months as a Visiting Research Fellow to work at the Sterling Memorial Library and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Prof. Frank Griffel as my supervisor, but also Prof. Gutas

Acknowledgements

vii

Dimitri and Prof. Gerhard Bowering, gave me important suggestions during my period at Yale. I also wish to thank Prof. Emeritus Claude Gilliot (Iremam, Aix-Marseille University), Prof. Jon Hoover (University of Nottingham), Dr Khalid el-Abdaoui of the University of Vienna and Prof. Yousef Casewit (University of Chicago) for their valuable suggestions during these years of academic research. Last, but not least, I would like to thank Dr Robin Dougherty, Middle Eastern Section Librarian, for her help during the time I spent on the third floor of the Sterling Memorial Library of Yale University.

Notes on Dates and Transliteration All dates appears in parentheses with the classical dual calendar of reference, CE (Common Era) first and AH (Anno Hegirae) second. A simplified transliteration system has been chosen to make reading easier as well as for the recognition of Arabic word roots. Thanks to this rigorous scientific method, inaccurate transliterations are avoided. Long vowels have been shown (ā, ī, ū) as well as the diacritical marks of the hard Arabic letters (h. , d., t., z., s.); the ayn letter (identified by the inverted apostrophe) and hamza (rendered with the normal apostrophe) have also been shown in accordance with the reference language. Lastly, the letter J has been adopted for Jim (Arabic letter), K for Kha, Dh for Dhal, Sh for Shin, Gh for Ghain, H for Ha and I for Ya. As far as the pronunciation of the letters is concerned, the sound sh corresponds to sc, and w to u; th and dh are pronounced as the English th of the.

Introduction This book intends to investigate Muslim and non-Muslim salvation in Islamic thought, from the formative age (eighth–tenth centuries) up to the speculations of authors like al-Ghazālī (d. 1111/504), Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328/728) and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350/751). Specifically, it addresses the heterodox theory of Fanā’ al-Nār: an expression used in particular by Ibn Taymiyya in al-Radd ‘alā man qāla bi-­fanā’ al-­janna wa-­l-nār (the enjoinder to those who maintain the annihilation of the Garden and the Fire), according to which there will be a time in an unclear eschatological future when Hell is empty or no longer inhabited. The development of this assumption will be analysed, focusing on the thought of relevant mutakallimūn, mystics and philosophers over seven centuries in an attempt to explain the steps that formed this theoretical eschatological assumption. The relatively unknown topic of Fanā’ al-Nār has recently been reconsidered in books and articles by Mohammad Hassan Khalil, in Islam and the Fate of Others, but also in Between Heaven and Hell: Islam, Salvation and the Fate of Others,1 by Christian Lange in Paradise and Hell in Islamic Tradition and Locating Hell in Islamic Tradition,2 as well as in important articles by John Hoover, G. Gobillot, B. Abrahamov, Faras Hamza, S. Pagani and others. However, if these works are analytically and academically important in developing a specific study on the Annihilation of Hell as well as on Islamic eschatology, they do not form a historical digression of Fanā’ al-Nār in Islamic thought. On the contrary, this is the main goal of this book: to interpret the evolution of the Annihilation of Hell as a theoretical doctrine emphasizing the evolutionary process of Islamic thought during the formative and classical age. For me, the Fanā’ al-Nār is the historical paradigma3 of the Islamic vision of the hereafter which through the contribution of Kalām, mystics, philosophy and S.ūfism (even though the last one will only be partially considered) definitely evolves towards an understanding of salvation in real life and the afterlife (ākhirah). ¯ The salvation of others reflects not only on believers of other faiths as well as non-­believers (Kuffār), but is a topic in which inclusive and exclusive religious

2

Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought

policies, theological interpretations and hermeneutic understandings point out the Islamic level of global comprehension of otherness, as a religion able to dissolve the moral-­ethical peculiarities of single-­faith membership, to move towards a true sharing of universal values. As maintained by Farīd Esack, to act against the iniquity of this world for the oppressed (mustad‘afūn) and marginalized (aradhil) through Qist and ‘Adl, equity and justice is an aim to be pursued through Tawh.  īd, which needs to be not only considered as a ‘banal’ symbol of Islamic monotheistic unity of God, but as a single message for an undivided humanity,4 as clearly stated in V, 48: ‘If God had so willed, He would have made you one community, but He wanted to test you through that which He has given you, so race to do good: you will all return to God and He will make clear to you the matters you differed about.’5 However, this book remains focused on the first centuries of the Islamic age without any reference to contemporary Islamic elucubrations: this is why any theological assumption needs to be considered in relation to the historical age of reference. At the same time, this work cannot develop a study based on proto-Shiite or Shiite sources; a limited investigation goes from al-Fārābī (d. 950/338) and his complex religious identity to Ibn Sīnā (d. 1037/428) and Mulla S. adra Shīrāzī (d. 1640/1049), but, in particular with reference to Shīrāzī, the analysis is restricted. The complexity of the Shiite eschatological understanding is too great to be discussed in the same work. At the same time, this study does not have the intention of investigating the Islamic religious affiliation of al-Fārābī or Ibn Sīnā, questioning their more inclusive attitude and then the more exclusivist one of their followers. The four main chapters are connected by the process of the formation of Islamic orthodoxy and heterodoxy, which were not yet clearly distinguished in the early centuries. A historical focus will be necessary to describe the evolutionary understanding of the annihilation of Hell in the formative phase of Islām until the consolidation of Tradition (ninth–tenth centuries). Later, more speculative factors – Kalām and Falsafa, as a process of further evolution of religious Islamic sensitivity6 – will increase the analytical range of the work, including the main authors, Ibn Sīnā, al-Ghazālī and Ibn Taymiyya, who, in practice, reshaped the understanding of the Islamic eschatological vision. The first chapter is linked to early Islamic piety or, rather, the first mysticism (Tas.  awwuf) between the eighth and tenth centuries, while the second, in parallel, focuses on Kalām and the main theological schools of the same historical period. Both chapters dwell on authors who lived in the same geographical area and historical age, exploring rationalizing Hell as a purgative place, at least for Muslim sinners.

Introduction

3

The historical Paradigma of both reflects, on the one hand, on the early mystic comprehension that Hell might be the representation of a purgative geography, and therefore not eternal, while, on the other side, Kalām schools partially came to understand (al-Māturīdī, more than others) that God’s mercy can irrationally deny the human understanding of His justice ( ͑Adl Allah). Subsequently, with the end of the formative period of Islām and with the assimilation of philosophy (Falsafa), the theory of Fanā’ al-Nār was to increase the complexity of the matter. This was also due to the interdisciplinary competences of those, such as the reviver of Islamic studies, al-Ghazālī, who were to argue about the possible emptiness of the Hell. The chapters on Falsafa, like the one on al-Ghazālī and Ibn Taymiyya, are paradigmatically relevant for two reasons:

1. They underline the logic of salvation as an expression of something disengaged from the primary status of being a Muslim believer; on the contrary al-Ghazālī’s main question is whether ignorance, as well as non-­ knowledge of the real Islamic message, can be considered a correct reason for condemning non-Muslims to eternal Hell. 2. They argue about the conflicting connection between God’s mercy (rah. ma) and His creation of evilness in this world, in particular wondering about the existence of fit.ra: the primordial status of every human being devoid of any wickedness.7 How and why can Allah coherently shape a pure infant without a clear religious identity and, at the same time, configurate evil in the world which will affect every baby born in the same fit.ra? The vision of this book not only reflects trying to answer the above question, but provides the theological-­analytical tools to approach an extremely controversial topic of Islamic thought, which shows the sharp contrast between its universal and sectarian revelation, its inclusive and exclusive tendency, and its conflicting approach to Muslims and non-Muslims. It is now important to introduce the questions of the main theological insights, associated with the Fanā’ al-Nār, that will be discussed in this book. The first theological aspect of the entire analysis reflects on the physical versus spiritual understanding of the afterlife; as already stated, Heaven and Hell in the Qur’ān and the Sunna describe the post-­judgement joy and suffering with qualitative and quantitative adjectives. However, while at the end of the ninth century, proto-S.ūfī authors such as al-Tirmidhī and al-Junayd had already imagined the possibility of a lack of physicality in the hereafter in parallel with

4

Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought

the first philosophers, Kalām authors, on the contrary, continued to debate this until the eleventh–twelfth centuries. Al-Ghazālī in the Tahāfut al-Falāsifah still arguedh s: ¯ They [referring to the philosophers] deny the return of souls to bodies: the existence of a physical Paradise and Hell; the H.  ūr with large eyes and everything which has been promised by God. And they maintain that these things are symbols mentioned to common men in order to facilitate their understanding of spiritual reward and punishment which are superior to those of physical character.8

However, it will be through this author’s thought in particular that a physical and a spiritual understanding of the afterlife will be combined, considering the approach of Kalām with those of both Falsafa and S. ūfism. Is the afterlife physical, spiritual, or both? How will God re-­shape our bodies after the death of the physical one? Does the eschatological description in the Qur’ān have to be interpreted literally or metaphorically? A second facet of the debate on the Fanā’ concerns the temporary nature of the world after death but also before it, during lifetime. All Muslims, like members of other Abrahamic traditions, believe that there is an end to human history and that this end will be marked by Divine intervention in the temporal order with the coming of the Mahdī and his rule, following by the second coming of ‘Īsā ibn Maryam in Jerusalem, the destruction of the world, the resurrection and the final judgement. The main queries are related to the assumption: is God the creator of afterlife? And if so, when did He create Heaven and Hell? From the beginning, before the last judgement (yawm al-Dīn) or after it? These questions are important because they also examine the possibility that there is a time when even Heaven and Hell cease to exist. A third issue highlights the contribution of Falsafa and its cosmological lucubration on the affiliation between the celestial spheres and human souls. Upon the separation of the soul from the body at death, the soul will dwell in the world of the spheres for a while, then ascend to the higher intelligible world. However, not all souls will be allowed to join the higher world immediately. Some will linger in different spheres on account of their impurities and when they are cleansed of this dirtiness will be allowed to ascend to higher spheres.9 Is this short description the Falsafa’s visio of the afterlife? Can we compare the annihilation of Hell with that of lower spheres? Does the dirtiness of souls confirm Hell’s temporary nature or not?

Introduction

5

Finally, the fourth issue is linked with God’s qualities which have been described as theological, philosophical and mystically predominant over the centuries. The speculation that emerged was connected with the historical and geographical background of the protagonists. Is the creation of evil the work of God? And if so, why did God create it? Does Allah’s mercy (rah. mah) prevail over His justice? Does the love (wudūd) of God prevail over His judgement? All these questions highlight the Islamic speculation on the presence of evil in the world and the close relationship with the One who created it. These assumptions are all interconnected in the main historical phases of this analysis as shown in the next four chapters. The methodological approach is twofold and linked with the evolutionary religious sensitivity of Islam, but also with the chronological deconstruction of this religious sensitivity and with the speculation on its original core (fit.ra).

The state of the art The Status Quaestionis is whether there will be a time in a foreseeable future when the Islamic Hell (Jahannam) is empty or close to no longer being inhabited. This eschatological understanding can be observed in the history of Islamic thought in connection with a plurality of enquiries which can be macro – when they are related to the human fate of the afterlife or the question of salvation – but also micro – when they are more specifically linked to matters such as the physicality or the spirituality of the hereafter, as in the Mu‘tazilite rationalist awareness of al-’Ākhirah during the ninth–tenth centuries, or the analysis made by a single author such as Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350/750). Several aspects of the fate of others have been partially and recently addressed by M. Hassan Khalil in Islam and the Fate of Others10 pursuing an analysis which took its first steps starting from al-Ghazālī and his Fays.  al al-Tafriqa bayna alIslām wa al-Zandaqa – ‘the Decisive criterion for distinguishing Islām from Masked Infidelity’11 – and continuing through a study on Ibn ‘Arabī and Ibn Taymiyya, reaching the modern day with Rashīd Rid.  ā. This remarkable study, however, lacks references to the centuries preceding the life of the ‘Asharite’s reviver, in particular concerning the authors that in Kalām or proto-S. ūfism had argued about the Annihilation of Hell (Fanā’ alNār): al-Ghazālī and Ibn Taymiyya are authors who finalized a specific reasoning on the Annihilation of Hell following a long process of intellectual history in which different protagonists conversed and clashed on the same subject.

6

Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought

However, apart from the work mentioned above, the annihilation of the fire is a heterodox theory that emerged partially from Jane Idleman Smith and Yvonne Haddad’s Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection, Nerima Rustomji’s The Garden and the Fire: Heaven and Hell in Islamic Culture,12 Christian Lange’s Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions and Locating Hell in Islamic Tradition,13 as well as in older general texts such as Faz. lur Rah. mām’s Major Themes of the Qur’an and Muh. ammad ‘Alī’s The Religion of Islam. Important articles such as James Robson’s ‘Is the Moslem Hell Eternal?’, Jon Hoover’s ‘Islamic Universalism: Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Salafī’s Deliberations on the duration of the Hell-Fire and A Typology of Responses to the Philosophical Problem of Evil in the Islamic and Christian Traditions’,14 Binyamin Abrahamov’s ‘The Creation and Duration of Paradise and Hell in Islamic Theology’,15 John B. Taylor’s ‘Some Aspects of Islamic Eschatology’,16 Patricia Crone’s ‘The Quranic Mushrikūn and the Resurrection’17 Faras Hamza’s ‘Temporary Hellfire Punishment and the Making of Sunni Orthodoxy’ and Samuela Pagani’s ‘Ibn ‘Arabi, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya and the Political Function of Punishment in Islamic Hell’ can give significant information on the main methodological analysis and theological queries on the topic, amplifying, however, the difficulties in understanding the matter in the long historical term and in marking the intellectual relationship between mutakallimūn and proto-mutas.  awwifūn in different ages and geographical areas of the Dār al-Islām. Finally, there are some relevant Islamic primary sources in which the Fanā’ alNār or the probable emptiness of Hell has been investigated: apart from the aforementioned Fays.  al al-Tafriqa, Ibn al-Murtad. ā’s Kitāb t.abaqāt al-­mu‘tazilah, a relevant doxographic work by the Mu‘tazilite theological school; Ibn Sīnā’s Risāla al-­ad. h. awiyya fī al-­ma‘ād, in which the meaning of ma‘ād might be analysed as a form of annihilation in God; Ibn Taymiyya’s Al-Radd ‘alā man qāla bi-­fanā’ al-­janna wa l-nār and his main disciple Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s H.  ādī al-­arwāh.  ilā bilād al-­ afrāh. , in particular chapter 67 entitled Fī Abadiyyat al-­janna wa annahā lā tafnā wa lā tabīd, in which Fanā’ al-Nār is more theoretically explained; Taqī al-Dīn ‘Alī alSubkī’s main reply to Ibn Taymiyya and al-Jawziyya’s theory on the annihilation of the fire: Al-Rasā’il al-Subkiyya Fī al-­radd ‘alā Ibn Taymiyya wa-­tilmīdhihi Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya; and finally the most recent, al- S. an’ānī’s Raf’al-­astār li-­ibt. āl adillat al-­qā’ilin bi-­fanā’ al-Nār, which summarizes the debate on this topic. All these sources have been deeply examined in this work with the clear aim of shaping a chronological path that can identify and investigate the religious steps that brought Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya to support the annihilation of the fire in the fourteenth century.

Introduction

7

Previous ideas on the annihilation of the afterlife in the Abrahamic traditions A rational theological as well as a mystical assumption may encounter similarities and in some instances an identical hypothesis that, even considering different decades, emphasizes that a common geography is often symptomatic of thought that is not very distant. Judaism, Christianity and Islām reflect in this reasoning, as Abrahamic religions, an important step that will not encourage easy syncretism but, reflecting on eschatology, underlined parallel differences on similar aspects of the afterlife. Fanā’ al-Nār and the Christian Apocatastasis, like the Jewish Tikkun Olam, could be considered close enough to dedicate an entire book to it. However, this section will deal with a comparative inter-­religious methodology (not adopted outside it) which clarifies how the Abrahamic faiths have similar doctrines on the salvation of otherness and the annihilation of Hell, as an expression of a common cultural-­religious background. Judaism and Christianity suggest different annihilations of the world; their theological doctrines make Hell an unclear geography where imperative salvation by God-Jesus transcends the physical world, concentrating on the empyrean. Nevertheless, the intuition of God as absolute mercy, which is captured in the Islamic Basmala, finds previous confirmation in theological elucidations in both Judaism and Christianity. In Letture Cristiane del primo millennio (Christian readings of the first millennium), Ignazio de Francesco18 highlights, as Tor Andrae did before him, writing about Efrem the Syrian (306–373) in his Hymn on Paradise,19 that eschatological piety in the Qur’ān is very close to the dominant religious views of the Christian Syriac Church before and during the Prophet’s time. Several academics, such as Alfred Guillame, Morris S. Seale and Harry Austryn Wolfson, highlighted the theological and mystical connections in the Abrahamic religions when their inter-­religious interaction was particularly evident (seventh–ninth centuries).20 Nevertheless, before reflecting on Christian Patristics, it is essential to make some comments on the Old Testament. The text is rich in literal examples in which a final rehabilitation is taken for granted; in the book of Job (19; 25–27) for example, the protagonist claims: For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my eyes be consumed within me.

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Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought

The Sapientia (2; 21–23), on the contrary, stresses how God created human beings to be immortal and in His image, but due to the devil’s envy, death penetrated the world, and those who are on his side will experience it. Fritz Meier in The Ultimate Origin and the Hereafter in Islam underscores this common adage in the Abrahamic tradition: The Fall of Adam and Eve only had the result that they were driven out of Paradise onto Earth which has been given them as a fief. Here, where the law of birth and death rules, their offspring pass in succession through generations until, at an interminable date, the world in its entirety will also be taken away again.21

Death became an unexpected clause, as well as the finite nature of life, due to human beings’ breach of the previous contract (mithāq) with God. In the Old Testament, specifically in scriptures composed or handed down in Greek (Sapientia, 1–2 Maccabeans), the idea of a collective destiny of happiness after death becomes more palpable, as once again, ‘God created man for immortality, making it in the image of their own nature’, the souls of the righteous dead ‘are in the hands of God’ and on the day of judgement ‘shall shine like sparks through the stubble’ (Sapientia 3: 1–7). The martyrs may then face their executioners without fear, knowing that ‘the king of the world will raise us up to live again forever’ and that, on the contrary, the resurrection of the wicked ‘will not be for life’ (2 Mac 7: 9–14, an unclear passage); just as it is permissible to intercede for deceased loved ones (similar to Islamic intercession): ‘very good and noble action, suggested the thought of the resurrection’, in consideration of ‘The magnificent reward reserved for those who fall asleep in death with feelings of pity’ and that therefore justifies those who are ‘acquitted from sin’ (2 Mac 12; 44–45). The destruction of death puts an end to the sentence imposed on Adam in the primordial garden and immortality replaces the extraordinary lon­­­ gevity of the classical conception of remuneration where the just man dies ‘old and full of days’, while man entering a new dimension of existence is made perceptible by images of material fertility of a land flowing with milk and honey. The image of a sumptuous feast will be the privileged form to summarize happiness in messianic times.22 However, the destruction of death is inconsistent if it is not included in a mystic tension towards God, in a return to Him. The concept of a return to God or restoration in Him is expressed in Malachi (3; 6):

Introduction

9

For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore, ye sons of Jacob I am not consumed. Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said. Wherein shall we return?

It is also in the Hebrew expression of Tikkun Olam which means, ‘Repair of the world’. It is an important concept in Judaism used in the Mishna, but also in medieval Kabbalistic literature, the objective of which is to perfect the world and avoid all the negative social consequences. It is an interpretation of the passage in Isaiah: The wolf will live with the sheep (lamb) [. . .] In the same time, the Lord will extend His hand a second time, to redeem the remnant of His people. From Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and from the islands of the Sea. And he will lift up a standard for the nations and assemble the banished ones of Israel, and will gather the dispersed of Judah, from the four corners of the Earth. Isaiah 11:11–12

This clarifies how God and God only will redeem the remainder of His people who had not previously been saved. Those remaining, as elucidated in verses 12 and following, will only be, however, the Israelites who will be pacified in their internal conflicts. Therefore, this restoration is exclusively to repair Jewish sectarian fragmentation as explained throughout the entire Old Testament. Jesus and Christianity did not interpret this passage in the same way. He came the first time as ‘Messiah, son of Joseph’ and he will come back a second time as ‘Messiah, son of David’ for the restoration of all things and the re-­establishment of the Kingdom of God, as related to a double evangelic reference: the Restoration of all things, which is the translation of the Greek word palligenesia meaning, literally ‘second genesis’, and ‘He has saved us [. . .] by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit’ (Titus 3:5). When Jesus saves us, we are regenerated in our spirit, and our relationship with God is re-­established because our sins are blotted out. This is man’s second genesis, but also the re-­establishment of all things, which is the translation of the Greek word apocatastasis meaning the restoration to the perfect state of the time before the Fall: ‘And that He might send you the One who has been destined for you, Jesus Christ, whom heaven must receive until the time of re-­establishment of all things’ (Acts 3:20–21). But Jesus Christ is for the moment with the Father until the appointed time.23

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Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought

Apocatastasis and Origenism Patristic considerations on the theological doctrine of apocatastasis highlight a dissimilarity between an interpretation of it that does not refer to ethics and religion, and a moral elaboration, as deconstructed and reconsidered by Origen (185–254 ce), but also by Theodore of Mopsuestia and Gregory of Nyssa, like others until the time of Maximus the Confessor24 (580–662 ce). Vito Mancuso,25 considering the New Testament statement that the only human sin that deserves eternal damnation is blasphemy against the Spirit, includes this quotation: And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. Matthew 12: 31–32 or in parallel, Mark 3: 29 and Luke 12: 10

This sin against the Spirit, the most intimate personification of human sensibility, represents the greatest abuse and perversion of human freedom, which admits for man the possibility of action for the pleasure of doing wrong. The Christian Catholic Church, in its teaching against this kind of offence, emphasizes that the eternity of damnation is the only solution for this state, because a crime against the Holy Spirit is a misdemeanour against both the body and the soul which, together, become unable to receive the light of Goodness as a result. Tertullian (155–240) in Adversus Marcionem (58, 5) maintains that souls know pleasure and pain even without the body, although this conviction was then questioned later.26 The North African author was a premillenarist who supported a literal resurrection and a second coming of Jesus, which would announce the creation of a New Jerusalem, the eternity of heaven and the final destruction of the earth. Accordingly, physical suffering in Hell assumed an earthly location of the afterlife’s damnation; the annihilation of Earth logically also premised the destruction of Hell, an assumption not very dissimilar to the first Islamic comprehension of the Earth’s annihilation as developed by Jahm Ibn S. afwān (d. 746/128).27 Cyprian, who lived in a difficult period of persecutions against Christians, gave a first description of the entry of the blessed to Heaven for the merits acquired during their earthly life which all the faithful looked forward to: ‘the

Introduction

11

joy and the happiness of being allowed to see God and have the honour of participating in the joys of salvation’. At the same time, the Bishop of Carthage ruled out the possibility of a purification of sins after death.28 We need to move to Egypt, however, to consider Clement of Alexandria (150– 215) and Book VII of his Stromata29: ‘because Christian teaching highlights that fire sanctifies not meat or sacrifices but souls who sin; questioning about it not as a flame devouring everyday life, but that kind discerning, that penetrates the soul walking through fire’. This author, before Origen (184–253), started to develop the doctrine of Apocatastasis in close relation to his knowledge of Stoic and neo-Platonic cultural backgrounds. Although Clement was born in Athens to pagan parents, he lived in Alexandria, converting to Christianity only in adulthood. He decided to use philosophy as a tool to transform faith into science and revelation into theology. Clement believed that matter and thought are eternal, and thus did not originate from God, contradicting the doctrine of Creatio ex nihilo. His belief in cosmic cycles predated the creation of the world, a cosmological doctrine of Heraclius of Ephesus, which has a non-­biblical origin and which we will encounter again in Islamic Falsafa. Origen’s idea of Apocatastasis probably came from the same cultural background as Clement of Alexandria: the Stoic philosophy of Chrysippus, who believed that the accomplishment of being, started in the logos-­fire, needs to return, to re-­start a new vital cycle. This vision, derived from a cosmological and theological need, expresses a concept of the perfect fulfilment of God’s plan in Christ for human spiritual beings. Everything will be reconstituted exactly as it was at the beginning; it is the logic of the cosmos that imposes this. However, as maintained above, apocatastasis occurs only once in the New Testament, when Peter addresses the populace outside the Temple in Jerusalem (Acts 3: 21): ‘Christ will remain in Heaven until the time of the reintegration of all which God has declared through the mouth of the saints since the age of his prophets.’ The precise implications of universal reintegration are not made clear in the above passage. On the other hand, there are a number of passages in St Paul’s Epistles that indicate that Paul believed it, implying the salvation of the whole of humanity and its complete reconciliation with God30: As all die in Adam, so all will live again in Christ [. . .] The last enemy to be destroyed is Death [. . .] When all things have been subjected to the Son of God,

12

Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought then the Son himself will subject himself to the One who has subjected all things to him, so that God may be all things in all. 1 Corinthians 15: 22–28 For God wanted the whole fullness to inhabit him, and through Christ to reconcile all things into him. Colossians 1: 19–20

There are other verses that refer to the reintegration in God of this whole fullness (Ephesians 1: 10 and Romans 5:18 and 11:32). Moreover, Origen, in the Latin version of his famous De Principiis, analysing St Paul’s key sentence ‘God will be all things in all’, takes this to mean that all things, animate and inanimate, will be perceived as divine by individual, rational human minds whose understanding has become fully purified. This purification is something that will come upon human souls not suddenly but gradually, through immense ages, some reaching this goal swiftly, others following them and still others remaining far behind. The great exegete placed the supreme goal of the human being who is called to a never-­ending upwards movement in the vision of God.31 While referring back to more traditional topics such as the eternal fire reserved for sinners, Origen understands the original and spiritual nature of this fire: the torment of everyone’s soul explodes with the fuel of their inner passions, because ‘God does not create the punishment, we ourselves prepare for what we suffer’32 showing at the same time the purgative character and the extinction at the time of purification, ‘for all torments of God are established for the benefit of those who tolerate them’,33 and each soul requires separation from the slag which is mixed with its gold, in order to be saved.34 According to Origen there are punishments for wicked souls during many ages, yet this is a process of repairing through emendation, and of being restored, first through the teachings of angels, then through the powers of higher orders of angels, so that, step by step, advancing the wicked to reach what is invisible and eternal.35

These are relevant sections that will be reconsidered during the Islamic formative period by mystics such as al-H.  akīm al-Tirmidhī (d. 930/317) and Mu‘tazilite authors like Abū al-Hudhayl (d. 841/226), besides the already mentioned Jahm Ibn S. afwān (d. 746/128). This common view is particularly related to the early Islamic understanding of the physical afterlife where the sinner’s attraction towards hell is similarly corporeally related to a purification

Introduction

13

process and the annihilation of both: heaven and hellfire become the expression of a new regeneration of life. In the incarnation of the Logos we see the restoration of the original unity between the divine and the human, and the earnest of the re-­deification of the entire spiritual world. He did not, like the Latin theologians, propound a doctrine of two natures, but set himself to show that the man Jesus Christ became gradually one in will and in feeling with the Deity.36

He is an embodied man who spiritually rises closer and closer to God. This understanding of being in God is not so dissimilar from the belief of Mans. ūr alH.  allāj (d. 922/309) in a mystical co-­existence in Allah that will cause his execution.37 However, it is not only a body–soul detachment in a negative understanding, from the passions contracted in earthly life, but also for a positive growth in knowledge and wisdom that will be fulfilled within a Schola animarum, the Heaven spoken of in the Bible that will prepare all souls, without exception, to encounter God.38 Origen’s awareness of the apocatastasis also needs to consider the inclusion of Satan as the main evil spirit in the reintegration process, because the enemy will be destroyed not so that it no longer exists, but so that it is no longer an enemy and death.39 The problem that clearly emerges in Origen’s theory on apocatastasis is the excessive closeness to Stoic cosmology and neo-Platonic theories: Chrysippus envisages an indefinite number of world-­cycles and for him the apocatastasis will not happen once but often. The Christian Father, on the contrary, argued that each world-­cycle could not be identical with the others. He believed that there would be more than one world-­cycle, but he had to admit that he did not know the number of these or whether this sequence would be infinite. It is probably because of its partial Christian emphasis that Origen’s teaching on the apocatastasis, tinged as it was with the Platonic myth that souls pre-­ existed in a status to which they will return in the end, was condemned by the Synod of Constantinople in 543 AD. However, the precise wording of the first anathema deserves careful attention. It does not speak only about apocatastasis but links together two aspects of Origen’s theology: first, his speculation about the beginning, that is to say about the pre-­existence of souls and the pre-­cosmic fall; the second, his teachings about the end, about universal salvation and the ultimate reconciliation of all things. Origen’s eschatology is seen as following directly on from his protology, and both are rejected together.40

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Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought

However, if we separate Origen’s eschatology from his protology, we also have to abandon all rational speculations about the realm of the eternal, simply adhering to the standard Christian view that there is no pre-­existence of the soul, but each new person comes into being as an integral unit of soul and body, at or shortly after the moment of the conception of the embryo in the mother’s womb. In this way we could put forward a doctrine of universal salvation affirming it, not as a certain logic (indeed, Origen, never did), but as a heartfelt aspiration, a visionary hope that would avoid the circularity of Origen’s view and so would escape the condemnation of the anti-Origenist anathema. Indeed, the two greatest Byzantine Christian Neo-Platonic authors, Gregory of Nyssa (335–394) and Maximus the Confessor (580–662), who believed and expounded the same theory, were never condemned and conversely were also canonized. The revival of the Origenist tradition, in particular with the Palestinian monks Evagrius Ponticus (345–399 AD) and Didymus the Blind (313–398 AD), focused renewed attention on the acceptable idea of apocatastasis as directly related to exoteric speculations regarding the pre-­existence of human souls and the rather unclear picture provided by Origen concerning the final state of believers. In particular, member of the Coptic Church Didymus the Blind argued that: ‘Being the source of goodness, God, even after our failures, calls us anew, not effacing entirely from our mind the knowledge of good, even if we have turned away from virtue through sin.’41

Apocatastasis: a reintegration of redemption Origen’s doctrine of apocatastasis was closely related to his doctrine of metempsychosis, but the church unquestionably condemned his doctrine of universal reconciliation as well. The anathema was expressed against the Origenists who taught that the punishment of evil spirits and the irreligious was only temporary and after a certain time would come to an end. Origenist’s problematic apocatastasis is not dissimilar from Avicenna’s rationalization on ma‘ād: the place of return, which in the thought of the Persian physician and philosopher is not the ‘resurrection’, but the spiritual way back towards an original status. This term identified the destiny of man after death and his spiritual existence after the day of judgement. For the Christian Neo-Platonic author, as for the pagan Plotinus, the universe that proceeds from God must ultimately return to God. These Fathers also gave

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15

special significance to Christ’s incarnation and resurrection; this is the peripety in the cosmic drama, the turning point at which, the process being complete, the universal return begins. This is integral to the way that St Gregory of Nyssa understood and affirmed the final return to God. For the Byzantine Father, as for Plotinus, this reintegration is a return but also a redemption. The bishop of Nyssa identified the punishment for the wicked as a purgatory and not a hell: in the same way, when nature’s evil is done away with, over a long period of time [. . .] then the apocatastasis, into the primordial condition, of those who now lie in evil, will come about and give thanks with one voice by the whole of creation, both by those who were punished in purgation and by those who did not even need purgation.42

In his treatise The Life of Moses, Gregory of Nyssa, interpreting Exodus 10:23, plunged the Egyptians into the darkness, while he elevated the Israelites into the light. Moreover, in the same text, he also asserted that the Egyptians will remain in the dark for only three days, to then be brought into the light of God: a light that is not excluded for the Pharaoh himself and that will resurface in the Islamic debate on the Pharaoh in the Qur’ān, as in al-Māturīdī’s elucubrations (d. 944/333).43 By contrast, Gregory of Nazianzus (329–390 AD), a friend and contemporary of Gregory of Nyssa, established his interpretation of apocatastasis in the ontological finitude of evil and in the natural dynamism that impels all creatures endowed with reason towards God. Reflecting on the resurrection of the body, final salvation will not be a ‘restoration’ in the sense of regaining a pre-­corporeal state of the soul, but the realization of God’s eternal design for his angelic and human creatures, which finally attain his image and likeness.44 After the condemnation of the Origenist apocatastasis at the first and second Synod of Constantinople, the evolution of this dogma was to reinterpret it in a less philosophical and esoteric manner. Maximus the Confessor (580–662 AD), while supporting the view that all rational souls will eventually be redeemed, pointed out the interpretation of God’s will in being made compatible with the Christian understanding of man’s ultimate destiny, that implied a radical curtailment of human freedom. If Maximus the Confessor is right in defining freedom and self-­determination as the very sign of the image of God in man, it is obvious that this freedom is ultimate, and that man cannot be forced into a spiritual union with God, even in virtue of such a philosophical necessity as God’s goodness.

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Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought

At the ultimate confrontation with the Logos, on the last day, man will still have the option of rejecting Him and thus will go to Hell. In the Disputatio cum Pyrrho, Maximus (the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople 638–641 AD), argued that: ‘Since man was created according to the image of the blessed and supra-­essential deity, and since, on the other hand, the divine nature is free, it is obvious that man is free by nature, being the image of the deity.’45 Man’s freedom is not destroyed even by physical death; thus, there is the possibility of ongoing change and mutual intercession. However, it is precisely human freedom and responsibility that is the ultimate test of the last judgement. When alone in the entire cosmic system, man will still have the privilege of facing the eternal consequence of either his yes or his no to God.46 However, it is from the Latin Patristic Tradition that some suggestions on Christ’s saving role emerged: in fact, if Jesus conquered death and rose to life, there can be no eternal damnation. Hilary of Poitiers (300–368 AD) and Ambrose of Milan (340–397 AD) agreed with the Oriental Christian hope in the mercy of God and Jesus’ saving role: He will indeed deliver the Kingdom of God to the Father, not in the sense that he abandons his power, but in the sense that we, as we are shaped in the glory of his body, will be ourselves the Kingdom of God. The end of this subjugation is that ‘God may be all in all’, with the perfect transformation of man into the permanent image of his Creator.47 Like the conclusions and speculations on the apocatastasis by Isaac of Nineveh (d. 700 AD), we return to the word of the Gospels and specifically to the love of the word of God. His perspective on eternal salvation is not based on the return to the original state, as Greek cosmology had suggested, but is rather oriented towards the future. Furthermore, Isaac’s thought on apocatastasis remains within the realm of hope rather than that of dogmatic pronouncement, and he speaks of his own experience of God’s mercy and the purgative role of Hell to be shaped in an unknown future of Universal reconciliation.48 I say that those who are scourged in Gehenna are tormented by the scourging of love. The scourging that results from love – that is, the scourges of those who have become aware that they have sinned against love – are harder and more bitter than the torments which result from fear. The pain that gnaws at the heart as a result of sinning against love is sharper than all other torments that exist.49

Isaac’s reflection on the contrition that comes from the realization of God’s love is itself a harsh torment. As Ephrem the Syrian, in his meditation on the Last Judgement, had already pointed out, the pain and torment of Gehenna are

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17

psychological rather than physical, a passage quite similar to Islamic authors of the ninth century, in particular Mu‘ammar Ibn ‘Abbād al-Sulamī (d. 842/227). As Isaac stresses, the idea that the torments of Gehenna are retributive punishment is in fact blasphemous, because he attributes to God motives and actions that belong solely to the realm of human beings. On the surface it might seem that Isaac’s view that Gehenna was not eternal comes into conflict with the various Gospel passages that speak of ‘eternal fire’, but Isaac clearly understands the term ‘eternal’ in these verses as referring to linear time, which, at the end of Time, comes to an end. With this understanding, Isaac is able to conceive that ‘the mystery of Gehenna’ will finally, and in sacred time, no longer exist, when ‘God will be all in all’ (I Corinthians 15.28). This definitive passage will return in the Islamic understanding of the Fanā’ al-Nār; however, it is important to highlight, as reported at the beginning of this section, how authors such as Ephrem the Syrian, Isaac of Nineveh, but also John of Damascus, who were involved in a post-Origenist understanding of apocatastasis, were also historically and geographically near to the early Islamic formative era (seventh–eighth centuries). It is important to highlight that it would be difficult for the first Muslim theologians and mystics not to be aware that in Christian circles and monasteries the eternity of punishment and hell was a topic of discussion.50 However, this book is not interested in highlighting an inter-­religious methodological approach but aims to detail Islamic prerogatives in embracing Hell’s finiteness. It is clear that Abrahamic religions may have developed similar approaches. Nevertheless, the Islamic originality is to have broached the subject with a rational method working on different levels of analysis: l

l

l

l

l

the problem of human resurrection, the corporeal as the spiritual; the problem of the geography of the hereafter and its literal-­metaphorical understanding; the problem of human life and its cosmological comprehension; the problem of the presence of evil in the world, its creation and its annihilation; the understanding of God’s mercy and its effective concretization.

All these analytical points will be totally or partially discussed in depth in the following pages; at the same time, the annihilation of Hell will be examined considering the evolution and the maturation of Islamic thought during the formative and classical ages focusing on prominent authors of different historical phases.

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Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought

Qur’ān and Sunna: a hermeneutic prologue on Hell The word of God (Qur’ān) and the Tradition (Sunna and H.  adīth) are historically and religiously considered the first and the second juridical sources of Islām by importance, even though during its formative centuries the debate on the authenticity of the Sunna clearly emerged in parallel with early theological assumptions.51 The customary picture of Qur’ānic eschatology is depicted with the joys of the Garden (al-Jannah) and the punishments of Hell (al-Jahannam); the Word of God at various stages indicates the sins that earn a person consignment to Hell: lying, dishonesty, corruption, ignoring God and God’s revelations, denying the resurrection, social oppression, in particular referring to the poor and the orphans, opulence and ostentation. The literal images of Hell’s punishment are also clearly conceived and vividly transposed in extremely physical suffering. Like those who earned evil, the punishment of evil is similar evil, and abasement will cover them: they will have none to protect them from God, as if their faces had been covered with slices of dense darkness of night (X: 27); denial of water (VII: 50) and of light (LVII: 13); the key element of Hell is torture by fire: in the Qur’ān, Nār is synonymous with the flames of this fire that crackle and roar (XXIV: 14), cause water to boil (LV: 44), but also scorching wind and black smoke (LVI: 42–43). The companions of the fire will sigh and wail wretchedly (XI: 106), drinking festering water, and, though death appears all around them, they cannot die (XIV: 16–17).52 The above description emerges as important in promoting an image of Nār that resembles a desert where boiling water increases moisture in generalized inhospitality. The landscape seems on the one hand almost terrestrial, but on the other unlikeable for any creature. The Qur’ān gives a terrifying picture of damnation, a portrait designed to scare even the inhabitants, as the Arabs are, of deserts. However, the Qur’ān is not particularly clear on the duration of Hell. The word of God, as argued by Jane Idleman Smith and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, is also a historical text that narrates the relationship between Allah and human beings in an ongoing perspective of beginning and end in relation to earthly life.53 The starting point is certainly God’s creationist attitude. Nevertheless, Allah constantly acts to maintain and support the existence of all that he decided to bring into existence and, in this sense, time and history are actually a continuation of creation itself: the end of time will shape a new state and probably a form of existence, a new manifestation of God’s creative act in the transformation of the

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world after its destruction and the renewal of human beings in a total living body. Dunyā and’Ākhira represent total opposition: everything related to physical and spiritual aspects of existence on the earth, and the hereafter move beyond or exist apart from the measurement of time. In the eschatological vision of Islām, one can find repeated instances of the overlapping of temporal and spatial concepts. And this is our target: the temporal duration of Hell’s punishment or the contrary, its eternity. At the same time, the Qur’ān clearly states that nobody can be sure of being saved, much less in relation to their religion: ‘the Jew and the Christians say, “We are the children of God and His beloved ones”. Say, “Then why does He punish you for your sins? You are merely human beings, part of His creation: He forgives whoever He will and He punishes whoever He will” ’ (V: 18–19). God saves the righteous and condemns the damned regardless of religious belief; no intercession is admitted, except that decreed by his sovereignty (II: 255–256; XL: 7) and no Prophet can subtract one condemned to Hell (II: 45; II: 117) or rescue them after punishment (VII: 53; XXVI: 100). The Qur’ān reaffirms the reality of Hell and eternal justice, excluding that salvation can only be based on religious affiliation or be guaranteed by the intercession (IX: 113–114); on the contrary: It will not be according to your hopes or those of the People of the Book: anyone who does wrong will be requited for it and will find no one to protect or help him against God; anyone, male or female, who does good deeds and is a believer, will enter Paradise and will not be wronged by as much as the dip in a date stone. IV: 123–124

This emphasizes that God’s justice (‘adl) embraces everyone who is worthy of it. Muslim scholars are divided on the question as to whether the inhabitants of Hell will remain there forever. ‘Islamic Orthodoxy’ itself has been divided over the centuries on this topic: authors such as al-Ghazālī (d. 1111/504) and Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328/728) assumed wider positions on the salvation of nonMuslims and on the eternity of punishment. The Qur’ān, furthermore, is conflicting on the topic for different reasons: chronological and linguistic. Concerning our topic, for example, God’s omnipotence includes His capacity to establish a permanent reward and punishment. However, early Meccan descriptions of hell and paradise do not mention everlasting reward and perpetual punishment. On the contrary, in the verses that deal with the duration of the life in the hereafter, the damned are

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Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought

threatened that they will remain in Hell for ages (ah.  qāb, LXXVIII: 23; adadin, VI: 128; XI: 106–108) but not forever, in antithesis with the following, starting from the middle Meccan phase until the Medinan period (XXI: 99, XLIII: 74, LXXII: 23) when the formula ‘remained in it forever’ is widely used.54 On the linguistic level, the words commonly used in describing the stay in hell are kh-­l-d (Khuld- Khalada) and a-­b-d (Abadan), which are usually applied to those in both Hell and Paradise (IV: 13–14). The same word is used in verses such as VI: 128: Oh the day He gathers everyone together, Company of Jinn! You have seduced a great many humans, their adherents among mankind will say, ‘Lord, we have profited from one another, but now we have reached the appointed time you decreed for us.’ He will say, ‘Your home is the Fire, and there you shall remain unless God will otherwise: (Prophet), you Lord is all wise, all knowing.

It is also used in the more famous verse XI: 106–108: The wretched ones will in the Fire, sighing and groaning, there to remain for as long as the heavens and earth endure, unless your Lord will otherwise: your Lord carries out whatever He wills. As for those who have been blessed, they will be in Paradise, there to remain as long as the heaven and earth endure, unless your Lord wills otherwise, an unceasing gift.

Ergo both words can emphasize the possibility of a limited duration of Heaven and Hell in direct relationship with divine decisiveness. This passage increases confusion and clearly questions the eternity of Hell. J. Robson, in an article published in 1938 and entitled ‘Is the Moslem Hell Eternal?’, quoting ‘Abdullāh Yusūf ‘Alī’s English translation and commentary of the Qur’ān, strongly argues that the Word of God rejects the doctrine of the eternity of Hell. The author’s analysis turns out to be purely linguistic and related to the meaning of Khalada and Abadan. If the Indian scholar translates the first term as ‘immortality’ (shajarāt al-Khuld, XX: 120), as well as ‘the house of long abiding’ (dār al-Khuld, XLI: 28) and the ‘abiding garden’ in XXV: 15–16, as far as the second is concerned, Abadan is used in the Holy Qur’ān in two verses (LXIV: 9; XCVIII: 6–8), which he translates as ‘for a long time’ and ‘forever’ (even though the second refers to paradise), but in others (II: 75–81; IV: 13f; X: 26–27) as ‘to abide in them for ever’ or ‘they shall remain there’, with an arbitrary and confusing use of it.55 In the same article, however, on the verses already mentioned (VI: 128 and XI: 106–108), Yusūf ‘Alī argues in his notes that the term Abadan does not have the same meaning in both instances.

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When used for unbelievers, it shows that Hell is not everlasting; but when it is used for the believers it is followed by the phrase ‘a gift which shall never be cut off ’ and so, instead of expressing limitation, it is ‘used only to express the unbound power and greatness of the Divine Being’.56 Yusūf ‘Alī’s hermeneutical analysis is fascinating. Nevertheless, classical authors such as Zamakhsharī (d. 1144/538) or Baid. āwī (d. 1286/684) interpreted the term Abadan in continuity with a common Abrahamic understanding: when God in the Old and New Testament aims to assert the eternity of something, he uses a numerology that can identify this perpetuity, as for example seventy times seven; both the aforementioned exegetes consider Abadan as a word indicative of a period without an end.57 The above analysis refers not only to the topic of Hell’s eternity but to others as well: the Meccan–Medinan verses offered different interpretations on drinking fermented beverages or the covering of women’s beautiful parts. However, as reported in the contemporary period by Mah.  mūd M. T.aha (d. 1985/1405), the Medina suras reflect the birth of Islām and the Meccan ones that of Imām (faith); the audiences to which the Prophet talked were in fact very different. The concept of hypocrisy (fāsiq), for example, was mentioned for the first time during the Medinan phase but not during the thirteen years of the Meccan revelation, because in his home town there were no hypocrites, only believers or polytheists, and since there was no real compulsion to faith, the persuasive and peaceful verses were much more numerous than those of the next phase.58 The same methodological approach can be used for the concept of unbelief (Kufr). It is clear that all inhabitants, except the early Muslims, of Mecca were unbelievers (Kuffār), but the diplomacy and respect used towards them in the Meccan verses is completely different from the bitterness and contrast in the Medinese phase. In addition to the duplicity of the Qur’ān, in the early decades after the Prophet’s death, Islām faced a strong internal fragmentation (Fitna) with the emergence of the Khawārij and their violent attitude and literalist understanding: they highlighted the eternal condemnation of every Muslim sinner, excluding them from the Umma and condemning to eternal Hell too. A temporary Hell for Muslim sinners then emerged as a necessary option to preserve a logical and rational understanding of the Judgement Day; a following assumption concerning the absence of punishment for Muslims, although guilty of negligence, emerged as particularly necessary.59 From the point of view of the internal debate, the Islamic temporary Hell can be considered as the projection of a political eschatological choice of compromise in favour of an inclusive community, which refuses sectarianism and admits

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error and plurality inside it, even at the cost of limiting the human responsibility for the benefit of divine omnipotence. In the formative period, the contradiction in the Qur’ān seems to be admitted so as to be resolved authoritatively. From the point of view of the Ash‘arites of the classical period, however, the contradictions are only apparent: the Sunna provides an authoritative interpretation of the Qur’ān because it comes from its own source, and must therefore be able to be reconciled with it even when its relationship with the Qur’anic text seems elusive.60 However, if the Qur’ān is the expression of a word of God that is verbally eternal, as a written text related to the semiotic understanding of its age (moreover, linked to a historical period in which the Arabic language was still without accentuation), the Sunna, which comes second in authority to the Qur’ān, and took almost two centuries to be canonically formed, gives further reasons to doubt that Islām teaches the eternity of Hell, at least for Muslims. Muslim for example, gives the following H.  adīth: Allah’s apostle said, Allah will cause the people of Paradise to enter Paradise and the people of Hell to enter Hell; then an announcer will arise between them and say, Oh people of Paradise there is no death, and Oh people of Hell, there is no death; each one remains for ever (khālid) in that in which he is.61

But Ah. mad Ibn H.  anbal gives the following tradition about the people of Hell: Allah’s apostle said, As for the people of Hell who are ‘really’ its people, they will not die and they will not live. And as for the people to whom Allah wishes (to show) mercy, He will cause them to die in Hell and bring in intercessors for them.62

This first of all makes an unclear distinction between the real inhabitants of Hell (ahl an-Nār) and those who probably are only temporary dwellers in it, but also gives a hope of intercession, even for the eternally damned.63 Another relevant tradition asserts: ‘Some people who will be scorched by Hell (Fire) as a punishment for sins they have committed, and then Allah will admit them into Paradise by the grant of His Mercy. These people will be called, “AlJahannamiyyīn” (the people of Hell).’64 Finally, the last one considered, but probably the most important, asserts: Some of the people will stay in Hell (be destroyed) because of their (evil) deeds, and some will be cut or torn by the hooks (and fall into Hell) and some will be punished and then relieved. When Allah has finished His Judgements among the people, He will take whomever He will out of Hell through His Mercy. He will

Introduction then order the angels to take out of the Fire all those who used to worship none but Allah from among those whom Allah wanted to be merciful to and those who testified (in the world) that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah. The angels will recognize them in the Fire by the marks of prostration (on their foreheads), for the Fire will eat up all the human body except the mark caused by prostration as Allah has forbidden the Fire to eat the mark of prostration. They will come out of the (Hell) Fire, completely burnt and then the water of life will be poured over them and they will grow under it as does a seed that comes in the mud of the torrent. Then Allah will finish the judgements among the people, and there will remain one man facing the (Hell) Fire and he will be the last person among the people of Hell to enter Paradise. He will say, ‘O my Lord! Please turn my face away from the fire because its air has hurt me and its severe heat has burnt me.’ So he will invoke Allah in the way Allah will wish him to invoke, and then Allah will say to him, ‘If I grant you that, will you then ask for anything else?’ He will reply, ‘No, by Your Power, (Honour) I will not ask You for anything else.’ He will give his Lord whatever promises and covenants Allah will demand. So Allah will turn his face away from Hell (Fire). When he will face Paradise and will see it, he will remain quiet for as long as Allah will wish him to remain quiet, then he will say, ‘O my Lord! Bring me near to the gate of Paradise.’ Allah will say to him, ‘Didn’t you give your promises and covenants that you would never ask for anything more than what you had been given? Woe on you, O Adam’s son! How treacherous you are!’ He will say, ‘O my lord,’ and will keep on invoking Allah till He says to him, ‘If I give what you are asking, will you then ask for anything else?’ He will reply, ‘No, by Your (Honour) Power, I will not ask for anything else.’ Then he will give covenants and promises to Allah and then Allah will bring him near to the gate of Paradise. When he stands at the gate of Paradise, Paradise will be opened and spread before him, and he will see its splendour and pleasures whereupon he will remain quiet as long as Allah will wish him to remain quiet, and then he will say, ‘O my Lord! Admit me into Paradise.’ Allah will say, ‘Didn’t you give your covenants and promises that you would not ask for anything more than what you had been given?’ Allah will say, ‘Woe on you, O Adam’s son! How treacherous you are!’ The man will say, ‘O my Lord! Do not make me the most miserable of Your creation,’ and he will keep on invoking Allah till Allah will laugh because of his sayings, and when Allah will laugh because of him, He will say to him, ‘Enter Paradise,’ and when he will enter it, Allah will say to him, ‘Wish for anything.’ So he will ask his Lord, and he will wish for a great number of things, for Allah Himself will remind him to wish for certain things by saying, ‘(Wish for)

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Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought so-­and-so.’ When there is nothing more to wish for, Allah will say, ‘This is for you, and its equal (is for you) as well.’65

The same tradition is also reported by three different companions of the Prophet: ’Anas bin Mālik (d. 709/90), Abū Sa‘id al-Khudrī (d. 682/62 or 693/73) and Abū Hurayrah (d. 681/61). It remains unclear, however, whether this liberation from the fire is exclusively attributable to Muslims, even if they are responsible for serious sins, or also to believers of other faiths (Ahl al-Dhimma), monotheistic or associationists (Mushrikūn), or even to unbelievers (Kafirūn). This is also because, at least as regards the Kalām of early ‘Asharite thought, this H.  adīth is only ascribable to Muslims. On the contrary, considering the literal meaning of the same tradition, God’s judgement is for all people, as the last man facing Hell is not described as a Muslim, but as a normal unbeliever, so the doubt that this H.  adīth refers to all human beings persists.66 A classical hermeneutical debate on these Quranic verses and ah.  adīth emerged in the conflict that has lasted until the contemporary age. The ongoing Orthodox or conservative Islamic exegetes from different rationalist or more esoteric figures,67 authors such as Muh. ammad ‘Alī and Faz. lur Rah. mān,68 have argued that the essential function of Hell is both punitive as well as remedial and that after a time Hell will be emptied of all its inhabitants: The Man who lives in sin is debarred from the Divine presence, but being purified by fire, is again made fit for divine service. Hence Hell is called the friend (mawlā) of the sinners (LVII: 15) and their mother in another (CI: 9). Both descriptions are a clear indication that Hell is intended to raise up by purifying him from the dross of evil, just as fires purified gold of dross.69

At the same time, classical exegesis aims precisely to harmonize these apparent contradictions. In the case of the temporary nature of hell, there are three main interpretive tendencies: l

l

The restriction of eternal hell is unequivocally attributed to unbelievers, who are properly mentioned as the people of the fire (ahl an-Nār).70 The asymmetric difference between the promise and the threat: an eternal paradise and a temporary hell (VI: 128; XI: 107); a position that will finally be assumed by Ibn Taymiyya and that applies to all Qur’anic verses in which the eternity of the fire seems clearly explained.71

Introduction l

25

The interpretation of the above mentioned eternity (khulūd) is for a long time, but not eternal. ‘Hell lies in wait, a home for oppressors to stay in for a long, long time’ (LXXVIII, 21–23).72

In spite of this, in fourteen centuries of eschatological analysis on the Annihilation of Hell, or better the emptying of fire, the theological, philosophical and mystical lucubrations have been particularly rich and complex, but they always started from an analysis of the Qur’ān and Sunna. Therefore, the first part of this book will consider this hermeneutical prologue as specifically connected to the entire text.

1

Islamic Piety and Annihilation Islamic pietism and the early temporary nature of Hell The only way for a real understanding of the message of the Qur’ān and the H.  adīth is to purify the heart in order to be worthy of being instructed by God himself – ‘Be mindful of God, and He will teach you’ (II: 282) – since being fearful of God (taqwā) is mentioned (XLIX: 13) as the highest human attribute in the eyes of Allah. The lines above might have seemed antithetical to the pre-­urban and trading society of H.  ijāz in which Islām emerged in the seventh century and the centuries that followed. In an even more disconcerting way it would seem unthinkable that an Arab society undergoing great military and political expansion during the decades of the Rightly Guided Caliphs (632/10–661/40) or of the Umayyad Caliphate could consider asceticism and limit consumerism as a predominant characteristic. The ascetic tone of the first Meccan revelations – ‘You people desire the transient goods of this world, but God desires the Hereafter for you, God is mighty and wise’ (VIII: 67) – survived as a pedagogical element in the reality of Medina. However, reality steered the spirit of the young pre-Islamic community on to an entirely different course from the one that the Prophet had followed at the beginning of his work;1 the idea of rejecting an excessively material world was supplanted by that of conquering it.2 The conquering campaigns historically began as normal raids and, according to the ordinary Arab–Bedouin attitude, deeply transformed the mindset of a community that at the beginning was linked to the Shūrā and a ’Amīr al-Mu’minīn, while after few decades it had already created a monarchical system led by a Khalīfa Allah.3 Nussāk as ascetics, Bakkā’ūn as penitents or ‘weepers’ and Qus.s.ās. as itinerant preachers, at first isolated in rural areas, gradually tended to fall into two schools, like the members of other branches of Muslim thought (those who would then

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rise to become the first groups of theologians). These schools had their headquarters in the Mesopotamian plain such as in the urban areas of Bas.ra and Kūfa.4 Documentary information argued for the existence of certain people adorned by the highest degree of Muslim piety. This was the case of al-Zubayr Ibn al‘Awwān (d. 656/35), of the Quraysh tribe, a man of such piety that he was considered one of the ten people to whom the Prophet could grant, during their lifetime, the happy assurance of entering Paradise; another of the ten pious was T.alh.a ibn ‘Ubayd Allāh (d. 656/35). Both, very rich during their terrestrial life, left huge assets to the Islamic community, especially to the neediest.5 Islamic ‘piety’ nevertheless cannot be solely attributable to the Prophet’s companions (both the aforementioned were also killed during the Battle of the Camel in 656/35) for the emoluments they left to the Muslim community or for the enrichment from which the community benefited. The spending of the plundered treasures ‘in the way of God’ and for the benefit of the poor and the needy was intended to counterbalance the materialistic strand in the successful conquest.6 ‘For every bite that a believer puts into his mouth he receives a reward from God’, ‘God loves the Muslim who keeps up the strength of his body more than He loves the weakening’ and, finally, ‘He who eats and is thankful (to God) is as worthy as he who practises renunciation and fasting’.7 In all these traditions, the ruling idea is that the law prescribes a measure for the renunciation of worldly goods and that no forms of mortification are desired in excess by the law. The internal fight in the Ummah between the human desire for a material world and a more spiritual-­ascetic one is first of all eschatologically established in the contrast, also well defined in the Qur’ān, between the physical pleasures of Paradise and the corporeal suffering of Hell, and the ‘subtler’ idea of the soul in the afterlife. Pietists, at the beginning, tended in opposition to political determinism (related to human beings who acted against God’s command) to worry about whether their actions were acceptable to God, and whether they could not do better by increasing their efforts to live in a way pleasing to Him. The origin of such pietism in early Islām is quite obscure; it is historically evident that it emerged to counteract the violence of Muslim sects, Khārijites in particular, balancing it and showing the considerable numbers of individuals passionately concerned about their own conduct, and determined to conform their lives to God’s will.8

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This tendency reflected the early Prophetic Meccan–Muslim community in fighting the injustices which the Quraysh elite preserved in the main urban area of central Arabia. The increasing impact of civil wars in the Umma under the Umayyad (661/40–750/132),9 in particular the second Fitna (680/60692/72), the injustices against the mawālī, who converted to Islām without benefiting from the same status as the Arabs, and the excessive increase in wealth, but only for a small minority, worsened the internal relationships in the Umma, increasing messianic attitudes in parallel with the number of pietistic schools, of which the most famous was that of Bas.ra, led by H.  asan al-Bas.rī (ca. 646/25/–728/109).10 Furthermore, it is evident that the first assumption concerning the temporary nature of Hell emerged in Islamic pietism both in contrast with the radical interpretation of the Khārijite sects, in particular the H.  arūriyyah and the ’Azāriqa, who accused every Muslim guilty of a grave sin of no longer being Muslim and therefore punishable by death, and then with the apocalyptic eschatological imagery that emerged after the Prophet’s death. In the early Islamic century, religious sectarianism, violence in the Umma, as well as the influence of Christian apocalypticism and Gnosticism, had encouraged the eschatological nature of Islām and the idea that the other-­world was coming.11 In parallel, the condemnation of all Muslims to eternal Hell by some Khārijite sects, after 656/35, would have depicted a Hell especially inhabited by Muslims. For the above reasons the idea of a temporary Hell, at least for Muslims, is manifest from the beginning of the Islamic formative age.12

H.  asan al-Bas.rī and the debate on predestination H.  asan al-Bas.rī, the famous pious scholar who criticized the Umayyad governors of Iraq13 and opposed the violent attitude of the first Khārijites, was also probably forced into hiding for ten years between 705/85 and 714/95.14 Because of his political dissent, al-Bas.rī could be considered the first Muslim author in whom a pietistic attitude is condensed with a quietist political position, but also a rigorist view of sin. With his main disciple, Qatāda ibn Di‘āma (d. 735/116), he denied that a sinner could exculpate himself by claiming that God was the source of his human action. This was a clear assertion of human responsibility. Two main elements appeared in the earliest stage of Islamic asceticism, one liturgical, the other ethical: the Dhikr ‘mention in the repetition’ as an expression

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of the Quranic admonition ‘to remember God often’ (XXXIII: 21); and tawakkul ‘trust in God’ which could bring ascetics to the utmost degree of passive quietism.15 Al-Bas.rī’s concept of the religious life was essentially an ascetic one, in which piety, poverty and contempt for worldly goods were primary ingredients. The method proposed consisted of reflection (fikr), self-­examination (muh.āsabah) and total submission to God’s will. However, Michael Schwarz’s understanding of ‘The Letter of H.  asan alBas.rī’16 in which the ascetic of Bas.ra responds to the Umayyad Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik (685/65–705/85), about his main ethical awareness on predestination and free will, also gives us important information on H.  asan’s eschatological understanding. The debate on the authenticity of the Letter, nevertheless, has only been partially solved by Suleiman Ali Mourad in his work on the famous author: The silence about the Epistle in Sunnite sources, as mentioned earlier, led to the suggestion of a deliberate whitewashing on the part of the Sunnite authors who wanted to dissociate al-H.  asan from free will. But this, tellingly, is a silence not limited to the Sunnite sources. It is an overwhelming silence, especially when it matters most. It is never referred to by either side in their attempts to demonstrate the orthodoxy of their views as contrasted with the deviating beliefs of their opponents.

With al-T.ūfī and al-Shahrastānī as examples of Sunnite theologians who knew of the attribution of the Epistle to al-H.  asan and tried to disprove it, we have almost as much evidence about its existence from Sunnite sources as we have from Mu‘tazilite sources, namely the two excerpts of ‘Abd al-Jabbār and alHākim al-Jushamī. There is nothing that suggests a Mu‘tazilite relationship to the extant manuscript recension.17 However, Ali Mourad also argued that it is not far-­fetched to ascribe this Letter to the Mu‘tazilite entourage of ‘Abd al-Jabbār (d. 1025/415) or a colleague of his, like the Zaydite ‘Abd ‘Allah al-Bas.rī (d. 979/368), clarifying that the author was a clear opponent of the belief in divine predestination of human actions because it contradicts divine justice and has an adverse influence on human morals.18 When, in the Letter, we reach the central question of theodicy, ‘Are man’s evil acts pre-­ordained by God? If so, God could be said to wrong man. Is it at all possible that evil proceeds from God?’, H.  asan al-Bas.rī’s answer is quite clear. Referring to Qur’ān III: 178–182, God did not change (i.e. withdraw and

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replace by its opposite) a favour He had bestowed on people (lam yakun mughayyiran ni‘matan an‘amahā ‘alā qawmin), until they changed what is in their souls. Thus, at first favour came from God, but the change (taghyīr) came from men (al-‘ibād), because they disobeyed His commandment as He said (Qur’ān, XIV: 28–29): Have you not considered those who have bartered God’s favour for infidelity and caused their people to descend into the house of perdition, into Hell. Thus favour was from God, and the barter from men, because they failed to do what He had commanded and they did that which He had forbidden them.19 In other words, man’s happiness is a favour from God, but he incurred his plight through his own disobedience. It is human beings who are in contrast with God’s commands, doing evil acts, fouling their souls and their relationship with the divinity. H.  asan al-Bas.rī’s comment on XCI: 7–8, ‘by the soul and how He formed it and inspired it (to know) its own rebellion and piety!’, means that God inspires it with the knowledge of the difference between the two (rebellion and piety) and, in support of this, the Quranic quotation continues: ‘The one who purifies his soul succeeds and the one who corrupts it, fails (XCI: 9–10). If it had been He who corrupts it, He would not have made Himself miserable.’ Many theological elements already emerge in the above lines; namely H.  asan al-Bas.rī’s first understanding of the Niyya, human responsibility and the importance of the soul’s purification as a process to attain salvation. Human beings’ sincerity towards God is rooted in its complacency. The Visio Beatifica focuses in the middle on the ‘Face of God’, which is an eschatological target that could be reached only through soteriological levels of God’s gratification. When God feels rewarded this pleasure reaches the hearts of the human being who has pursued with success this great step: ‘the enjoyment and the joy that comes in their hearts for the pleasure of God surpasses any other joy or solace got to heaven’.20 This is a clear un-­predestinarian stance: al-H.  asan suggests that people should not grieve over loss of property or income, at bereavements, and should not rejoice at earthly gains. But this does not include matters of religion. There is nothing more worthy of grief than having missed acts of religious obedience and God’s complacency. The author from Bas.ra argued that in support of the context of the entire Sūra LVII and other verses in the Qur’ān, God is far too just to blind a man and then tell him: ‘See, lest I punish you’ or ‘Speak, lest I punish you’. However, concerning predestination, it is also significant to emphasize that all human actions are recorded (XVIII: 49): ‘The record of their deeds will be laid

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open and you will see the guilty, dismayed at what they contain, saying: Woe to us! What a record this is! It does not leave any deed, small or large, unaccounted for! They will find everything they ever did laid in front of them: your Lord will not be unjust to anyone.’ This verse can also be interpreted as related to God’s omniscience on all human beings’ actions, which are reported in a physical book that God will uncover during the Day of Judgement. ‘God will give firmness to those who believe in the firmly rooted world, both in their world and in the Hereafter, but the evildoers He leaves to stray: God does whatever He will’ (XIV: 27). Therefore one of the things He does is to strengthen those who believe on account of their belief and their righteousness (the book of Job amply clarifies this passage) and to lead astray the wrongdoers on account of their rejection of God’s message and their enmity.21 It is possible indeed for H.  asan al-Bas.rī to maintain that God punished man by withdrawing His grace (lut.f) from him; the topic is expressed at the end of his Risāla: ‘Willing though I am to give you counsel, it will not profit you if God seeks to mislead you. He is your Lord and to Him you shall return’22 (XI: 34). When repentance or belief reappears only in the very presence of punishment (as Noah’s case clarifies), it will not be accepted and does not merit reward. In spite of this, God’s guidance (VI: 35: If you find rejection by the disbelievers so hard to bear, then seek a tunnel into the ground or a ladder into the sky; if you can, bring them a sign: God could bring them all to guidance if it were His will, so do not join the ignorant) implies that those who are wicked are so because God did not wish to guide them. God wants to put them to trial, in order to reward or punish them. The free will of humans is preserved from the beginning, even if God’s power to coerce (iljā’) the unbelievers could be a clear option of power for the deity.23 Human responsibility is reconfirmed here as well as man’s evil deeds as its exclusive creation. However, God’s objectivism is also first pronounced without a clear explanation. It is possible that the Bas.ra author balanced human insincerity with greater coercion in recovering His confidence. For H.  asan, the return to God is possible only if the human being’s sincerity is supported by an intentional purification process on fī sabīl Allah, distinguishing between the fight for the cause of God and the fight because of God.24 On the contrary, another relevant passage of the Qur’ān (VI: 125) is interpreted by H.  asan al-Bas.rī as God’s responsibility of not imposing on man anything beyond his power. Men have been created to worship God and have the power to do this; however, God will open the hearts of those who obey Him to Islām as a reward for their obedience. He will make obedience easier for them

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and disobedience difficult, rebalancing the previous assumption and trying to not narrow the hearts of those who do not fulfil His commandments and persevere in infidelity, as an expression of His mercy.25 The author from Bas.ra tried to refute the last passages, also in relation to the belief that some men were created before Hell (VII: 178–179): ‘We have created for Hell many of the Jinn and of mankind. They have hearts wherewith they do not understand, eyes wherewith they do not see, ears wherewith they do not hear. [. . .] These are the neglectful.’ Al-H.  asan refuted this belief by saying that the second part of the verse clarifies that God creates them, but commits them to Hell because of their evil demeanour. As for J. Robson in the introduction, the semiotic interpretation is here particularly important, dhara’nā li-­jahannam: ‘we have created for Hell’ does not mean ‘for’, but ‘He created them, but they eventually ended up there’. H.  asan al-Bas.rī would have increased the role of the verses like LXXIV: 36–56, which explains how human beings deserve Paradise or Hell in relation to their actions: It is one of the mightiest things, a warning to all mortals, to those of you who choose to go ahead and those who lag behind. Every soul is held in pledge for its deeds, but the Companions of the right will stay in Gardens and ask about the guilty. What drove you to the Scorching fire? And they will answer, We did not pray; we did not feed the poor; we indulged with others; we denied the Day of Judgement until the Certain end came upon us. No intercessor’s plea will benefit them now. What is the matter with them? Why do they turn away from the warning like stampeding asses fleeing from a lion? Each one of them demands that a scripture be sent down to him and unrolled before his very eyes – No! Truly they have no fear of the life to come but truly this is a reminder. Let whoever wishes to take heed to do: they will only take heed if God so wishes. He is the Lord who should be heeded, the Lord of forgiveness.

If, on the one hand, the eschatological dimension in the first half of the eighth century reflects the debate on human responsibility for its own behavioural activism, probably in relation to the violent attitude of the Khārijites’ sectarism against Muslims who did not support their point of view, on the other hand, it is connected with the necessary confidence in punishment and with the hope that God might be merciful. However, the above analysis of God’s will to make disobedience easier and obedience difficult also needs to be considered in relation to another debate: that of the Pharaoh’s status as a great unbeliever and his salvation, which is also linked with H. al-Bas.rī’s earlier consciousness.26 Ibn al-Mubarāk (d. 797/180) in

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his Kitāb al-Zuhd, referring to a tradition concerning the author from Bas.ra, argued: A man asked a friend of his: ‘My friend, Have you been told that you are doomed to Hell?’ He replied: ‘Yes.’ [The first] asked: ‘Have you been told that you will be released from it?’ [The second] replied: ‘No.’ [The first] asked: ‘Why then are you laughing?’ Ever after [the second man] was not seen laughing till he died.27

This seems to clarify al-Bas.rī’s position on the eternity of Hell, subsequently confirmed by another tradition: ‘Protect your soul, oh son of Adam, for if you are thrown in Hell, it will never recover.’28 The fear of Hell and the sorrow for those who enter it makes the historical period under examination clear: a pietistic fear of losing the faith, in addition to a messianic-­apocalyptic expectation for the return of the Mahdī, who at the end of the seventh century was already identified in many figures, such as that of Muh.ammad Ibn al-H.  anafiyya (d. 700/80). It is therefore quite unlikely that in the first half of the eighth century, in southern areas of Iraq, a clearly anti-Umayyad region, there could be speculative argument about the eternity or non-­eternity of Hell; the main reason ponders on the need to provide certainty rather than increase the doubt in a historical age when the Khārijites and proto-Shī‘te Messianic revolts29 are destabilizing a part of the Umayyad caliphate.

The status of the believer and the fit.ra On the contrary, the debate on Hypocrisy and the status of the Muslim sinner was undoubtedly relevant30 and a ‘theology of Hypocrisy’ had developed since the second half of the seventh century assuming an eschatological value. This is the starting point and the acknowledgement for an Islamic thought that initially affected the debate on the status of the sinner. Some Khāridjites, the Najdiyya sect, argued that killing women and children is prohibited in Islām.31 This notion is rooted in the belief that every child is born in the fit.ra,32 the natural basis of true religion: ‘Every child is born in the fit.ra; it is his parents who make of him a Jew or a Christian or a Parsi.’33 Al-Nawawī (d. 1277/675), a Shāfi‘ī Sunnite author from Damascus, who argued about the fate of children who die before reaching the adult age, pointed out: The Doctors of some authority are agreed on this point, the children of Muslim parents, who die, will be of the inhabitants of Paradise, because they have not been under the obligation of the law34 [. . .] as to the children of the infidels there

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are three options. According to the majority of the doctors, they will go to Hell, like their fathers. Others take up an attitude of reserve. The third group – whose opinion is the right one – thinks these children will go to Paradise. This opinion is supported by various arguments; by a reference, for instance, to the tradition according to which Muhammad saw Abraham in Paradise surrounded by children. When those who were present exclaimed: Even by the children of the infidels? Muhammad answered: Even by the children of the infidels.35

It is relevant that in a historical period in which conflicts and raids were the norm the salvation of children was particularly important in a formative eschatology that was distinguishing the Sinner’s status in direct connection with decisions concerning what was allowed and what was rejected. At the same time, salvation, like the temporary nature of Hell for Muslim believers involved in the violent struggles, assumed obvious importance. The fāsiq, the ‘hypocrite Muslim’, like the children killed during their fit.ra status, belonged to the tentative of not denying the status of believer for a common sinner and to an infant still far away from understanding the difference between good and evil. The idea that sin is unable to exclude the hypocrite Muslim from the community clearly emerged during the seventh–­eighth centuries to overcome the absurd thesis that salvation is only related to the Prophet’s family, or that no Muslim would be punished for even serious sins.36 The temporary nature of Hell for Muslim sinners emerged therefore as a necessary consequence. This doctrine was to be confirmed in the following centuries by orthodox theological schools (Ash‘arite and Maturidite). The intermediate status of the munāfiq (the hypocritical), as interpreted by the Murjī’a and subsequently supported by the Mu‘tazila and the whole of Sunnite orthodox theology, was established in antithesis to the violence of those who maintained that every grave sin caused damnation and loss of the status of Muslim (the Khāridjites Azāriqa in particular) and eternal damnation to Hell, which led to great disruption in this critical historical phase. Whosoever sayeth: There is no God but Allah and dieth in this belief will enter Paradise. Even if he should have fornicated and stolen? He answered: Even if he should have fornicated and stolen. Even though Abū Dharr37 should turn up his nose.38

The discussion on the status of the munāfiq, which is a fairly moderate position, overlaps the ‘fear of God’ as expressed by H.  asan al-Bas.rī (d. 728/109) in Al-Istighfārāt al-Munqidha min al-Nār (Prayers for Forgiveness that Save from the Hellfire)39 in which the Bas.ra author elaborated more than seventy

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short prayers for every believer who seeks the forgiveness of God. This litany of requests for clemency is already rooted in atonement and physical deprivations (such as spending a whole night awake)40 but also in the possibility of repeating the same sin: ‘Oh Allah, I seek your forgiveness for every sin for which I repented to You, but which I then returned to, breaking the covenant between me and You, out of my insolence and my knowledge of your Abundant forgiveness.’41 This request for forgiveness was exclusively established on God’s mercy and not on the real human capacity to obtain Allah’s clemency, despite knowing the position of H.  asan al-Bas.rī on Islamic theodicy and free will.42 It is therefore important to stress how at the beginning of the eighth century, Islamic awareness on eschatology was predominantly attributed to establishing a community on limited assumptions: the salvation of the munāfiqūn, without whom there would no longer be an Islamic Umma, and the Mercy of God, without which there can be no salvation. At the same time, the importance of repentance is emphasized by H.  asan alBas.rī in Al-Istighfārāt, as is the importance of duties (Farā’id.) and obligations (Takālīf): to act for God’s love and to please Him, the formative idea of Niyya as well as fighting fī sabīl Allah are all examples of a ‘purificative’ praxis which needs to affect human hearts as the physical location where the soul acts and suffers. If the afterlife is still obscure and little identified, the soul’s detoxification from the violence of this age has already been taken into account. In parallel, the concept of fit.ra will anticipate by many centuries al-Ghazālī’s defence (d. 1111/504) of ignorance of those who cannot or do not want to know Islām43: this is one of several contradictory sources on the salvability of the infants of unbelievers. The theologians were uncertain and in disagreement on the whole question, but at the beginning of the Islamic era and in clear contrast with the strict Khawārij who condemned them to Hell, the idea was that children of unbelievers go to Paradise if they die before reaching maturity, arguing that such children are in fact believers ‘in flux’ and cannot be killed. In the eighth–ninth centuries, the Mu‘tazilite debate on this topic would have absolutized the discussion considering the fit.ra as closely related to an Islamic preordained identity. However, the Mālikī jurist Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr (d. 1070/463) interpreted fit.ra as the neutral state of every new-­born that has the potential to do both good and evil in their future life.44 Islamic jurisprudence was to decree that orphans or abandoned children without a clear religious affiliation had to be brought up in fact within the Islamic community.45

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Towards the creation of an Islamic eschatological ‘character’ The revolution that toppled the Umayyads,46 as well as moving the heart of the Islamic empire from the Mediterranean to the Iranian plateau, increased the appetite for religious confrontation in an inter-­religious dimension, supporting an Islamic formative awareness. A proto-Kalām dimension intermingled with a proto-S.ūfism defined for the first time an early juridical background to fix moral norms related to the most important aspects of early theological elaboration. A different opening arose, notwithstanding the previous messianic expectation, during the late seventh and early eighth centuries, bringing for the first time a different understanding of religious eschatology. In the Fiqh Akbar I, art.  7 is very different from the risk reported above concerning community deflagration: ‘Difference of opinion in the community is a token of divine mercy.’47 However, this first example of Islamic ‘aqīda remains difficult to understand and is partially relevant; art. 9 on the real presence of God in a specific place creates confusion, opposing opinions that are clearly not reliable, while art. 10, the only one with an eschatological background, sets off a first conjecture on the main topic: ‘Whoso sayeth, I do not know the punishment in the tomb, belongeth to the sect of the Djahmites which goeth to perdition’,48 which can be better understood as a clear attack against the Jahmite sect, which we will discuss shortly, than a real speculation on the punishment of the tomb,49 on which the holy Qur’ān is extremely attentive in its references. (IX, 102; LII, 47; XXIII, 21, all talk about different punishments, but without a clear identification of the Tomb’s chastisement.) Who the real author of the Fiqh Akbar I was has been argued in depth by Wensinck50 and it is important to underline that a H.  anafite source seems certain, even though with a Murji’te’s view (the anti-Khāridjite tendency of the first articles is clear); it is therefore significant to highlight the continuity between the first theological positions of H.  asan al-Bas.rī and that of the author of Fiqh. The production of this first text is attributable to the eighth century,51 but as reported by al-Tirmidhī: I command you to fear God and to be obedient servants even if your Imām were an Abyssinian slave. For whoever of you live long, shall witness many dissensions (ikhtilāf); but beware ye of novel things, for they are errors. Whoever live to see this should cling to my Sunna and to the Sunna of well-­guided caliphs, who walked in the right path.52

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The tradition that mentions the Abyssinian slave is identical to a classical sentence of the early Khārijites period, while the second phrase highlights the historical need to remain rooted to a few orthodox norms to prevent disagreement by the community. However, the paradigmatic aspect of this article, in deep contrast with Wensinck’s real understanding on the commentary, reflects the difference of opinion as a merciful feature: the author attributes this positive attitude only to a juridical viewpoint while on the contrary the Fiqh Akbar I did not ratify this distinction. The eternity of punishment is not considered as a formative notion that materializes in these decades. The Fiqh Akbar I seems related only to the first half of the eighth century rather than to the whole of it. The information on the afterlife that emerges, on the other hand, from the Was.īyat Abī H.  anīfa is relevant to better understanding the Islamic theological position in the eighth–ninth centuries; if art. 18–19 confirm the existence of the punishment in the tomb led by the angels Munkar and Nakīr, art. 20 confirms the existence of Paradise and Hell as pre-­existing to the human being, in contrast with the Jahmite-Mu‘tazilite positions which emphasized the creation of both by God: ‘at the time of separation of the two groups’.53 Art. 20 is significant because it reflects a strong break from Fiqh Akbar I: We confess that Paradise and Hell are a reality and that they are creating and existing at present, that neither they nor their inhabitants will vanish since the Scripture says regarding the Faithful: it is prepared for the God-­fearing, and regarding the infidels. It is prepared for the infidels, they were created with a view to reward and punishment respectively.54

The article analyses in connection with 25 and 2755 some prominent eschatological aspects:

1. That Paradise and Hell are realistically physical and both already subsist in the present (today, in the past as in the future). 2. Paradise and Hell will not vanish and their inhabitants will remain there forever. 3. The Prophet’s intercession is possible but only for the preordained inhabitants of Paradise, even if they are guilty of a mortal sin. A major change is reflected in the historical phase between the two texts: an eschatological idea of the afterlife materialized with its representation and an early debate on its duration and its inhabitants, in close connection with a literal understanding of the Qur’ān that is again confirmed in art.  27 in which the

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categories of the people of Paradise and Hell (the people responsible for a mortal sin) are clearly defined with an apparent emphasis that both these places will not vanish. In response to the Quranic verse (XXVIII, 88), ‘Everything will vanish, except the face of Allah’, the position suggests that all will be annihilated excluding God’s essence: ‘All things besides His essence are contingent; all that is contingent vanishes, and, as compared with His essence, is not existent.’56 The main change reflects the historical transition between the eighth century and the middle of the ninth, as Wensinck reports: the Was.īya seems to have originated in a period between Abū H.  anīfa (d. 767/149) and Ah.mad Ibn H.  anbal (d. 855/240) and probably belongs to the latter part of that period.57 The historicist process of these texts58 enlightens the development of an Islamic formative theology and orthodoxy in the early centuries focusing on the H.  anafite position which emerged as quite anti-Khāridjites (and pro-Murj’ite) in Fiqh Akbar I, anti-Mu‘tazilite in the Was.īyat Abī H.  anīfa, more pro-Mu‘tazilite than Ash‘arite in the Fiqh Akbar II, while finally, more H.  anafite–Māturīdite inspired, in the Fiqh Akbar III which is attributed to the eleventh–twelfth century. The attempt to harmonize the new Kalām positions with a proto-S.ūfī perception, referring to an updated religious sensitivity as it was emerging in the eighth and ninth centuries, is explained by the interconnection between different authors who came from dissimilar backgrounds or geographical areas, from Syria to Iran. The canonization process of an Islamic ‘aqīda (creed/doctrine) includes aspects previously considered unorthodox but then later the opposite; at the same time, in continuity with a pietistic approach, the eighth century is the first in which a rational-­ascetic idea of the annihilation of the afterlife emerged between the lines. A famous tradition by Rābi‘a l-‘Adawiyya (d. 801/184) recites: ‘If a man owned the World he would not be rich. Why? – she was asked. Because the World, will perish.’59 Renunciation, or asceticism (zuhd), are to be considered alongside with this high conception of poverty. The first stage of zuhd for a S.ūfī is initiatory and represents the purgative Life, through which the novice must pass before setting foot on the Mystic way. But when the soul has been purified from all sensual desires and the mystical ‘pure from the Self as flame from smoke’ sets forth upon his journey towards God, then he passes beyond this early degree of zuhd and aims at the last stage, renunciation of all but God, attained only by the adept.60 In al-S.an‘ānī, Raf ‘al-­astār li-­ibt.āl adillat al-­qā’ilin bi-­fanā’ al-Nār,61 the doctrine of unification (tawh.īd) is compared with a drop of water absorbed by wine, yet

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the two are of a different nature; iron may take on the heat and colour of the fire and yet the two remain distinct substances – there is still duality. But the drop of water in the ocean is symbolic, on the contrary, of still not losing its identity, and returns to the main source like the spirit of a manmade one with the eternal spirit.62 Al-Sarrāj gave a definition of tawakkul as: ‘you should be to God as if you were not and God should be to you as One who was and is and shall be to eternity’.63 The proto-S.ūfī dimension in the eighth century is already projected into the clear distinction between the physical body and the spiritual soul; the rejection of the Islamic world politically inherited by the Umayyad, who increased the domination of materiality and consumerism, revealed a change in the ascetic thought of the eighth century, in comparison with ninth-­century authors such as al-H.  ārith al-Muh.āsibī (d. 857/242) and al-H.  akīm al-Tirmidī (d. 869/255) who were more systematically influenced by Kalām. Rābi‘a l-‘Adawiyya (d. 801/184), Rayhāna al-Wālihat (the Kidnapped by God) who lived in the age of Sālih al-Murrī (d. 788/171 or 792/175), ‘Ubayda bint Abī Kilāb of Bas.ra, contemporary of Mālik Ibn Dīnār (d. 745/127), but also Lubāba al-Muta‘abbida (the Devotee) and Umm ‘Alī Fātima (of whom the tradition recites: ‘God called to Himself human beings with every kind of goodness and favour, but they did not respond. Then He torments them with every kind of action so that they return to Him through the afflictions, because He loves them’)64 are some of the main female protagonists of a pietistic total abandonment in God which already provided the spiritual annihilation in the Almighty. It is therefore important to highlight how, in the same decades in which the idea of the annihilation of the soul in God appears, in the Khurāsān region, Jahm Ibn S.afwān (d. 746/128) was questioning the eternity of the world from a philosophical and theological point of view.

Islamic sectarianism, Jahm Ibn S.afwān and Fanā’ early content The eschatological position of Jahm Ibn S.afwān, at the time of the Fiqh Akbar I, one of the leading figures of early Islamic theology, became particularly controversial and difficult to classify. Allah, for him, is the only active power in the Universe, all that is related with a motion had been created by God, a doctrine of absolute tawh.īd, rejected by the Mu‘tazila, the school which also opposed Jahm’s position on absolute predestination (jabr). As the only mover in the world, God must necessarily remain the only being in the world as soon as he ceases to preserve it.65

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It is therefore in relation to this assumption that Jahm Ibn S.afwān was the first to use the term Fanā’ as reported by al-Khayyāt. in the Kitāb al- Intis.ār,66 al-Baghdādī in al-Farq bayna al-Firāq67 and al-Ash‘arī in the Maqālāt alIslāmiyyīn.68 All these assumptions seem to rely on the concept that Allah is not a thing (shay’) and His infinity is ascribed by Richard M. Frank to Plotinus’ Enneads. God is for him without limits, boundaries or a terminology used to define him: ‘He is not described or known by any attribute or act [. . .] He is not grasped by mind and whatever may occur to your thought as a being, He is contrary to it.’69 Jahm rejects the notion that nature in itself is able to produce movements and actions like humans’ power to generate activities; in deep contrast with the early Mu‘tazila, the Jahmites argued that man has no power (qudra), no will (irāda) and no freedom of choice (ikhtiyār). God creates all human actions that subsequently are attributed to his creature as to inert objects. The act of qudra is in itself a thing, even if immaterial; it is important to note that God’s power in being is a shay’ other than Allah but dependent on him, located outside the undifferentiated absoluteness of his unity, a kind of hypostasis analogous to the World Soul or the Nous of the Neo-Platonists.70 There is a clear analogy between Jahm’s understanding of an omnipresent and always active monotheistic divinity in the world and the all-­permeating activity of the World Soul in the awareness of Plotinus, a few centuries earlier. The main difference where it is difficult to find a correspondence concerns the connection of this omnipotent God (or World Soul) with the individual soul as immaterial and opposed to the crude physicality of the creatures, in particular the human body. For that reason, the sources are solely centred on the distinction between God’s knowledge and the object known, but also between God’s act of knowing and the reality that He Knows.71 Al-Ash‘arī in the Maqālāt argued that Allah’s act of knowing is created, for God knows all things prior to their actual existence by an act of knowing which he creates before them.72 This action of knowledge is related to its content and the latter can only be different from the knower. The essence of the knower, while not the same thing, is understood through the subject of the act of knowing, which may be liable to errors and misunderstandings. On the contrary, it is clear that the act of knowing takes place outside God and not within Himself to limit the risk of creating a hypostasis, immaterial and distinct from God.

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Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought It is argued that His Acts of knowing cannot be subsistent (qā’im) in Him since this would imply a substrate (mah.all) for accidents and events; whatever is a substrate for accidents and events is a body and God is above that, since the demonstration of the real existence of the Creator rests on the temporal coming to be of the world.73

It is clear that Jahm or his successors argued that whatever is composite could not be the First, with the necessity to look for a source for its being in existence. Devoid of real eschatological thought, but in relation to this compulsory nature and the inevitability of our human acts, denying altogether our power to act, Jahm interprets the existence of Paradise and Hell as physically real and therefore intended to a double annihilation (Fanā’), when God will decide. No act or deed belongs to anyone other than God.74 As reported in the Qur’ān (LV, 26; LVII, 3), ‘Everyone on Earth will perish’ and ‘He is the First and the Last’. Annihilation is therefore an expression of the temporal finiteness of the World, which must end in a return to God, but the ethical methodology to impose this return is unclear and not detailed. The temporal creation of Heaven and Hell, for the Mu‘tazila, was established by God at the right time, before or right after the Judgement and not when He created the Earth, which is symptomatic of the limit of the duration of these two geographies. Al-Malat. ī in his Kitāb al-Tanbīh states: ‘Jahm argued that Heaven and Hell will cease, and the inmates of Hell will leave their domicile and so will the obedient leave Heaven after a long stay: Heaven will pass away with its delights and so will Hell and its tortures.’75 The same author states that some of the Jahmites denied that God had standards to weigh men’s deeds, the existence of the Bridge over Hell, the Prophet’s intercession and the torture in the tomb and, finally, that the angel of death takes the souls of man;76 a complete denial of ‘popular’ Islamic eschatology which comes from the Qur’ān, and yet, if Jahm emphasizes the annihilation of the afterlife, it is because he considers it as created and material, and therefore liable to end. There is no God’s mercy, there is no purification process of Hell’s inhabitants; there is only the finiteness of the world as materially described in the Qur’ān. The paradigmatic relevance of an author such as Jahm Ibn S.afwān will be clarified in the next section, with this preamble solely related to preserving a minimum of historical chronology.

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The unbalanced attempt to shape an Islamic ‘eschatological’ character did not produce any results: if the Fiqh al-Akhbar I and Was.īyat Abī H.  anīfa investigate the revelation and the Tradition in a literalist way, proto-S.ūfism represented by Jahm Ibn S.afwān emphasizes speculation, highlighting a first limited understanding of the annihilation of the fire or, better, of the Fanā’ al-’Ākhirah. The first century of Islamic history highlights an eschatological vision unable to clarify the annihilation of Hell and its temporary nature for sinning Muslim believers; on the contrary, Fanā’ al-Nār is more identified as a cosmological-­ apocalyptic obliteration of earthly life than a doctrine linked with a religious understanding of the afterlife. For the Khārijites, for example, the impermanence of Hell would surely present a problem not because God cannot predestine punishment in a temporary Hell, but because the Khārijite imagery emphasized individual actions as prominent characteristics that can put an individual in eternal paradise. The Khārijite religious zeal is supported by Qur’anic descriptions of the reward for those who give up their lives ‘for God’, and this reason for living probably reflects their early Muslim attitudes. A Khārijite’s comprehension of Hell’s temporary nature is excluded because completely disengaged from their religious interpretation of being Muslim.77 A similar approach could be adopted for the proto-Shī‘a sects for which the importance of being part of this specific community was the most relevant aspect to reach Paradise; in parallel the Murji’ites manifest eschatological doubts that emerged in this confusing sectarian age. We defer (judgement) in matters that are dubious, and say the truth about the tyrant or the erring one. All Muslims belong in Islam, but the polytheists have made their religion that of differing sects; and I do not think that a sin makes people polytheists so long as they profess the oneness of the One of eternal refuge; every Khārijite errs in his belief, even if in saying it he seeks to get closer (to God) and strive (piously); as for ‘Alī and ‘Uthmān, they were two servants who had never associated anyone with God since they began to worship; ‘Alī and ‘Uthmān shall be rewarded according to their efforts, but I know not to which one they have gone (sc. Paradise or Hell); God knows what they will bring with them, and every servant shall encounter God on his own.78

Referring to ‘Alī and ‘Uthmān, both guilty for dividing the Umma, the Murji‘ites prefer to defer judgement on their fate in the next world, since only God can know the reward they deserve. Part of the difficulty of the matter, as

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expressed in the poem, is that there are only two permanent destinations, Paradise or Hell. ‘Alī and ‘Uthmān were directly or indirectly responsible for the internal divisions plaguing the Muslim community, and as such they obviously did not deserve eternal Paradise. Yet, the alternative was eternal Hell, and they certainly did not deserve that, as Umarā͗ al-Mu͗minīn (Umarā͗ pl. of ’Amīr) as well as companions of the Prophet. The impermanence of Hell, at least, for serious Muslim sinners then became a requirement. One of the earliest Murji‘ites’ treatises, the Kitāb al-‘ālim wa’l-­muta‘allim, historically attributed to al-Muqātil (d. 767/150) in the second half of the eighth century,79 divides the people of the afterlife into three categories: ahl al-Janna (the people of Paradise), ahl al-Nār (the people of Hell) and the al-Muwah.h.idūn, all Muslims who are not already included in the previous two categories. This term, however, identified the conjugation of monotheism and God’s unity (tawh.īd) as expression of islām and imām; the sinners who profess religious monotheism are the Muwah.h.idūn, while the unbelievers are those who reject tawh.īd. It is this link that establishes the basis for al-Muqātil’s understanding that certain people will be able to get out of Hell, and that these people will be the sinning believers of the Muslim community.80 Some of them are wretched and some are fortunate: as for the wretched they shall be in the Fire, for them there is sighing and wailing there: in it they shall dwell eternally the length the heavens and the earth endured except what your Lord wills, your Lord does what He pleases: as for the fortunate, they shall be in the Garden, in it abiding eternally for the length the heavens and earth endured, except what God wills, a gift uninterrupted. Qur. XI; 105–108

Muqātil argues that ‘illā mā shā’a rabbuk’, which refers to both Paradise and Hell, leads up to ‘muwah.h.idūn: fa-­istathnā al-­muwah.h.idīn alladhīna yakhrujūna min al-­nār’, emphasizing that if the first verse describes the eternity of Hell for the ‘execrables’, there is a clear exception for those who will not stay eternally in Hell: the Muwah.h.idūn.81 The same exegetical understanding was to be adopted, two centuries later, by al-T.abarī (d. 923/311) in his Tafsīr.82 However, the non-­eternity of Hell for Muslim sinners logically makes al-Nār or al-Jahannam a purgative location for some of its inhabitants: a place where the expiation of guilt can be a real ortho-­ praxis. This praxis was detected by the early Muslim mystics, as will be explained in the next section.

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From al-H.  ārith al-Muh.āsibī (d. 857/242) to Al- Junayd (d. 910/297): extinction (fanā’) and durability (baqā’), the mystical canonization of annihilation The ninth century witnessed the first spiritual understanding of the Fanā’ an-Nār as an expression of a proto-S.ūfī doctrine, even though rationally explained. It is not possible here to separate the ma‘rifa, the direct knowledge of God and of oneself which flows in every heart of human beings without a rational methodological understanding of the passages to reach the Beatific Vision: praxis, ‘ilm and dhikr were83 the relevant steps of a proto-Sufite elaboration of the annihilation. The Fanā’ in early Islamic mysticism is directly connected with peculiar characteristics that are also associated with a philosophical-­cosmological background. To clarify the above passage, mention has to be made of the theosophic article by Farid Jabre entitled L’Extase de Plotin et le Fanā’ de Ghazali.84 The author underlines how the annihilation of individual intellect in God’s Tawh.īd (Unity), in parallel with the ascension of a human intellect, accentuates the emphasis on the necessary purification from materiality to reach ecstasy due to reunion within Nous (Pure intellect).85 Purification, contemplation and union are a height previously developed through a process that began in the ninth century and specifically in the thought of authors such as al-H.  ārith al-Muh.āsibī (d. 857/242) and al-H.  akīm al-Tirmidhī (d. 869/255), who lived in the Iraqī area under the ‘Abbasid dynasty. However, before discussing them, it is important to devote a few words to ‘Abd al-Razzāq al-S.an‘ānī (d. 827/212), who was almost a contemporary author of alMuh.āsibī and al-Tirmidhī. His expertise on prophetic tradition in al-Mus.annaf    86 is shown in a chapter entitled Bāb man yakhruju min al-Nār,87 which lists nine traditions about the people who will come out from Hell. A few of them are particularly relevant for this work. The first recites: When God finishes judging his servants, and wishes to take out of the Fire those whom He wants to forgive, those who had professed ‘there is no god but God’, He orders the angels to take them out, and they (the angels) distinguish them on account of the marks left on them from prostration; God has forbidden that the Fire should consume the mark of prostration on the son of Adam.88

This h.adīth clarifies that when God has completed the Judgement, he will ask all those who professed His oneness, the Muwah.h.idūn, to be removed, recognizing

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them from the prostration marks on their foreheads. However, God’s pardon seems quite straightforward and not linked with a purification process. On the contrary, another h.adīth in this collection recites: ‘Certain people will exit from the Fire after they have been scorched by fire as a punishment for some sins which they had committed, but after that God by His mercy takes them out.’89 Unlike the previous one, this contemplates that there are people who will stay in Hell on account of their sins, but for the time necessary only to expunge them. Hell, for some of its inhabitants, can be a location of atonement. Finally, there is a third one which recites: When God has finished dispensing judgement to His creatures, He brings out a book from underneath the Throne in which is written ‘My mercy overrides My wrath and I am the Most Merciful’. And so a number of people are let out of Hell equivalent to the number of those in Paradise-­or he said: twice the number of those in Paradise . . . Somebody then said to ‘Ikrima: Abū ‘Abdallāh! But God says: They wish to exit the Hell-­fire but they shall not. He responded: How dare you! Those are the ones who are its true inhabitants.90

This h.adīth highlights at first that God’s mercy overrides His wrath and that the people of Hell saved by God will probably be more numerous than the people of Paradise. In comparison with the previous traditions, the qualities of God’s mercy are amplified without limits; we then pass from the salvation of Muwah.h.idūn to the purgative role of Hell, for some of its inhabitants, to a more shared salvation, as related to God’s rah.ma. However, if we have already quibbled about the first aspect, regarding the second, we have to face it now: Hell as a purgative geography of the afterlife and the human soul as a spiritual entity that unlike the body can cleanse itself.

Al-Muh.āsibī and the purification of the human soul It is al-Muh.āsibī’s tazkiya al-­nafs (purification of the soul) theory that emerges as particularly interesting for our analysis and that already considers the main elements that will come out in al-Ghazālī, a few centuries later.91 The tazkiya’s process is the expression of the union of three elements: the divine, the prophetic and the human being. The emphasis on the ‘divine’ is relevant because it is directly affiliated to a rational understanding (the awareness of al-Muh.āsibī in early Kalām theory is clear for historical and geographical reasons)92 of the direct connection between

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the human soul and the Unity of God. It is the body’s physical temperament that increases human resistance in this process of reconciliation. And flee to God the Exalted and seek shelter in Him regarding all of your actions and demonstrate your poverty, your desperate need and your refuge in Him, as you have no stratagem [to save you] and there is no power save through Him. And ask God the Exalted to give you victory over him [Satan] through striving and finding pleasure in weeping and humility, by day and by night, secretly and openly, privately and publicly, until combating your soul becomes insignificant in your eyes because of your knowledge of your adversary [i.e. Satan] and due to God granting you success, as indeed he [i.e. Satan] is the enemy of your Lord.93

God’s assistance, as the first prominent facet to reach purification, and the human being’s trust in the possibility to rise towards the Tawh.īd, are decisive in attaining tazkiya. The second element, the prophetic role, is rooted in the figure and the function of Muh.ammad who became a living example to follow. AlMuh.āsibī encourages the examination and study of the knowledge associated with the narrations of the Prophet, since this has a direct effect on the soul as an alternative to the mundane world and quite often sinful discourse offered by the rest of humankind.94 Emulation of the Prophet was, in every action, turned into a real mystic praxis. Finally, the third facet of tazkiya: concrete human activism in being an individual who is personally responsible (it is clear here that protoS.ūfism theologically supports the Mu‘tazilite position on human free will) for undertaking the task of purification by employing the above-­mentioned factors and by exerting his own efforts in subjecting the negative qualities of his soul and enhancing its positive potential. Summarizing, it is essential to highlight that if God’s will needs to be supportive of the purification process of the human soul, while the Prophet becomes through his life and work a universal symbol of inspiration, mankind’s attempts to purify itself emphasize al-Muh.āsibī’s un-­predestinarian approach to the purification theory. However, the al-­nafs duality which opposed good and evil95 is an option that al-Muh.āsibī could not deny. The lower affiliation of the human soul with the body could also lead to physical appetites and desires and these are the primary sources and causes of disobedience, being the result of heedlessness, which allows desires to flourish and ultimately cause the corruption of the worshipper’s intentions, motives and deeds.96 In this regard, al-Muh.āsibī provides a working definition of desires, which he describes as follows: ‘The attachment of the soul to its appetites (al-­shahawāt)

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and its inclination to ease and comfort. Thus, according to the strength of the appetites, the soul will be afflicted with weakness and then the desires (al-­hawā) will overpower it.’97 Such a person risks being consumed by his physical desires that are pivotal in the growth and production of a number of negative potentialities which bring the human soul towards the following: malice (al-­ghill); envy (al-h.asad); ostentation (al-­riyāʾ); having a bad opinion [of someone] (sūʾ al-z.ann); believing in the evil of the conscience (iʿtiqād sūʾ al-t.amīr); fallacious flattery (al-­ mudāhana); the love of praise (h.ubb al-­mah.mada); the love of accumulating wealth (h.ubb jamʿ al-­māl), etc.98 A proper response to all this vileness resides in the intellect (al-‘aql) which God awakens and through which human beings may make their desires acquiescent by overcoming the emotions of the soul with the light of reason. This position is not so dissimilar from that of some Mu‘tazilites such as alMurdār (d. 841/226), even though in this case al-Muh.āsibī promotes a protoS.ūfī approach in which the human intellect’s rationality needs to be dominant in antithesis to base physical desires. However, another prominent duality of the proto-S.ūfī description of human complexity clearly emerged in al-Muh.āsibī’s thought; as reported by the Prophet’s companion ‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘Abbās (d. 689 AD) and summarized by the mystic of Baghdād: ‘Every human being has two nafs; the first of them is the nafs of the intellect (al-‘aql), with which he discriminates and the other is the nafs of the soul (al-­rūh.) through which life exists.’ The rational attitude behind this comment can be understood as follows: when a person sleeps, the first type of nafs, i.e. the intellect, is said to be taken by God and, as such, a person loses consciousness during rest. Such a person may be unconscious but is still alive as the soul (al-­ rūh.), which imbues him with life, is still intact and this person will not die until the soul is actually taken at death.99 It is concerning this dual understanding that the author under examination depicts Hellfire as surrounded by appetites that directly attract human souls after physical death; we will glimpse this attraction also in relation to al-Jāh.iz. (d. 868/254, a Mu‘tazilite, contemporary of al-Muh.āsibī). The ninth-­century proto-Sufite perception of the afterlife is still in the middle between the physical and the spiritual; the eye of reason is unable to know anything about God’s existence and presence in the heart, because its analytical understanding could only assume that God is not existent. The discipline of purification (tazkiya al-­nafs) is a long inner process which must lead to the salvation from the follies of this world and only those who are

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successful in this praxis could be ready for the profusion of Love, mercy and divine knowledge. This inner revolution can be so shocking as to cause the loss of the faculty of rational discernment and make people communicate through an ecstatic language based on paradoxes. The resemblance with a Christian Gnostic approach is abundantly clear, as well as the anticipation of the main cause of H.  usayn ibn Mans.ūr al-H.  allāj’s execution (d. 922/309). However, this is not the last step; the inability of al-H.  allāj to return from this state of ‘elation’ is the main reason for his death: the physical return (mā‘ad; it will return in the section on Falsafa) to sobriety after making the spiritual journey to God is the ‘material’ (because still in the Heart) end of the journey because now the mystic could be particularly helpful for the other human beings who were unable to reach this level of metaphysical abstraction. The two highest degrees of this course are verbally defined within S.ūfism by fanā’ and baqā’,‘extinction’ and ‘permanence’, from the physical in the absoluteness of God. Towards this journey of inner purification, human beings open themselves up to God’s glow, the brightness of this light is able to annihilate all the physical limits of the human body and worldly life; the abolition of idols, both corporeal and created, and of inner individualism leads to being aware of the Beatific vision and the real comprehension of the Shahāda: there is no God but God. A clear distinction, however, is made in comparing fanā’ and baqā’, ‘extinction’ and ‘permanence’: the latter is real because it is connected with a primordial status, while the former is the negation of something that has never existed. The proto-S.ūfī discernment on ‘extinction’ and ‘permanence’ also reflects the exegetical comprehension of the Quranic verse (LV: 26–27): ‘Everyone on earth perishes; all that remains is the Face of your Lord, full of majesty, bestowing honour.’ This Gnostic sentence is also reported in XXVIII: 88, which explains how the Earth will be annihilated while the Face of God, His names and attributes will continue to exist as an ongoing constant creation of itself.100 Al-Muh.āsibī, however, in his eschatological works, such as the Kitāb alTawahhum (The Book of Imagining), the Kitāb Badʾ Man Anāba ilā Allāh (The Book Concerning the Beginning of the Return to God),101 the al-Baʿth wa ’l-Nushūr (the Book of Resurrection)102 or the Kitāb al-Mustarshid (the Book for the Seeker of Guidance)103 is unable to clarify a plain idea of proto-S.ūfism soteriology: ‘So whoever leaves what his heart desires (yahwā qalbuhu) and his soul wishes for (tashtahī nafsuhu) from that which his Lord, the Mighty and Exalted dislikes then he has protected himself from hellfire and brought about proximity to God.’104 As with the soul’s desires (al-­hawā), the appetites of the soul

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(al-­shahawāt) are equally destructive and, indeed, there can only be one outcome from pursuing them – annihilation in hellfire.105 A purgative annihilation in the ‘Inferno’,106 however, needs to be considered by Allah as an expression of a request for forgiveness by the damned soul: My servant, I’m against thee as full of wrath; on you there is my curse. I will forgive you for the vastness of your actions even if I will not share any of your actions. But, did you recognise them? Yes, all, oh my omnipotent. And He, full of wrath against you, for my Power, you will not reside with them for my Punishment. And will order to the Zabānya to take him.107

André Roman in his commentary on the eschatological text, the Kitāb alTawahhum, like Margaret Smith in her understanding of the mystic of Baghdād, does not properly realize that ‘annihilation in hellfire’ is not connected with a request for clemency, but depends on God’s will to promote the physical destruction of human appetites in the Devil’s reign. The passage to a corporeal perception of the afterlife is still vividly realistic.108 In logical continuity with this analysis, al-Muh.āsibī’s vision of the hereafter is clearly indebted to Christian mystical literature. In his time, the popularity of Aphraates the Monk, who lived in the fourth century and highlighted the process of soul purification by asceticism, was particularly popular together with Ephraim the Syrian (d. 373), who was responsible for mystical teaching based on the human need for penitence, self-­discipline and purification, without which the ‘eye of the soul’ is unable to see the secret light of God.109 Isaac of Niniveh (d. 700) and Simon of T.aibūtheh (d. 680),110 who was a physician who tried to explain the different faculties of the soul in relation to the human body, completed the shortlist of Christian monks or religious mystics who deeply influenced the author being analysed. ‘Paradise is compassed by what is abhorrent, and Hell is encompassed by what is desirable, and that which brings men to Hell is the effect of desire on the Soul’ is identical to the position of the Mu‘tazilite al-Jāh.īz (d. 868/254) who argued about the attraction of the human’s soul towards Heaven or Hell in relation to its weight. Like the Christian mystics, al-Muh.āsibī distinguished between venial (saghīra) and mortal (kabīra) sins, even though, in the end, he argued that all these misdeeds have their roots in self-­seeking and in forgetfulness and denial of what is due to God. The heart is overwhelmed by the physical understanding of this word, unable to receive the Gnosis that properly leads the soul to the end for which it was created: to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.111 To be fearful of God is the door to attain glory and exaltation in the sight of God.

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Allah has the power over the affairs of this world and the next, and these things are attained by mortification, which is the foundation of all services to God to lead human souls to its development and perfection. Self-­mortification is directly connected with receiving grace; the complete self-­control that practising the virtues produces prepares the soul to receive the spiritual gifts that demand not effort or activity, but acquiescence, the attitude of self-­ surrendering that allows the souls to be guided and controlled by the Divine Spirit.112 Knowledge of the Truth has broken in upon them and they have experienced the spirit of certainty. They find easy what the self- willed and disobedient find hard and they find fellowship where the ignorant would feel lonely. They keep company with this world in their bodily presence, but their hearts are attached to the most exalted of stations, in the highest heaven, in the presence of the Supernal King, and this is the condition of he who is alone when in company.113

Nevertheless, al-Muh.āsibī also admonishes the servant of God to fear Him and to not claim knowledge about the Gnosis of annihilation in God (Fanā’). The perception that all created things, including the self, are non-­existent beside the subsistence of God generates the risk of weakening the possibility of human nature to make deserving actions, with authority, in total respect of the divine precepts and thus merit eternal salvation.114 According to Abū Yazīd al-Bist. āmī (d. 874/260), Paradise is without consequences for the true lovers of God, for them Heaven would be as Hell devoid of the Beloved, while Hell would be as Heaven if God were there. When love is established in the heart of the believer, argued al-Muh.āsibī, there is no place there for remembrance of men or demons, or of Paradise or of Hell, or for anything except the remembrance of the Beloved and His grace.115 It is evident that the Muslim mystic weakens afterlife eschatology by exalting the love for God as the sole factor of real salvation, which is a classic S.ūfī interpretation. Paradise and Hell remained indeed for al-Muh.āsibī two spiritual locations of passage, in which the latter clearly assumes a purgative role: those who have sinned against God and have entered the fires of Purgatory are not lost eternally, for in those purifying flames they remember their Lord and cry upon Him for deliverance, and He has mercy upon them, and having purified them, as by the fire, from the dross of sin, He bids the archangel Gabriel go with the Prophet and tell the angel of Purgatory that he in whose heart is the weight of one grain of faith is to be brought forth from the those flames.116

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God’s love overwhelms everything; the hereafter is not useless but a further confirmation of his love and its annihilation, specifically concerning Hell, is an expression of the final victory of God’s love over sin and evil. Al-Muh.āsibī’s ultimate awareness, paraphrasing Jahm ibn S.afwān (d. 746), is a real annihilation of both, Paradise and Hell: the purgatory’s function of Jahannam is a geographical location of passage as Heaven, where ecstatic prostration to God will decree in a precise time the abasement in Him.117 The annihilation of Hell becomes the necessary passage through a purgative location to reach the visio beatifica: nothing is expressed about a purification path shared with non-Muslim believers and certainly not with the disbelievers. As various Mu‘tazilite authors will clarify, Hell’s geography attracts souls weighed down by bodily sins committed during an entire lifetime. Al-Muh.āsibī’s paradigma is the transformation of Hell from a place of eternal suffering, to a location of pain and expiation; no doubts emerge about God’s theodicy: absolution and condemnation populate Heaven and Hell after the judgement day. This assumption reflects on the suffering of human souls that now, made aware of their distance from God, they will have to suffer for a long time before reaching their status of origin. There may be a closer connection between al-Muh.āsibī’s eschatology and alGhazālī’s thought on the hereafter118 to which we will return later. The appreciation of this author also comes from an anti-Sufite supporter such as Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328/728) who in the Majmūʿat al-Fatāwā argued: ‘He possessed knowledge, virtue, asceticism and discourse regarding the spiritual realities (al-h.aqāʾiq), which has been widely celebrated.’119

Al-H.  akīm al-Tirmidhī and the fit. ra If al-Muh.āsibī may have inspired al-Ghazālī and could be considered as one of the first to develop a theory of annihilation in proto-S.ūfism, al-H.  akīm alTirmidhī (d. 930/317), as reported by Genèvieve Gobillot, could have encouraged Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350/750), a paradigmatic supporter of the fanā’ al-­ nār: ‘if the human soul could enter in the body, it could also become subtle and turn completely to a spiritual substance, transfiguring in a spiritual entity, as the flame in the flint.’120 In ‘Quelques stéréotypes cosmologiques d’origine pythagoricienne chez les penseurs musulmans au Moyen Age’,121 the French academic emphasizes the influence of Pythagorean stereotypes on Muslim thinkers, underlining in particular the presence of two topics: the first has to do with the subtle nature of

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the celestial bodies and their intelligence, the second with the postulate of the pre-­existence of souls and a number of the direct consequences arising from this, such as the fall, metempsychosis, the return to celestial origin and Apocatastasis. In this section, our interest will naturally be focused more on the second of these topics. The questions arising from the area covered by this subject occur in the writings of philosophers such as al-Kindī, al-Rāzī and al-Farābī, as well as in the works of the mystic al-Tirmidhī. During the process of creation, the knowledge of God cast the brightest stars of human beings which are the un-­physical spiritual substances of the fit.ra: the original nature of the creature’s spirit flooded by divine wisdom. It is not a process of emanation, or even mediation, but a sort of egalitarian continuity from the Creator to the created nature. Like Origen, Evagrius Ponticus and Plotin, al-Tirmidhī conceives the transition to materiality as a primary judgement by God on his creature: granting them the free will to decide about the possibility to exclusively contemplate the divine, or abandoning Him, descending into the physical world. The first judgement became the Genesis of the World and the fit.ra, preserved in the heart of every human being, continues to preserve the knowledge of God, even if surrounded by a new dimension: the material world.122 It is the concretization of Adamic mythology: the soul is immersed in the physical body and, for a long time, the human being will independently act in continuity or discontinuity with God’s decrees. Three moral categories will be formed during this period: those who eventually denied and forgot the existence of a superior entity (kufr), the hypocrites (munāfiqūn) and those who have not forgotten their devotion to the One (muwah.h.idūn).123 It is the return to God, however, that is of interest in this analysis. Al-Tirmidhī’s speculation about this ‘return’ is rooted in the assumption that there are some human beings who, due to greater specific sensitivity of their heart, are able to learn by heart about the day in which they will abandon themselves in the contemplation of the One. The Islamic mystic defined this attitude with the term qalab: the ability to read in the mould through the use of his individual heart.124 In spite of this, we have some human ‘moulds’ that during their physical life (a pre-­existence after the first existence of the fit.ra) have remained more faithful to God and his message. This remembrance is also made possible by the presence of khatm al-­ awliyā’, the seal of the saints, which can be reached by human beings in the heart through an attempt at spiritual return towards the previous status.125

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The importance of the analysis of al-Tirmidhī, nevertheless, is dual: on the one hand, he confirmed that human beings could reach this capability only towards a free will that ratified their superiority over angels who remained subjected, like the Jinn, to God; on the other hand, he clarified an eschatological awareness of the afterlife – the choices adopted by human souls during their physical pre-­existence in the world followed man after the finalized consumption of the body. Paradise or Hell are expressions of the result in connection with the choices made. There is no metempsychosis; God decides on whether those who, through the ‘eyes of the heart’ have expressed a keen desire for reunification to Him, or the others who have continued to choose the ‘clay’ until the ‘purification’ of the fire in Hell. God will call them to Him one by one in relation to their request to be merciful. The author is talking of a phased Apocatastasis – Fanā’ al-Nār – in which a plural-­universal vision is already clarified without a real distinction between religious affiliation or dissimilarities between Christians, Jews or Muslims.126 Al-Tirmidhī, one century after al-Muh.āsibī, in the Kitāb al-­Amthāl, argued that the people of Hell have burned their hearts and they need to reacquire a new status of grace through a process of purification that projects them out of Hell,127 which is quite a revolutionary understanding of the afterlife. The immediacy of the annihilation in God is only attributable to those who dwell in Paradise immediately because during their life on earth they made extensive use of that pietism previously emphasized. The behavioural comprehension of God, through the memory of the fit.ra, passed through the failure to commit evil actions, the abandonment of all physical passions, an act of submission to God; gratitude to God is the substance of the faith that developed by innate spontaneity which again closes the circle towards the fit.ra.128 It is as if they had never given up their initial status of children, as if they had not been converted to any religion by their parents. And this is the inclusive logical aspect in which the salvation of Others could not be denied. If every human being is born in fit.ra, as described by J. Hoover,129 the ‘original disposition’, ‘natural constitution’ and ‘innate nature’ of mankind to the fit.ra will return in the afterlife as emphasized by al-Tirmidhī through a purification process that is specific for Hell, bringing these damned souls to a new purity, to a new fit.ra. It is a cyclical process that comes to an end. The annihilation of Hell is confirmed by the purification process of human souls in it: God’s created spirits who at the beginning flooded into His wisdom, sooner or later, and even if initially segregated into Hell, will have to be reconciled in Him.

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Al-Junayd and a ‘cosmological’ Fanā’ If a cosmological Apocatastasis is the ultimate goal for al-H.  ākim al-Tirmidhī,130 the last author in this section is in continuity with the above analysis and also introduces the next section on Kalām. Al-Junayd’s lifetime (d. 910/297), the ninth century, highlights the role played by the Mu‘tazila, the rational theological school that developed a first inclusive ethical mainstream of Islamic theology lasting for a couple of centuries (until the eleventh) and on which all the following mutakallimūn will project important changes. One of the Mu‘tazila’s five pillars (arkān ad-Dīn) developed an analysis on the unity of God (Tawh.īd) which al-Junayd extends in a proto-Sufite discourse.131 The Sufite’s understanding of this term is first of all far from any rational understanding: God’s uniqueness is a reality in which the traces disappear and the signs fade away; God is as he always was.132 For al-Qushayrī (d. 1072/464 or 1073/465) the term Tawh.īd has three meanings: – The first is [the affirmation of] oneness by God to God, which means that He knows that He is one and He declares Himself to be one. – The second is [the declaration of] oneness by God – praise be to Him – to His creatures, which means that He commands His servants that he affirms [His oneness] and that He creates the awareness of His oneness in him. – The third is [the declaration of] oneness by God’s creatures to God – praise be to Him – which means that the servant knows that God – may He be great and exalted – is one and then affirms and declares that He is One.133

Tawh.īd is the separation of what was originated in Time; in other words, the separation of the Essence of God from the essence of others, created in a subsequent time, to separate God’s attributes from the other attributes, to separate the actions of God and to disprove or refute all the others.134 The paradoxical statement underlined above emphasizes al-Junayd’s clarity on Tawh.īd which is, first of all, to consider it as the basis of faith in God: the physical world compared hope and fear in a still unclear understanding of the divine. The comprehension of Tawh.īd is the first step to better realizing God himself. However, there are human beings who are blocked in mastering their life, reaching a level of decency in the balance of mind, reason, truthfulness and goodness in society, and their state of performance of the commandments of religion and avoidance of what is forbidden remains unclear for them. There are others, on the contrary, who are well versed in formal religious knowledge and have shown they are capable of discarding any conception of

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gods, companions, opposites, equals, likenesses to God, combined with the performance of positive commandments and the avoidance of what is forbidden as far as external actions are concerned. This type of Tawh.īd has a measure of efficacy since the assertion of the unity of God is being publicly shown.135 If the man at the first stage has many difficulties in purifying himself from the materiality of the world, the man at the second stage possesses all the virtues and knowledge to prove the unity of God during his life. However, if the Muwah.h.id who preserved his individuality can be respectful of the divine, without being ready for the next step, the man who does not have a real knowledge of God is unable, out of ignorance, to need the spiritual. In the following centuries, al-Ghazālī in his vision of the afterlife, was to work on the human responsibility for ignorance of God and his spiritual essence.136 The man who knows himself is conversely also aware that there is something other than himself; getting lost in God is a passage that even those who know the divine often fail to do. The highest stage of Unification, as Junayd reports in his analysis, is based on two theories of his system: The theory of the Mīthāq, which identified the relation between God, the Creator, and the Human creature, and the realization by man of his place before God. The theory of Fanā’, as obliteration, which means that man fulfils the unity of God through losing his individuality and being present in God only.137

Both theories are particularly important for our comprehension of the evolution of soteriological salvation in Islām. Proto-S.ūfism realizes from the ninth century that there will be a time when the worshipper returns to a first state that consists of what he was before he materially existed. Only God knows the pre-­existence, the worldly life and the afterlife; moreover, as reported by Al-Qushayrī in his Risāla, it is possible that God had already conversed with singular existences because Allah perceived them in the pre-­existence as a spiritual subsistence. This spiritual existence connotes their knowledge of God’s spirituality without in any way postulating their being aware of their own individuality.138 However, this postulate could be rationally contested because God would not create a spiritual existence or, rather, many spiritual beings without allowing some individuality. It is therefore clear that al-Junayd’s conceptualization of the human soul’s pre-­ existence before existence is linked with a Neo-Platonic idea and it is similar to what Plotinus maintained in his Enneads:

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Before we had our becoming here, we existed there, men other then now; we were pure souls. Intelligence inbound with the entire of reality, not fenced off, integral to that All [. . .] The All was as if One voice sounded. One word was uttered and from every side an ear attended and received and there was an effective hearing; now we are becoming a dual thing, no longer that which we were at first, dormant, and in a sense no longer present.139

The importance of Neo-Platonism in early Islamic thought, as analysed by Richard Frank concerning Jahm Ibn S.afwān, two centuries before al-Junayd and in a different geographical area, highlights the reasons why in the formative historical phase of Islamic thought it was still complex to methodologically distinguish a philosophical approach from a proto-Sufite one, and a theological approach from a juridical one. Al-Junayd’s definition of Tas.awwuf could have clarified the Mithāq (the covenant): Tas.awwuf in essence is an attribute of God, but by representation is an attribute of Man. This means that, inasmuch as our being is conceived by God, it is real.140 The worshipper returns to his primordial state, where he resided before he was created, which clarified the need to be absorbed in God’s unity: a Tawh.īdFanā’ in which his individuality could disappear only through the process of renunciation of himself. The previous passage according to God’s will to establish human singular pre-­existence in a physical world is followed by Allah’s intention to overwhelm him and to make him fully One with Himself again. ‘In view of the foregoing we said that God has obliterated what appears to the worshipper, and when He has overwhelmed him, God shows himself as the overpowering, the perfect conqueror, the completely victorious.’141 This is an image of the relationship between God and the human being that does not give ample space to free will, in antithesis with the Mu‘tazila, but also with al-Tirmidhī and al-Muh.āsibī. The purification theory of the latter, like the Fanā’ hypothesis of al-H.  ākim, developed an un-­predestinarian assumption that in al-Junayd is completely annihilated. ‘Tas.  awwuf is that God should make you die from yourself and make you live in Him.’142 Junayd recognized three stages of Fanā’: The uprooting of the attributes. All the characteristics and qualities that usually take you away from your religious duties. The obliteration of your pursuit after pleasures and even the sensation of pleasures in obedience to God’s behest; in this way there is the annihilation to please God, but only His form of gratification.

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Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought The uprooting of being conscious of having attained the vision of God and the final stage when Allah’s victory over you is complete; at this stage you have reached an eternal life in God and your existence is only within Him. Your physical being continues, but your individuality has departed.143

These passages finally recognize an early Fanā’ which anticipate a second Fanā’: the first step is to annihilate moral and objective desires and pleasures, typical of human beings; the second will continue the same process regarding the mental and individual orders, while the third reflects on the eradication of being aware of having reached the vision of God. The human being who is still living on the earth has reached not the Fanā’, but the Baqā’, the permanent durability in God. However, both are still impossible for the human being because al-Junayd’s understanding of this annihilation in God is still separated from God. The man that is able to journey reaching the end of the above steps is still physically determined to stay on the earth and in the world. This is the Balā’, the soul suffering from a thirst for God which completes the process of Tawh.īd, unification in God. It is clear that the theory of Tawh.īd briefly described above and in which the Fanā’ played a prominent part is something that does not have a soteriological vision, but on the contrary will be used in the following centuries by many mystics as a sort of practical doctrine in the attempt to anticipate rejoining God on the Earth.144 The illogic reality is supported by a spiritual enforcement that does not reflect the Neo-Platonic theories of Plotinus, which are cosmologically connected with the afterlife. To confirm this, Plotinus states that the soul, when it has fallen out of the Union and finds itself remote and isolated, will be filled with deep longing and sorrow. But he also says that it may regain the experience, it may become light again and ascend again. More than the annihilation in God, it is obvious that we could talk about ecstasy in His uniqueness. As a conclusion, it is relevant to highlight how the ninth century is paradigmatically important for an introductory awareness of the Fanā’ al-Nār, but it is also arbitrarily impossible to make a clear distinction, at least, in proto-S.ūfism, between the eschatological purgative role of Hell, as argued by al-Muh.āsibī, a return to fit.ra, as manifested by al-Tirmidhī and the singular mystic capability to annihilate itself in God, during the earthly life, as elaborated by al-Junayd. If, as reported by C. Melcher, Abū Sa‘īd al-Kharrāz (d. 890/276) was the first to speak of Fanā’ and Baqā’ to describe the contemplative first loss of all

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consciousness of an individual’s own singularity to subsist in contemplation,145 al-Junayd, in his analysis, amplifies the attention to the possibility of promoting a process of separation–union–separation which transforms itself into a subsistence–annihilation–subsistence (Baqā’–Fanā’–Baqā’) status, creating a process of losing awareness of himself, to return, then, to a transformed consciousness of reality. Al-Junayd, al-Tirmidhī and al-Muh.āsibī were capable of describing an afterlife in which the term Fanā’ is used with a different meaning. – Th  e spiritual annihilation of a geography, Hell, in which a human’s soul unable to purify itself during its worldly life, weighed down by the uncontrolled physical pleasures of its weakness, remained for a long time in a place where the soul’s suffering is established due to the remoteness from God’s unity. – Th  e soul’s reunion with its original matter, and the time taken to do so, is linked to the physical heaviness accumulated during its worldly life: a clear eschatological understanding of the soul’s material annihilation in Hell. –F  inally, the most interesting aspect of the aforementioned authors is the inclusiveness approach of their doctrines. All of them, but more specifically al-Tirmidhī, amplify a return to origins, devoid of clear religious identification; the fit.ra term clearly stresses that the primordial status was Abrahamic and monotheistic: the original sources of Islām, and every human being will return to it.146

2

Kalām and the Eschatological Interpretation of the Material and the Empyrean

The Mu‘tazila ethical awareness of the afterlife There can be no doubt of the importance of Mu‘tazila in the formative period of Islam. From the eighth century until al-Ghazālī (d. 1111/504),1 its unorthodox positions were appreciated at first and we cannot forget that at the beginning (before rejecting it) both al-Ash‘arī (d. 936/324) and then Ibn al-Rewandī (d. 911/298) were active members of this school, which was subsequently studied and finally widely criticized, surviving in Shiism and in the craggy region of Khwārazm (the ancient Chorasmia).2 Their famous five pillars (Us.  ūl al-Khamsa) – the Unity of God (Tawh.īd) and the denial of its attributes;3 God’s Theodicy (‘adl Allah) and Human Free Will;4 the eschatological view that God has promised the good a suitable reward, while evil will receive a corresponding punishment (al-­wa‘d wa’l-­wa‘īd);5 al-­manzila bayna al-­manzilatayn (the intermediate status of the sinner, even though previously defined by H.  asan al-Bas.rī); and the final one, al-­amr b’il-­ma‘rūf wa al-­nahy ‘an al-­munkar, ‘command the good and forbid evilness’ (III: 104, 110) – remained the few theological reflections on which the vast majority of its supporters kept a unitarian position.6 The main differences that will shortly emerge from them are more related to the individual elaboration of the protagonists than to any differences concerning these five Us.  ūl; nevertheless, the ethical background of the Mu‘tazila was properly defined by George F. Hourani as ‘rationalist’ because the values of human and divine actions are knowable in principle by natural human reason.7 In his famous article, G.F. Hourani depicts the non-Islamic ethical milieu of the early Mu‘tazilite and generally Muslim background as very close to that of Zoroastrianism and to the Oriental Christian Churches, but also to

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Neo-Platonic sources, which brings us back to what was stated in the Introduction. The comparison, for example, of the influence of Zoroastrianism on Mu‘tazilite ethics differs only in the eschatological view: everlasting rewards and purgative punishment in antithesis to everlasting Islamic rewards and punishment.8 Hourani’s comment, however, is less clear: On the fifth point, it would have been convenient for Mu‘tazilite ethics to have argued for the temporary limits of punishment in the afterlife, but they were prevented from doing so by explicit teachings of the Qur’ān that the punishment of wrongdoers is everlasting. Thus they had to find other arguments than purgatory to support their theodicy.9

The Zoroastrian idea that all men’s punishments in the afterlife are purgatorial and all men will end up in paradise is something properly related to a pre-Islamic ethical milieu as well as to a proto-s.ūfite position (see the previous chapter) that clearly emerged in the debates with the Mu‘tazilite school in the first half of the ninth century.10 On the Christian side, as already stated in the Introduction, it is relevant to highlight how John of Damascus (d. 749/131) and his Platonic, Neo-Platonic and Aristotelian logic was absorbed within a religious Christian Oriental tradition in which the idea of afterlife is paradigmatically closed to a purgative dimension (Apocatastasis). This Father who, like Gregory of Nyssa (d. 394 ce) and his Oratio Catechetica Magna,11 had no direct contact with the first Mu‘tazilites, supported the everlasting rewards and purgative punishments which will be temporary for all sinners until the final purification of souls. For the second time, this was the only aspect of the entire Mu‘tazilite ethical milieu which did not coincide with pre-Islamic religions.12 The connection between the early Mu‘tazila and Jahm ibn S.afwān, the first author who used the term Fanā’ in relation to a cosmological-­afterlife, is attested by some unknown disciples of ‘Amr ibn ‘Ubayd who, reaching Khourāsān before the Jahmite’s execution (d. 746/128), probably had the time to exchange ideas. However, the development of the elaboration on the temporary nature/ eternity of the hereafter, previously chaotic in relation to the unclear sources of Jahm’s Fanā’, did not become any clearer under the Mu‘tazilite school between the eighth and ninth centuries.

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D.irār Ibn ‘Amr, al-As.amm and Abū al-Hudhayl in debate with Jahm ibn Safwān The protagonists of a first debate were D.irār Ibn ‘Amr (d. 815/199), al-As.amm (d. 816–817/200–201) and Abū al-Hudhayl (d. 841/226); for all of them, both reason and Quranic prophetic words assumed an un-­predestinarian approach which is clearly in contrast with the Jabrite (Jabr, predestination) line of Jahm ibn S.afwān and his disciples. The first debate on al-­wa‘d wa al- wa‘īd (the promise and the threat) was shaped between al-As.amm and the Murj‘ite Bishr ibn al-Marīsī (d. 833/217) in which the latter, following H.  asan al- Bas.rī’s thought, argued that no Muslim, even a hypocrite and sinner, would remain eternally in Hell,13 arguing that the eternal ‘Hell’ is for unbelievers only and for those (including Muslims) who, committing a ‘Grave’ Sin, are classified as enemies of God. Even if the definition of ‘Grave’ Sin remains uncertain, the attempt to reconcile positions that are not incompatible between early Mu‘tazilites and the Murjī‘a seems evident.14 D.irār ibn ‘Amr’s reflection, on the contrary, concerns an important chronological question: will Heaven and Hell be created before Allah’s Final Judgement, or after the real annihilation of the human life on Earth? D.irār’s assertion that the hereafter will be created when necessary and not at the beginning of life on earth will also be rationally supported by the Mu‘tazilites Hishām al-Fuwat.ī (d. 845/230) and Abū Hāshim al-Jubbā’i (d. 915/302).15 D.irār’s assertion, however, would open up further discussion in relation to the existence of the Garden of Eden from which Adam and Eve were driven out in the Biblical and Quranic story.16 Is it therefore possible to have a created Eden since the beginning of time and not a Paradise? Or is the Jannah completely different from the Garden of Eden? Is the first material and the second spiritual? These are all significant questions for our analysis. D.irār’s logical understanding is that Paradise does not exist yet, but it will be created after the Final Judgement; nevertheless, the terrestrial Garden of Eden which welcomed Adam and Eve at the beginning of the creation was materially related to terrestrial life, as Hell is already in existence as an abode of evil. If Paradise is created by God at the right time to accommodate the deserving and those who approached God through their rewards, the Garden of Eden, like Hell, is physically still in subsistence as the location where Adam and Eve lived for a while at the beginning.17 D.irār ibn ‘Amr’s main eschatological idea clarified how the Garden of Eden and Hell are physically situated, as solidly confirmed in the Islamic revelation,

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while Heaven is spiritually linked with another dimension, a post-­creative quintessence, which human beings find hard to identify and to represent.18 It is as if the Mu‘tazilite author identifies the presence of evilness in this physical world as deeply related to a physical location, a material landscape of suffering and desolation. This assumption has a logical base: the evil of the world is highlighted by human actions. The Mu‘tazilite school argues unitedly that evilness is not God’s creation, but a conception of human action;19 for this reason, it is concomitant with the physical world and will have its eternal destiny (qismah) in it: a fate of suffering. In relation to this different inheritance, D.irār ibn ‘Amr discerned the geography of afterlife in a spiritual Paradise and a physical Hell. Simultaneously, the same author with Jahm ibn S.afwān and Bishr ibn al-Marīsī denied the existence of the Punishment of the Grave in contrast with a proto-­orthodox position of H.  anafite influence. Another important topic clarified by D.irār ibn ‘Amr is the possibility to realistically know God’s essence in the afterlife, because Allah’s core will be recognized, not through the ru’ya bi ’l-­abs.  ār, as many non-Mu‘tazilite theologians believed, but through a sixth sense created for this purpose by God. This theory seems to have been prepared by Abū H.  anīfa and was taken over by a number of supporters in the following two generations.20 God’s will to make all unbelievers believers through His grace is related to one of the main theological passages by D.irār: Allah’s will may be identical with what happens, but also with what He only wants to happen through His commandments. The latter alternative, which is rooted in the human capability to act at times in contrast with God’s will (human sin), creates the crucial problem of D.irār’s theory of khidhlān (desertion): the possibility of disobeying God as an active creation of human beings because Allah’s al-s.  alāh. wa’l as.  lah. (God must give the good and the best things of human) theory had already been established by the Mu‘tazilite Bishr Ibn al-Mu‘tamir (d. 825/209).21 However, we have to wait until Abū al-Hudhayl to argue about the existence of a soul and a body as distinctly separate: the peculiarity between a body as created by God and a soul (Nafs: Soul while Rūh.: Spirit) as attributed to human beings, but of unknown origin, opens the debate at the beginning of the ninth century with that on Divine attributes. Starting from the assumption that at this time there is still no analogy between the being created and the Creator, God could not be recognized by the human spirit and the attributes turn out to be only an attempt to humanize the divine. All created beings are composite and as such finite,22 in contrast to God, the Eternal, who is infinite in the absolute

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simplicity of his essence (māhīya). The human body is composite with a finite sum of elements. At any given instant its being is complete and perfect in the created actuality of the total sum of its accidents and its history, to the extent that we may legitimately speak of such, in the sum of the discrete moments of its existence: the total of those accidents that have belonged to it as having been created in the specific body which is the thing, from the moment of God’s initiation of its existence. Its entire being, from the beginning to the end, taken at any point, is in every respect the finite sum of a determined multitude of discrete elements.23

Abū al-Hudhayl, nevertheless, takes advantage of this incompatibility between the Creator and the created to nullify the existence of Divine attributes, but also to emphasize the finiteness of the world as composed of a limited number of accidents. One of the most important of al-Hudhayl’s theories is that ‘there must come a term to the production of new being, a moment in which the acts and movements of the blessed and the damned will be consummated in a permanent state that is the sum of the blessedness and damnation of each’.24 This is a rational cosmological interpretation in which not only the everyday new beings but also those of the afterlife need to be annihilated. The creation of new beings cannot continue indefinitely. Al-Khayyāt. underlines, just as Abū al-Hudhayl stresses, the evident difference between the eternal and the contingent, the latter as composed of parts, the former as divine and known by God which has come to be and as shall come to be.25 Richard M. Frank maintains the similarity with Origen’s position on the apocatastasis and the consumption of the human body, as already reported by Morris S. Seale in Muslim Theology: A Study of Origin with Reference to the Church Fathers26 in which the author directly compares Jahm and the Church Fathers of the second century. As for Jahm, Abū al-Hudhayl seems to interpret the Islamic afterlife as an expression of a physical landscape for the blessed and the damned in which every action of praise and rest, but also of torture and pain, will need to be finished and annihilated by God: a Fanā’ al-Nār in itinere. It is important at the same time to highlight that Abū al-Hudhayl lived in the same historical period and geographical area as D.irār Ibn ‘Amr, who before him had already elaborated an understanding on God’s nature, supporting the clear distinction between the annīya and the māhīya: the existence, which human beings could try to know, and its essence, which is impossible to discern. It will only be in Paradise that it might be possible to feel God’s essence, a speculation that D.irār and the Mu‘tazilite will never admit, in particular

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concerning the Beatific vision of Allah.27 This sight would probably not be visual or material, but spiritual. Like Abū al-Hudhayl, D.irār was directly influenced by Jahm: Heaven and Hell are created and, like all created things, are temporary. Human beings could be disappointed, specifically, for those expecting a great reward for their good behaviour. However, they do not deserve more than this: the reward is temporary like their good actions when they were still alive.28 Al-Baghdādī, in a way that was not very dissimilar, argued in Al-Farq bayna al-Firaq: Among the heresies of Abū al-Hudhayl was his view that the preordination of Allah can cease, at which time Allah would no longer be omnipotent. As a conclusion of this view, he claimed that the bliss of the people of Paradise and the torture of people of Hell will cease; the people of Paradise and Hell remaining in a state of lethargy, unable to do anything. Under these circumstances Allah would not be able to raise a man from the dead, nor to cause the death of a living man, nor would He be able to cause the stationary to move, not the thing in motion to be stationary, nor would he be able to form anything, or to annihilate anything; and this when people are supposedly sane! His views on this subject are worse than those of the men who believe that paradise and hell would cease, as did Jahm (Ibn S.afwān).29

The obscurity of this theory, less clear than that shown above, is only circumstantially supported by Ibn al-Nadīm, who in the list of the texts written by the Mu‘tazilite theologian enumerates a work on the movements of the people of Heaven, an essay against whoever speaks of punishing infants and a text on the duration of man, his colour and composition.30 The obviousness in this discontinuous mare magnum is the assertion concerning the presence of a new world (with a second creation) after God’s contemporary preordained existence. This existing occurrence will cease and the people of the next world will be forced to remain as they are: the people of Paradise being forced to eat and drink and intermarry, while the people of Hell are forced to adhere to their views. This fixity is not described as perennial, but broadly indicates that the physical annihilation of the earth will follow the creation of another one, still interpreted as material (at least for Hell) and where Paradise and Hell are recognized as the only possible geographies.31 Abū al-Hudhayl seems to support a physical annihilation of this world that will establish a new partially physical world that after an indeterminate time will again be annihilated (Fanā’), but to remain in fixity, a sort of invariable subsistence (Baqā’). It is clear that in early Kalām, as in

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proto-S. ūfism, the question of the annihilation–permanence of the afterlife has become particularly stimulating. The majority of the Mu‘tazilite, nevertheless, did not support this eschatological approach: their ethical position is in complete disagreement and D.irār also made a distinction: between a parte post, in a new created World, a World of the afterlife, where its eternity is an option; and a parte ante, on the contrary, where eternity is clearly under discussion and improbable.32 The Mu‘tazila, with the possible exception of Abū al-Hudhayl, D.irār, al-Jubbā’ī (d. 915/302) and Abū H.  usayn al-Bas.rī (d. 1044/435), argued that Heaven and Hell will be created during Allah’s Last Judgement, after the real annihilation of the human life on the Earth. Their main argument derives from the belief that God always acts with specific determination (purpose) and in this context He performs for the benefit of man. Paradise and Hell serve as reward and punishment and logically this cannot take place before the Day of Judgement. It follows that neither has been created yet. You need to imagine, argue the Mu‘tazilites, a king who builds a palace with all its furnishings and he has prepared various types of food, but does not allow people to enter it.33 This notion will be refuted by the Ash‘arites maintaining, first of all, that man cannot know the modality of God’s act, as expressed in the Qur’anic terms of takhwīf (evocation of fear of Hell) and targhīb (evocation of desire for Paradise). God can evoke both sentiments in relation to the existent Paradise and Hell and, finally, as maintained by al-Samarqandī (d. 983/373), if these feelings are shaped for mankind, it means that both soteriological geographies concretely exist: in his view, non-­existence is not a thing and Paradise and Hell are things because they exist.34 This is a rationally literal and very banal understanding of material–immaterial. However, if the majority of the Mu‘tazilites supported the eternal punishment of the sinner who does not repent, Muslims included, Abū al-Hudhayl influenced by Jahm ibn S.afwān maintained the perdition of Paradise and Hell due to the finiteness of the world’s movements; nevertheless, the conclusions are modified: the movements of those dwellers will stop and they will become tranquil (Baqā’), the dwellers of Paradise always taking pleasure and the dwellers of Hell always having pain, but both abodes will continue to exist. Abrahamov’s analysis is unable to clarify Abū al-Hudhayl’s position on the metaphysics of the creation in early Kalām to explain the temporary nature of accidents in an eschatological dimension: ‘everything which shall be will one day be described as having been, and consequently one must affirm that there is a

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finite whole and totality of what has been and what shall be. Any kind of infinitude of created being is unthinkable’.35 There is a fixed limit of the possibilities as determined in God’s knowledge (maqdūrāt) and a time must come when everything has been realized and there is nothing whatsoever left in potency. This assumption, related to the material world that we religiously know, shall come to an end by the day of judgement as planned in God’s design; but as reported above, the Mu‘tazilite author realizes that the acts of the blessed and those of the damned will also perform the reality of a new created being that in the end will need to be ultimately consummated. However, in contrast with Jahm, we could not argue about an annihilation of the hereafter (Fanā’), but as a stay in eternal immobility (Baqā’):36 a form of subsistence. The being of each individual is complete and fulfilled in the totality of his reward and punishment: a sort of compromise between religion and reason which resolved the problem of the eternity of Paradise and Hell. Jahm’s annihilation of the afterlife is misunderstood as being too far removed from an initial understanding of the Islamic hereafter (in the majority of Quranic verses portrayed as physical and eternal). The eternal permanence of Paradise and Hell is recovered and replaced by his stay that remained to be physically interpreted: In the resurrection, God will create anew the human person in identity with himself as that person he was created the first time (‘awwala marratin). The several accidents which, together adhering in the unity of the body were that person, are re-­created according to the divine purpose into that corporeal unity whose reality in its unity is the person. Man is ontologically constituted as one and a unity in the material unity of the body through the transcendent act of creation as a unity in God’s will which determines his being in being a single individual person.37

This is a rational and physical awareness of the hereafter in which annihilation is replaced by the permanence of a material place of reward and punishment.

The Mu‘tazilite golden age and the un-­physical nature of the Islamic afterlife It is clear that if the Fanā’ al-Nār (but of Jannah too) is theologically conceived as early as the eighth century with Jahm ibn S.afwān, we need to wait until the Mu‘tazila for a deeper realization, but also contraposition to the same assumption. Above all, awareness of the Annihilation in early Kalām is narrowly encompassed

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by rational thought which is still pedantic, severe, unclear and partially influenced by falsafa. It is, however, in the ninth century that a real dispute on this topic, also in early Islamic mystical thought (see previous chapter, pages 45–59), came forward with a wide-­ranging debate. Al-Naz.z.ām (d. 845/230), the nephew of Abū al-Hudhayl, as reported by alKhayyāt., confirms that the Annihilation is possible; if God argued that he will perform an act, it is clear that this will happen. The Fanā’ therefore refers for him to life on Earth, but not to the afterlife; the Qur’ān also says (XCIII, 3–4): ‘your Lord has not forsaken you, nor does He hate you, and the future will be better for you than the past’ and (XII, 109) ‘For those who are mindful of God, the home in the Hereafter is better’.38 However, in the Kitāb al-Intis.  ār, al-Naz.z.ām, as well as commenting on the suffering of the people of Hell, which is not described as physical, but belonging to the Soul’s immanence in the body,39 also argued that the Nature of Light and Darkness and their geographical landscapes, as created, could not be eternal.40 The same author also adds that the non-­alteration of physical bodies (jism) corresponds to the non-­alteration of soul (nafs), a theory that denotes the still unclear comprehension of the main differences between the material and spiritual world; moreover, the eschatological vision of al-Naz.z.ām agrees with that of the early Murj‘ite, Bishr Ibn al-Marīsī,41 on the non-­eternal damnation of the sinner as long as he remains a Muslim, without expressing himself on the Ahl al-Kitāb.42 The Mu‘tazilite Mu‘ammar Ibn ‘Abbād al-Sulamī (d. 842/227), who had been defined as a rational opponent of Abū al-Hudhayl,43 and also in contrast with other Mu‘tazilites who maintained that God is the creator of bodies and accidents, differed from them, maintaining that God is the creator of bodies but not of the accidents, which he considers as either natural or voluntary creations (ikhtirā‘āt) of bodies.44 Accidents are considered natural such as, for example, when fire burns or the sun generates heat; but also voluntary, in the cases when an animal moves. This includes the senses, life and death, health and infirmity, or any state or conditions of animals and human being.45 So we could argue about the Annihilation of a body like that of a seed.46 Bodies and Souls are completely different and Mu‘ammar will be one of the first to define the Soul (nafs) as an expression of the highest being, as an indivisible possessor of knowledge, power, life, will, aversion, but not contiguousness, or contrast, or motion, or rest. Furthermore, the Soul is an acting agent (mudabbir) in the world which could never remain paralysed as

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interpreted by Abū al-Hudayl; it transcends bodies and accidents and the visible body surrounding it – it is just a mold or an instrument.47 It is in the framework of the doctrine of ma‘ānī that Mu‘ammar appears to view bodies and accidents. To clarify: any manifestation that is an accident, emanating from any animate or inanimate thing, is an act of the thing according to its nature. Al-Khayyāt. on Mu‘ammar’s idea of annihilation emerges as chaotic, maintaining that in the first half of the ninth century the discussion on Fanā’ was quite common in the early Mu‘tazila. In the Kitāb al- Intis.  ār, the author emphasizes that there were those who believed that God’s annihilation had the purpose of formalizing a new creation (an afterlife or a new world); others, that if God had wanted to annihilate the world, He would not have felt the need to create another one. Finally, and this is probably Mu‘ammar’s most interesting suggestion: God created an existence in which the bodies could exist, then, if Allah wanted to annihilate these bodies, he needed to extinguish this existence in which the bodies lived.48 We are therefore faced with an annihilation of the world, of its physical matter with human bodies; Mu‘ammar, nonetheless, like Abū al-Hudhayl, did not accept an eradication of the Hereafter, first of all because he perceived it as impossible that God wants to be alone and second that He would create Heaven and Hell and then wipe out its inhabitants again.49 Al-Jāh.iz (d. 869/255) maintained, on the contrary, the impossibility of the annihilation of the bodies because God is able to create a thing, but is not capable of extinguishing it without a clear intention, which caused a theological problem concerning God’s omnipotence. He also cannot remain alone after he has shaped a creation, in the same way that he was alone before he created it. This position was reported by al-Khayyāt. and al-Baghdādī,50 who presumed the presence of a sort of entity (but not angels) with God in the afterlife. It is possible that the lack of solitude of God in the life after human extinction was directly linked with the understanding of a spiritual persistence of ‘human’ souls in the hereafter. However, the author’s position on this topic remained very unclear as did his position on the non-Annihilation of Heaven and Hell. AlJāh.iz says that Allah does not annihilate either, in particular referring to Heaven’s pleasures and Hell’s tortures, but He could be able to do it; for him these two locations are everlasting in the same way.51 On the contrary, as reported by al-Shaharastānī, this Mu‘tazilite author agrees with Mu‘ammar al-Sulamī that it is not God’s power that is under discussion, but

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God’s will to annihilate what He previously created.52 Heaven and Hell attract their people to themselves without a real divine intervention, because it is the Fire, due to its nature (bi t.ibā‘ihā), that it does come close to itself (tus.  ayyiruhum ilayhā): a similar position, as reported in the first part, was expressed by mystical authors of the ninth–tenth centuries such as al-Tirmidhī (d. 930/317). The punishment is not eternal (in contrast with the locations of the hereafter), but it is a philosophical understanding of nature which, without God’s intervention, attracts the ordained.53 This theory casts strong doubts as to whether al-Jāh.iz still wonders about the eschatological annihilation of the physical human body or, rather, of the human soul. Al-Baghdādī in Us.  ūl al-Dīn wrote on the Mu‘tazilite’s theory using these words: innamā l-­nār tajdibu ahlahā ilā nafsihā bi-t.ab‘ihā,54 in which the term nafs is indicative that the author is not talking about a physical body. It is important to highlight how this Mu‘tazilite author’s idea of soteriological attraction versus Heaven and Hell emphasizes an important question: is it the lightness or the heaviness of the body, or just the soul, that is attracted towards soteriological geography? La raison d’être du Monde, as expressed by al-Jāh.iz in the Kitāb al-H.ayawān, is the correlation of good and evil as a prerequisite to incentivize knowledge, the trust in God and the emphasis of the final significance of each thing in the order of the world.55 For al-Jāh.iz as for his master, al-Naz.z.ām, to limit God’s power in doing wrong or falsehood is unacceptable and not relevant to our comprehension of the afterlife. The logical factor realizes that there is no possibility other than the one in place: God cannot do for mankind other than what has within it benefits for them. He cannot reduce the felicity of the blessed by one atom because their felicity is a benefit for them; to decrease that in which there is benefit is injustice. He is not able to increase the torments of the damned by one atom or to decrease them in any way.56

God is the initiator of the world, but not the One who moulds it in continuity, because if there were in His knowledge and power something more excellent and more perfect than what He had created, in respect of order and design and advantage, He would create it.57 This theory, which will also be adopted by al-Ghazālī (d. 1111/504), consecrates the possibility that al-Naz.z.ām and al-Jāh.iz had understood the attraction of the hereafter as a spiritual peculiarity of the Eschatological’s optimum creation of God, an unchangeable perfection in which Heaven and Hell attract human souls

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in relation to the active behaviour that was recorded throughout a whole lifetime.58 It is important to notice that philosophy is increasing its importance in the theological debate, emphasizing a clear distinction between the physical and the spiritual. Finally, al-Jubbā’i (d. 915/302) and Abū Hāshim (d. 933/321) argued that God’s will does not reflect a private (personal) will or, as maintained by al-Ash‘arī, an eternal wish; for both, God wants everything that is possible to will as He knows everything is possible to know. It is unfeasible to generally know except through a will which He creates. God’s will then becomes an accident and the Annihilation is one of the accidents desired.59 Bodies cannot be annihilated except by an annihilation created by Allah in no particular place (lā fī mah.all).60 It is clear that al-Jubbā’i and Abū Hāshim debated that before the Resurrection, God will annihilate the World; in contrast al-Ghazālī (d. 1111/504), Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328/728), Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 1350/750) and various proto-Sufite authors argued that this is the first Fanā’, not the second one that Jahm Ibn S.afwān referred to the Hereafter. However, the Mu‘tazilite’s reflection on the topic shows some differences: alKhayyāt., in the Livre du Triomphe, asserts that Allah has the power to annihilate bodies without an accident; for others, such as al-Ka‘bī al-Balkhī (d. 931/319), God will eradicate the world, ceasing to create the opposite accident (Baqā’) in antithesis with Abū al-Hudhayl’s position, while for al-Jubbā’i, this will happen through a specific accident. The main problem that persists is that for a part of the Mu‘tazila, such as alHudhayl, the annihilation of this physical world in the afterlife will follow the creation of a new soteriological material world that will eternally persist; on the contrary for al-Jubbā’i as for al-Jāh.iz and al-Naz.z.ām, this Fanā’ will be without creating a new place; in other words, a physical world will be annihilated without the creation of a new physical afterlife; an understanding that was probably influenced by early falsafa.61 Ibn al-Rawandī (d. 911/298) was a Mu‘tazilite who, after rejecting his affiliation with this school, diverges from al-Jubbā’i, maintaining that God could not entirely annihilate his creature; this position takes into account that there are some accidents or some substances without a location, a place of persistent stagnation (Baqā’). Both Mutakallimūn argued about an accident with the main characteristic of the Intellect, which without a location can be identified in the separate Intellect or the Universal Soul (the World Soul of Plato).62

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As confirmed by L. Gardet in Dieu et la Destinée de l’Homme, the Fanā’ in the ninth-century Kalām is exclusively connected with the annihilation of life in this material world (we could define it as big Fanā’): the sky will fissure, planets will disappear, the oceans will come out from their beds, graves will take their roofs off, the mountains will be torn from the ground and fly away, the sun will rise in the west to set in the east.63 This is the ‘big Fanā’’; there will be no life on the Earth and it will become an inhospitable place. This is the descriptive first eschatology step for Kalām, the Annihilation of the physical world as largely confirmed by the Mu‘tazila. The impact of the Falsafa was still limited and some of the Mu‘tazilite members supported the ma‘ād al-­badanī, the resurrection of the physical body. Jurjānī in Sharh. al-­mawāqif64 distinguished five possible attitudes in relation to the ma‘ād: (1) the physical bodily return only, as the theory of early Kalām and of the first Mu‘tazilites; (2) the spiritual return only, as expressed by Muslim philosophers (Ibn Sīnā specifically), but also Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī, the Karrāmiyya65 and the last Mu‘tazilite Abū l-H.  asan al-Bas.rī (d. 1044/435); (3) the return as double: spiritual and physical, which is the position of al-Ghazālī, various S. ūfīs, the modern Imāmites and later Mu‘tazilites such as ‘Abd al-Jabbār;66 (4) the denial of return as related to the ‘naturalist’ philosophers of antiquity such as Galen; and, finally, (5) those who were unable to make a decision about the soul’s annihilation or subsistence. To conclude, only the Mu‘tazilites of the second half of the ninth century, or authors such as al-Naz.z.ām and al- Jāh.iz, would begin to presage a spiritual resurrection. The contradictory aspect reflects again on al-Jurjānī’s opinion that some Mu‘tazilites such as al-Jāh.iz and Ibn al-Anbārī refused to condemn the Kāfir (infidel), who were not morally guilty, to eternal fire.67 Before al-Ghazālī, it is possible than some Mu‘tazilites maintained that the pre-Islamic age raised the problem of who deserved to fall to Hell or be lifted up to Heaven: the lack of being able to know the Truth, assuming that this was the inherent message of the Prophet Muh.ammad, could not be a sufficient reason to send to Hell for eternity a human being regardless of his physical or spiritual body.68 This methodological analysis, nevertheless, needs clarification. The Mu‘tazilites, during the ninth century, were clearly aware of the double awareness of the annihilation of life on Earth (Fanā’ al-‘ālam), the proto-S. ūfīs’ Fanā’ elucubration, as Jahm Ibn S.afwān’s notion of the eradication of Heaven and Hell. The main dilemma that clearly emerged with Abū al-Hudhayl’s position of the permanence of the hereafter is the opposition of the proto-­philosophical idea, which started again from Jahm: what is created by God cannot be eternal.

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The instant of the afterlife’s creation is not that important, even though some Mu‘tazilites were to acquire a different opinion from Islamic orthodoxy; conversely, the real core of this research in early Kalām is the initial interference of the falsafa idea of the spiritual resurrection, as the only rational understanding of the afterlife. If Paradise and Hell have to accommodate physical entities (new bodies), irrespective of the Mu‘tazilite opinion of God’s creation of both, it is obvious that both locations need a precise geography, terrestrial or celestial, not visible at the moment, but maybe existing.69 The logical question, however, that the Mu‘tazilite Abū Hāshim al-Jubbā’i asked in connection with his theory of the post-­ resurrection creation of the hereafter is: will the terrestrial annihilation also destroy both locations of the afterlife? Al-Jurjānī and Bājūrī will argue that it will not, emphasizing that it is rationally hard to consider Paradise and Hell as established on an annihilated Earth on which only these two locations will be preserved and maintained.70 At the beginning of the tenth century, the Mu‘tazila is still chaotically unable to give a clear answer about the Fanā’, distinguishing the pre-­resurrection annihilation of Earthly life from a post-­judgement phase. We need to wait to the end of the same century or the beginning of the eleventh century to identify in ‘Abd al-Jabbār (d. 1025/415) a clear discernment of the spiritual ‘nature’ of Heaven and Hell, deconstructing the materiality of the hereafter as described in the Qur’ān. An-Naz.z.ām, like Hishām al-Fuwatī (d. 833/218), already denied the presence of the virgins deflowered in paradise, as well as the idea that their inhabitants will continue to eat, drink and fornicate: ‘Is it not a very boring and suffocating state and will they not be annoyed to the point of throwing up?’71 At the same time, as the Jahmiyya interpreted before, the Mu‘tazilites and ‘Abd al-Jabbār denied that the inhabitants of paradise will see God ‘by a vision of the eyes’ (bi-­l-abs.  ār) as also reported by al-Zamakhsharī (d. 1144/538) in his Tafsīr: ‘I have prepared for my believing servants things no eye has seen nor any ear has heard, in excess of what I have told them about.’72 Antithetically to Christian Lange’s hypothesis that, generally speaking, did not refute the Mu‘tazilite corporeality of paradise and hell,73 the most relevant authors of the ninth and tenth centuries argue the contrary: the humus of Baghdād in the ninth century and proto-S. ūfist authors as philosophers as al-Kindī (d. 873/259) emphasized that cultural ‘miscegenation’ had already emerged.74 A physical discernment of the afterlife, as literally ascertained in the Qur’ān from the beginning of the Islamic age, was giving way to a more rational understanding of a spiritual hereafter.

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Ash‘arī, Abū al-H.asan (d. 936/324) and the early Orthodox point of view on the Annhilation If the ninth century is considered the age that revealed the Qur’ān and Sunna in a new light, opposing the champion of H.  anbalism, Ah.mad Ibn H.  anbal (d. 855/240), against the Mu‘tazilite attempt to dominate Kalām, the figure of Abū al-H.  asan Ash‘arī (d. 936/324) remained more anonymous during his life, becoming prominent after his death. Ibn al-Nadīm (d. 995/384 or 998/ 387 AD) in his compendium, Kitāb alFihrist, did not mention him, which is quite unusual since the famous doxographer died more than sixty years later, and both lived in the same geographical area of Baghdād: one of the main methodological problems concerning this author is attributing to him an authentic thought, rather than being historically linked to other Asharite followers. However, the importance of this mutakallim, regardless of whether Asharism was theoretically attributable to his reflections, declassified Mu‘tazilism as an unorthodox school, imposing a more predestinarian view of human beings and the absoluteness of God’s omnipotence. According to al-Ash‘arī, in upholding man’s responsibility for his own actions, the Mu‘tazila saved God’s justice, detracting it from God’s all-­powerfulness. The Asharites, on the contrary, taught that since God is the sole creator, He also 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 (d. 815/199),75 developed the theory of Kasb through which God creates man’s actions while man appropriates them and thus also becomes responsible for them.76 The summarizing schema of this theory could be explained through three assumptions: l

l

l

God’s creation of man’s action; God’s creation of man’s power and capacity (quwwa or istitā‘a) for the appropriation of this action; man’s appropriating the action created for him by God (iktisāb).

One might then ask where the human intentional responsibility (niyyah)77 lies in this scheme; in spite of this, B. Abrahamov argues that the question of the relationship between the created power to appropriate (quwwa) and the act of appropriation (iktisāb) in which the inheritance assumed a moral value has not been answered satisfactorily in al-Ash‘arī, nor by the followers who embraced his theory of Kasb.78

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Early Asharism and the problem of evil This mutakallim is also of the opinion that God not only creates man’s action, but is also its only real agent, with the risk, nevertheless, of also being an evil-­doer (jā’ir), when He creates evil in man. It is easy to argue that God’s will is directly connected with the creation of evilness in this World: an assumption usually rejected by the Mu‘tazila of the first centuries. Moreover, if there were in the world something unwanted by God, it would be something to the existence of which He would be averse. And if there were something to the existence of which He was averse, it would be something the existence of which He would refuse. This would necessitate the conclusions that sin exists, God willing or God refusing. But this is the description of one who is weak and dominated while our Lord is very far above that.79

In relation to sin, al-Baghdādī logically places the opposites, sin and obedience, in the same category, but also asserts that sin is generally not classed as belonging to Evil.80 God’s absolute power to define what sin is and what obedience is are clearly related to His supreme attitude in the World and, logically, this clarifies that nothing can be evil on the part of God. An action is evilness on the side of human beings only because we transgress the limit and boundaries set for us and do what we are not entitled to do: Adam and Eve’s transgression in the Garden of Eden, after God told them not to eat the famous fruit of the Tree. But since the Creator is subject to no one and bound by no command, nothing can be evil on His part. What is good and evil is defined solely in terms of God’s command as contained in law and tradition, for nothing is good or bad in se, and thus for God also nothing is good or bad in se. The early Ash‘arites argued that Evil is univocally in relation to what God and His law proclaimed. Even if the Devil is popularly regarded by many as evil, he still remained a creature of God, and this must also hold as regards the ontological position; he is always ‘good’ by virtue of the fact that he exists. At the same time, the very idea of subjecting God to human criteria of right and wrong appeared to al-Ash‘arī as blasphemous. This over-­predestinarian rational approach will continue to be supported after al-Ash‘arī by authors such as al-Bāqillānī (d. 1013/403).81 He treated the problem of Evil and Devil assuming first of all that an evil person’s thought of God cannot be the origin of the Devil, nor can it be a doubt on the part of God; neither can the Devil be the result of a punishment, which is in any event a mere accident. Since the Devil cannot be eternal, having been created by God, like the evil actions of human beings, the location in which evildoers are imprisoned could

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also not be eternal; all the created protagonists of evilness are shaped by God, but materially put into action by humans without the possibility of rejecting them. The human acts took place through an originated power. This power is concomitant with an action. What makes al-Ash‘arī very close to the previous predestinarian approach of Jahm Ibn S.afwān is his view that, through this power, man can perform only a certain act and not its opposite; a position that would also be rejected by alMāturīdī.82 The early Ash‘arites are therefore unable to answer many questions concerning evilness and the devil, and both could not be used within systematic theology in solving the problem of Evil. The main question about how Sin and Evil came into the world remains unresolved, nor is any answer given as to who played the ‘whisperer’ in the case of Iblīs himself, and finally how he came to disobey God, unless one conceives of God as a Tempter.83 Al-Baghdādī again suggests that God does not will Unbelief and Sin, but merely allows their origin and acquisition by the unbeliever and sinner; ergo, there is a sort of human freedom to evilness even if in antithesis to God’s will.84 At this point, however, the early Ash‘arite system would collapse on itself bringing us back to the crucial question of the relation between God’s omnipotence and Human freedom: the Mu‘tazilites’ questions remained unanswered. The existence of Evilness in this world cannot be denied, even admitting that God created it. If al-Ash‘arī supports the opinion that God not only creates man’s action, but is also its real agent, conversely the act is physically performed by man and not by God; thus by analogy, if God does not move even though He creates movement, he could also not be an evil-­doer when He creates evil.85 This analogy is important to better understand the logical and rational approach of al-Ash‘arī to the problem of evil, which remains without an effective explanation except that God wills them. The divine voluntarism of al-Ash‘arī’s theology is established on the absolute omnipotence of God and human predestination, which nullify God’s theodicy, or rather, what ‘we humans’ perceive as His justice. When al-Ash‘arī revolted against the Mu‘tazila he was in fact revolting against the inadequacy of their rational system to comprehend their understanding of God. What he was trying to impress was not the arbitrariness of God, but the inscrutability of His ways and the inadequacy of reason to unfathomed divine mysteries. However, if the naiveness of the Qadariyya and of the Mu‘tazila starts from God’s righteousness as a starting point on the taklīf, the ‘classical’ Mu‘tazilite

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question that remained unanswered is: ‘Can human beings be held accountable to divine commands if they do not have free choice? In which way God can save or condemn humans on the day of judgement if men’s freedom is not morally decreed?’86 We need to wait until al-Bāqillānī to reach a first paradigmatic point on Kasb: ‘For the servant there is acquisition (Kasb), and he is not compelled (majbūr); and anyway the actions of men and their acquisition from God are (Allah) God’s creation.’87 He argued in favour of this position on the basis of distinction between voluntary and involuntary action – bodily movement or trembling of a man in a state of fever, and movement of his bodily organs deliberately and by choice. Thus al-Bāqillānī made a move towards the recognition of man’s part in his actions, though this element was not greatly developed.88 It will be Taftāzānī (d. 1390/792) who will permanently solve the vision of man-God’s participation in human acts but after the prominent role played by al-Nasafī (d. 1142/536) and al-Ghazālī.89 ‘The creature has no legal responsibility imposed upon him which is not in his capacity’, argued al-Nasafī, and this opinion will be followed by Taftāzānī in clarifying that men’s duty fits his ability. If the ‘Unbelief ’ of an Unbeliever is one of the greatest of evil deeds, God’s punishment is for something that His creature is able to perform, as action as well as responsibility. Ash‘arite basic voluntarism does not necessarily portray, as maintained on the contrary by the Mu‘tazila, an unreliable God; predestination implies a divine promise to complete the creation in the predestined way and the output of what Allah has promised has been partially revealed in scriptures. Al-Ash‘arī trusted God to bring the Islamic community to some good end, that is Paradise; nevertheless, divine voluntarism falls into the paradox of asserting that God works outside the realm of human rationality while speaking rationally of God’s relationship with humankind. This illogical deviationism, if we could describe it in this way, does not excuse us from having to understand al-Ash‘arī’s afterlife in connection with the creation of Evil and of that eschatological geography which contains it.

Al-Ash‘arī and the inhabitants of Hell Al-Ash‘arī’s image of the hereafter is classically focused on the ‘big Fanā’’, the annihilation of all the living creatures on the earth that will precede the Resurrection (qiyāma). The angel Isrāfil will give the first blow of the trumpet, the blow of annihilation, after which any beings still alive on earth will die.

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After it, Isrāfil will blow again on the trumpet for the second time and this will be the blow of resurrection.90 Al-Ash‘arī confirmed the Fanā’ in relation to the interpretation of Qur’ān XXVIII, 88: ‘And do not invoke with Allah another deity. There is no deity except Him. Everything will be destroyed except His face. His is the judgement, and to Him you will be return.’ The contingency of the world is clear as well as the human being’s return to God.91 In al-Ibānah ‘An Us.  ūl ad-Diyānah, to the question of whether God has a Face, Al-Ash‘arī argues: We believe it contrarily to the belief of innovators (Christians, Jahmiyya and Mu‘tazilites who maintained on the contrary the absence of a real physical image of God);92 and His words ‘But the face of thy Lord shall abide resplendent with majesty and glory’ are proof of it.93

Following on from that and the question ‘Do you believe God has two hands?’ the answer continues to be: ‘We believe it and His words, the hand of God was over their hands’ (Qur’ān, XVIII, 10), and His words ‘before him whom I have created with my two hands’ (Qur’ān, XXXVIII, 75). ‘God rubbed Adam’s back with His hand and produced from it his offspring’, and therefore the existence of the hand is proved, and the truth of His words ‘before him whom I have created with my two Hands’; and we are told in the khabar, related on the authority of the Prophet, that God created Adam with his hand, and created the Garden of Eden with his hand, wrote the Law with his hand and planted the Tree of Happiness with his hand.94 This is a literal interpretation that brings a physical understanding of God as a material creation of everything, the Garden of Eden first of all. In the following question of al-Ibānah concerning the different meanings attributed to aydin and ayādin, al-Ash‘arī confirmed God’s creation of Heaven, which probably needs to be distinguished from the Garden of Eden, ‘And the Heaven with our hands, We have built it up’;95 at the same time, the affirmation that God created Adam with His hand, as Iblīs, testifies to the superiority of the former to the latter, Iblīs would have said, arguing against his Lord: ‘Thou hast created me by Thy two hands as thou has created Adam by them.’ Therefore, since God willed to prefer Adam to Iblīs in this respect, He said to Iblīs, rebuking him for his pride against Adam in refusing to worship him.96 Allah said: Oh Iblīs, what is preventing you from prostrating to that which I created with my hands? Were you arrogant then, or were you already among the haughty? He said, I’m better than him. You created me from Fire and created him from clay. Qur’ān XXXVIII, 75–76

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God’s creative process, as interpreted by al-Ash‘arī, is not only the expression of a vividly realistically imagination; on the contrary, the author under analysis used the Qur’ān’s expressive literalism to maintain the real existence of God’s face, hands and other physical facets which are unequivocally the expression of an anthropomorphic image of God. As it is logically obvious that the concept of the face, as well as of one hand, can only be attributable on earth to human beings or animal nature, the fact that the Qur’ān extensively uses both does not prove that God possesses both, but that the Word of God is expressed verbally and scripturally to be understood by humans. The above assumptions, however, can clarify how al-Ash‘arī was eschatologically aware of the existence of the big annihilation of life on Earth, both of God’s creations of human beings and of the geography in which men had lived were residing and will inhabit in the afterlife. It is therefore important to highlight how no information is reported about Hell, in relation to being a creation by God.97 The same study clarifies the existence of the eschatological steps that the Qur’anic text elucidates in different passages: God scrutinizes human hearts that passed between two of His fingers, the intercession of God’s apostle, and that it is on behalf of the grave sinners of his Community (the Islamic Ummah); however, the Maqālāt is not as clear as the Ibānah: ‘We hold that God will bring forth a group from the Fire, after they will have been burned, because of the intercession of the Apostle of God; for we believe what has come down in the traditions from the Apostle of God.’98 The Ibānah can also elucidate ‘for whom is the intercession? It is for sinners who commit mortal sins, or for the devout faithful?’99 The sinners that have perpetrated mortal sins are those who have committed serious acts against God, his Word and his Law, but will be saved by God without breaking His promise; in other words, without denying what God already predestined since their inception in the mother’s womb. The intercession (Shafā‘ah) in question is only for those who deserve being relieved of their punishment or for those to whom He has not promised anything, that He may bestow it upon them; and so, without doubt, since the promise of the bestowal is precedent, there is no room for intercession.100 Al-Ash‘arī, in contrast with the Mu‘tazila, for whom there is no intercession by the Prophet because God’s justice is already perfect as it is without human mediation, answers by quoting: ‘He knows what is presently before them and what will be after them, and they cannot intercede except on behalf of one whom He approves. And they, from fear of Him, are apprehensive’ (Qur’ān, XXI, 28). There is a tradition, al-Ash‘arī again argues, that the intercession of the Prophet

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is for the people who have committed mortal sins, and there is a tradition on the authority of the Prophet that sinners will go forth from Hell.101 In the same historical period, although in Egypt, the H.  anafī scholar Abū Ja’fār al-T.ah.āwī (d. 933/321) in his Bayān al-Sunna wa l-Jamā‘ah,102 argued: The People of Great Sins do not remain in the Fire forever, so long as they die declaring the unity of Allah even though they are unrepentant after they meet Allah, yet cognizant that they are at the disposal of His will and judgement. If He wills, He forgives them and pardons them, through His free grace, as Allah who is mighty and majestic has said: Allah does not forgive the one who joins aught with Himself but He forgives anything short of that to whomsoever He wills (Qur’ān IV, 51, 116). If He wills He punishes them in the Fire in proportion to their offense in accordance with His justice. Afterwards He will withdraw them from it, in accordance with His mercy and the intercession of those interceding from among the people obeying Him, and will send them to the Garden. That takes place because Allah is the protector of those who know Him and He has not made them to be, either in this world or that which is to come, like those who deny Him, who were denied His guidance and have not obtained His protection.103

Not only through the Prophet’s intercession (Shafā‘ah) could a grave sinner reach Paradise, but as expressed in the above quotation, it is the mercy of God that permits an unrepentant grave sinner (it is also not specified whether Muslim or not) to be saved and, after a period in Hell, to reach the Garden (it is still unclear whether this is the Garden of Eden, the old one or re-­created by God, or the Garden of lower Heaven). In spite of this, it is important to highlight how in the same historical age as al-Ash‘arī, a H.  anafī author in continuity with the orthodox mutakallim goes far beyond the intercession of the Prophet, outlining a real dominant factor of God, his mercy (rah.ma). What is important to comprehend in the previous passage is also reflected in al-Ash‘arī and specifically in chapter nine of the Kitāb al-Luma‘: Will any believer (Muslim) be condemned to Hell forever? Al-Ash‘arī’s response is the same as Abū Ja’fār al-T.ah.āwī’s: No – unless he commits the unforgivable sin of shirk (polytheism, associating others with God). But since, in such a case, he would cease to be a Muslim, we may say that his answer is simply: No. It is not that God could not, but that He will not.104 The same awareness is also confirmed in relation to the human beings who are described as profligate men: those who consumed the wealth of the orphans wrongfully and of everyone who burned up the wealth of men wastefully. So one would have to conclude that all of them will be in the Garden from the ostensible meaning of God’s words:

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Salvation and Hell in Classical Islamic Thought oh my servants who have transgressed against themselves (by sinning) do not despair of the Mercy of Allah. Indeed, Allah forgives all sins. Indeed, it is He who is the Forgiving, the Merciful. And return in repentance to your Lord and submit to Him before the punishment comes upon you; then you will not be helped. Qur’ān XXXIX, 53–54.

One would have to conclude that every sin can be forgiven, except the sin of which God informed the Apostle, and the Muslims agree that it is unforgivable: the sin of polytheism and unbelief.105 However, the profligate man and everyone who consumes the wealth of the orphans wrongfully will be in Hell, so one could conclude on the contrary from God’s words, ‘Each time a group is cast into it, its guardians ask them: “Did not one come to warn you?” They reply: Yes, you come to warn us, but we belied and said: God has sent down nothing’ (Qur’ān LXVII, 8–9), that only the unbelievers enter the Fire. ‘So I have warned of a Fire which is blazing. None will enter to burn therein except the most wretched one. Who had denied and turn away. But the righteous one will avoid it. Who gives his wealth to purify himself ’ (Qur’ān XCIV, 14–18). This passage confirmed that only the Sinners who have not recognized the unity of God and turn away could be considered as profligate men and are also those who refrain from judging what God has sent down. These verses do not compel the conclusion that only the unbeliever enters the Fire, just as the previously quoted verses do not compel the conclusion that every profligate man will be in Hell and that everyone who consumes the wealth of the orphans wrongfully, and everyone who consumes the wealth of men wastefully, will be in the Fire.106 The clarified eschatological idea of al-Ash‘arī confirmed that those who will remain in Hell forever are those who have associated with God what cannot be associated; on the contrary, regarding the profligate men who also waste the orphans’ wealth, the possibility to leave Hell as repentant, but also as unrepentant, is not denied in relation to God’s immense mercy and forgiveness, in clear contrast with the Mu‘tazilite’s over-­zealous pursuit of a position of justice. Sometimes al-Ash‘arī’s position seems more likely inclined to deny the Mu‘tazilite one, rather than to clarify the message of God from a theological perspective. It is still unclear whether this opening process of the gate of Hell, this more ‘relaxing’ and ‘merciful’ position, was supported by al-Ash‘arī according to a real understanding of God’s mercy, or univocally in contrast with the ‘stronger’ Mu‘tazilite position which witnessed eternal punishment for grave Muslim sinners without the possibility of intercession by the Prophet.

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The above doubts are also related to the early Ash‘arite–Mu‘tazilite positions on the children of faithful, but also of those of the unbelievers. The former agreed that the children of the faithful are in the Garden with their fathers, while there were several opinions concerning the children of the mushrikūn and kāfirūn, as seems generally to be the case. Some felt they will be in the Fire for the explicit purpose of causing more pain to their parents, indicating that the main concern of this discussion often does not lie with the fate of the children themselves, but on the one hand with God’s mercy and justice, while on the other on the firm condemnation of kufr and shirk as incumbent punishments on offspring for the sins of their fathers. For the H.  anbalite Qād.ī Abū Ya‘lā (d. 1066/458), the interpretation of the Quranic verse LII, 21, ‘And those who believed and whose descendants followed them in faith-We will join with them their descendants, and We will not deprive them of anything of their deeds. Every person, for what he earned, is retained’, is actually proof that the children of the mushrikūn are with their fathers in the Fire.107 In contrast with the H.  anbalite, the Mu‘tazila denied that children of the non-­ believers would go to Hell. Their position, however, was not unambiguous and, as al-Ash‘arī himself indicates, encompassed several somewhat alternative points of view.108 Concerning the fate of children in general, all the Mu‘tazila said that it is likely that God will in fact not hurt or even punish children in the hereafter; more specifically, ‘Abd al-Jabbār (d. 1025/415) in the Sharh. al-­us.  ūl al-­khamsa109 argued that it is not permissible that the children of the polytheists will be punished for the sins of their fathers. God’s z.ulm could be against them. The Qur’ān also in XVII, 15, is clear about this: ‘Whoever is guided is only guided for [the benefit of] his soul. And whoever errs only errs against it. And no bearer of burdens will bear the burden of another. And never would We punish until We sent a messenger.’ The Mu‘tazilite master also quoted a famous H.  adīth of the Prophet (qudsī): ‘We shall suspend the punishment from the children until they reached puberty.’ Quoting what he calls the stupidity of those who believe the fabrication that God will order children to enter the Fire on the day of resurrection and the progeny of the mushrikūn will disobey, he says that this would make the hereafter a place where people make choices, and we all know that choices are made in this world and the consequences of them reaped in the next.110 The early Ash‘arites’ literalism will be strenuously denied by al-Ghazālī in the following century in the Kitāb al-Arba‘īn, but also in the Maqs.  ad al-­asnā, as a limit of the orthodox Kalām, rediscovering contemporary positions such as that

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of ‘Abd al-Jabbār on the salvation of polytheists’ children.111 However, it is also necessary to clarify that the early Ash‘arites’ anti-Mu‘tazilite positions are not exclusively antithetical to a superficial literalist and predestinarian background. The over-­rational and over-­zealous pursuit of a position of justice by early Khārijites and Mu‘tazilite was strongly attacked by al-Ash‘arī in relation to the famous Quranic verse XCIX, 7–8, which affirms that anyone who has done an atom’s weight of good or evil shall see its results. No matter how numerous or serious one’s sins, they said, whoever has an atom of faith will be taken from the Fire. Conversely, good actions will not automatically negate the ill effects of one’s sins, for which punishment is deserved.112 As a conclusion, for al-Ash‘arī three elements came to be seen as bearing directly on the issue of the possible mitigation of the effects of sinful actions: God’s mercy, human repentance (tawba) and intercession (Shafā‘ah);113 nevertheless, only the second has ¯ something to do with human beings, while the others are exclusively connected with divine approval. If al-Ash‘arī’s position has the merit of having triggered off the dynamics of divine mercy in the analysis of the afterlife, he did not really evolve it, but in a literal and predestinarian paradox he could not tie God’s mercy to human behaviour (which is predestined by God himself) in antithesis, as demonstrated by ‘Abd al-Jabbār (on the position of children), to a rational understanding of Allah’s Rah.ma.

Al-Māturīdī (d. 944/332) and Maturidism: Fanā’s paradigm Maturidism is the school of Kalām that was able to reconcile some of the most significant positions of Mu‘tazilite and Ash‘arite thought, influencing what has become Ash‘arite orthodoxy before the renovation carried out by authors such as al-Ghazālī and al-Taftazānī. As well as for al-Ash‘arī, one of the main methodological problems concerning al-Māturīdī (d. 944/322) is to attribute to him authentic thought rather than one of the Maturidian authors who followed him in subsequent decades. Furthermore, this mutakallim, in antithesis with al-Ash‘arī, has been discovered more recently and few academics have specifically worked on its sources.114 Like al-Ash‘arī, the author from Samarkand maintained that human actions are created by God, but he questioned the Ash‘arite view that the power which is able to make evil and good actions do not belong to the human being that performs them.

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The nonconforming ‘innovation’ (Bid‘a) of al-Māturīdī stressed man’s choice of alternatives, asserting that ‘reward and punishment’ are related to the use of the created act (isti‘māl).‘Creating is the act of God and consists of the originating of power in man, but the use of the originated power is the act of man, really not metaphorically.’115 Māturīdī’s position, however, was different from that of the Mu‘tazila; he adhered to the notion that could be found in Ash‘arism, that everything that takes place, including sin and unbelief, are associated with God’s will and that whatever man does is known to God from eternity.116 It is also important to emphasize the importance of al-Māturīdī’s geographical formative area. If al-Ash‘arī’s intellectual background is certainly connected with Mu‘tazilism and the Bas.ra–Baghdād area, the scholar of Samarkand grew up in a region under the control of the Samanid (819–999 ce)117 and in an area with a prevalently Tajik Turkish-­speaking population in which Islām subsisted together with pre-Islamic religious sensibilities related to postZoroastrianism (Manicheans, Daysanites) and unorthodox Oriental Christian sects (Marcionites). It is not a coincidence that in his famous Kitāb al-Tawh.īd, there are many parts on Indo-Persian dualism in which the author tried to demonstrate its wrong religiosity; on the other hand, al-Māturīdī’s main opponents even in this peripheral area remained scholars with a Mu‘tazilite background: Abū Qāsim al-Balkhī (d. 931/318),118 the ex-Mu‘tazilite Ibn al-Rewandī (d. 911/298)119 and Muh.ammad Ibn Shabīb (d. Unknown).120 Before returning to the relation between God and evil, which is particularly important for al-Māturīdī’s understanding of the Fanā’ al-Nār, it is important to devote a few words to the Scholar’s awareness of Cosmological arguments and the analysis concerning the World limits. Al-Māturīdī’s premises are based on the proof that the sensitive world that surrounds us may not be conceived as an eternal universe, but rather as a contingent product of a Creator, moreover, created in time.121 Our author, in the Kitāb al-Tawh.īd, demonstrates the non-­eternity of the world through seventeen arguments that can be briefly summarized here:

1. God tells us in the Qur’ān that He created the world in time and that all people in this created world came to exist at a certain time and they are conscious of their finitude (arguments 1, 2, 13). However, no information emerged on whether Paradise and Hell were created by God from the beginning or not, but only, that both logically could cease to exist if still physically interpreted.

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2. The perception of human bodies, in antithesis with Nature, is subject to an external coercion which shows that it could not be autonomous, but is subordinate to a Creator or for unbelievers to Natura Naturans. In spite of this, the parts of this world are finite, concerning space and time, from which it is important to comprehend that the entire world cannot be infinite (arguments 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). 3. The corporeal substance (a‘yān) exists through accidents (a‘rād.), such as movement and resting, which are bestowed on it. In spite of this, these accidents are temporal even if they can be bound to a specific body, but not before this body existed in Nature. So, everything that exists in this World must have a cause and every reason is not ad infinitum, because everything that has a beginning needs an end. Thus they can only exist in time (arguments, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17).122 The main sources of the first two arguments can be seen in the Qur’ān as well as in the Sunna, but also in al-Ash‘arī’s Kitāb al-Luma‘, the early Mu‘tazilite thought of an-Naz.z.ām and al-Khayyāt. as well as in the philosophy of al-Kindī.123 Concerning the third argument, moreover, Aristotle’s teaching on the First Mover was reconsidered again by early Muslim philosophers and Mu‘tazilite theologians, such as al-Iskāfī (d. 853/238). If the attributes of Allah are excluded from the things making up the world because they are none other than His essence, just as they are not the essence itself, all that is not God is originated (muh.dath) that is brought from the non-­ existence to the existence. Since it is, the world consists of substances (a‘yān) and accidents (a‘rād.), because whatever of it is self-­subsistent (qā’im bi dhātihi) is a substance, and whatever is not is an accident. Both of them are originated, as we shall show. And the author Allah have mercy on him did not deal with this, because the discussion of it would be very long and inappropriate to this brief treatise of his, seeing that it is confined to problems without their proofs.124

As already stated in the previous parts, al-Māturīdī’s distinction between a more literal and a more metaphorical interpretation of the Qur’ān in order to better categorize the logical passages that allow the evaluation of a specific doctrine on the annihilation are prominent aspects that will be studied in further detail below. Maturidian Kalām investigates the unity of God and, as already reported by Mu‘tazilite sources, refers to the distinction between God’s attributes and God’s attributes of eternity (his Knowledge, Power, Life, Might, Hearing, Seeing, Willing

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and Desiring, Doing and Creating), arguing, more philosophically, that everything that is not God or does not come directly from Him must be considered as separate from God’s unity. At the same time, Abū H.  afs. ‘Umar alNasafī (d. 1142/536), maintains that these are expressions of attributes existing for eternity that are brought into existence (takwīn, bringing into being) by God himself, maintaining the distinction between the creation (Khalq), from the thing created (al-­makhlūq). As earlier reported on the Unitarian–plural eternal existence of God, Allah’s takwīn highlights that God is the creator before the Creation, He has been the creator since eternity.125 The Garden and the Fire are realistically created by God; they exist and their permanence is in continuity to not pass away, nor will their habitants pass away either. This sentence reported by al-Taftazānī on the thought of al-Nasafī explains an eschatological reflection that is rooted in God’s Wisdom, an unmeasurable essential quality of its unity. The indicators of this Wisdom (h.ikma) can be found everywhere in the World and also need to be understood by all humans. This is clear at different levels: the harmonious direction of the creation, within the rationality of ethical norms and in the way in which God creates harmful life forms and substances for precise reasons.126 For al-Māturīdī the term Wisdom is almost synonymous with purpose (al-Qas.  d) and denotes his assertion that reality is rational and therefore subject to reasonable analysis. This is a prominent aspect in understanding the problem of evil in this scholar’s thought. Human beings are the only created beings who could perceive the signs based on h.ikma; in spite of this, rational human knowledge encompasses the ethical norms, the world’s creation process as the proof that there is an omnipotent and omniscient Creator. Humans, and this is one of the first times that Islamic Kalām is able to recognize this duality in theology (unlike Falsafa), consist of an intellect and a nature: this body consists in turn of t.abā’i‘ (natures, the elementary qualities such as heat, cold, moisture and dryness, in other words, the basic materials which make up the World) which incorporate the intellect as an additional accident.127 This is a philosophical assumption, previously developed only by the Mu‘tazila, that completed the supposition that human beings are rational finite and mortal beings.128 However, al-Māturīdī’s paradigmatic understanding of human beings is an intermediate position, between the Qadarite–Mu‘tazilite absolute power of creating action and the Jabrite–Ash‘arite opposing point of univocally attributing this power to God.

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Early Abū H.  anīfa followers attested that God is willing, the decider and creator of human actions, but if it is a good deed this is attributable to Allah’s assistance (tawfīq), while if it is a bad deed it has been forsaken (khidhlān) by God.129 However, the above statement is still unable to explain the connection between God’s power and human capacity to act, the istit.ā‘a. Al-Māturīdī’s H.  anafite inheritance, which becomes a prominent characteristic of his own teachings, is related to the idea that a person, when acting, always has the capacity to do two contrary actions and this is the ikhtiyār, the free choice of humans: human beings are the true agents of their actions, while these actions are at the same time created by God. Human responsibility for the quality of the act is attributable to the singular believer while creation is still ascribed to God.130 This theory, that al-Māturīdī recovers from previous H.  anafite and Karrāmites positions, will be supported by Abū l-Mu‘īn al-Nasafī (d. 1114/507), who like his master presumed the existence of the two capabilities of acting, the potentiality of the limbs and the direct aptitude to choose.131 Najm ad-Dīn Nasafī (d. 1142/536) confirmed the doctrine in the school as the most important Maturidian contribution to the theory of mankind action.132 This important passage, in a different manner from the Mu‘tazila, emphasizes first of all that the actual doing of evil is not God’s doing it, but man’s doctrine on free choice acquisition through ikhtiyār; God’s role in this is to create the capacity that enables man to perform what he has decided to do. Second, Evil, being a created thing cannot then be like God or is not something that could be attributable to Him.133 Moral evil, which in this context means what is done in violation of the divine command, is assigned to man’s decision and subsequent acquisition of the action as his own. The relevance of this theory is paradigmatic because Islamic orthodoxy is finally able to reconcile an omnipotent God with His justice; it is finally able to judge with justice a human being free to choose between goodness and evil. At the same time, as for the Mu‘tazila, mankind returned to be the one who can choose evil, even if he is not its creator (in antithesis with the first school of Kalām), a power which remains in God.

The believer and unbeliever in Maturidian thought It is therefore important to reach the core of al-Māturīdī’s analysis on his eschatological view of the afterlife and his position on its annihilation. The Scholar of Samarkand is formatively oriented in accepting the H.  anafite’s evaluation of the sinner: the reprobate is still a believer even if he has committed

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a grave sin, a clear Murji’te position in antithesis to the early Khārijites who maintained that a Muslim believer, who commits something really serious against Islām, could not still be considered a Muslim.134 Islamic orthodoxy would, however, come to state it more simply that every disobedience in which the creature persists is a great sin, while everything for which he asks pardon is a minor sin; in addition, the absolute sin is Unbelief, since there is no offence greater than that. ‘Punishment is for him who denied and turned his back’ (Qur’ān, XX: 50) and ‘None, shall burn in it except the most wretched, who denied and turned his back’ (Qur’ān, XCII: 15–16) and, finally ‘Verily this day shame and evil shall be on the unbelievers’ (Qur’ān, XVI: 29). The above three verses, all Meccan, clarify the ongoing debate on the status of the believers from the beginning of the Kalām era, until the century in which Ash‘arism and Maturidism started to play a significant role. The Qur’anic warning that Punishment in Hell is for those who denied God’s message revealed through Muh.ammad, or those who after a first interest turned their backs, clearly refers to the early decades of Islām in which the attempt to find new followers was made difficult by the decline of the previous polytheistic religion system of Mecca. However, the punishment in these verses, identified with burning, is ascribable only towards the deniers who, while knowing the true message of God, rejected it. Only those Muslims who, after having known the real Islamic message, abandon this religion or deny it are sentenced to permanent hell. The real main offence to God, which Allah could not forgive, at least for the rational understanding of Maturidian–Ash‘arite thought, is related to those who join another entity to Allah (ishrāk), breaking God’s unity, or those who leave this religion. Some took the position that it is permissible (ishrāk) on the basis of Reason, but from authoritative proof it is known not to be permissible; while some took the position that it is impossible on the basis of Reason since wisdom demands a distinction between the doer of wickedness and the doer of good. Since Unbelief is the extreme offence, it is impossible to permit the forgiveness of ishrāk or to lift the ban from it at all, so it does not admit of being pardoned and cleared of the damage done. The Unbeliever also has the conviction that this is a reality and does not seek pardon and forgiveness; so it is unwise to pardon him. Also this is a conviction which, in contrast with the rest of the offences, has to do with eternity (al-Abad) so it demands a recompense that shall be to eternity. But He pardons whomsoever He wills any sin, whether great or small, except this whether accompanied by repentance or not.135

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This important position, which seems to be in stark contrast to the Mu‘tazila, emphasizes only that God’s forgiveness may take place rather than that it necessarily does, beyond trivial human rationality. Since there are many personal statutes that have to do with pardon, the sinner who is forgiven in general terms is specified, but also being threatened with punishment. It is clear that this second example is directly connected with an idea of a purgative role of Hell. The sinning believer is not liable to eternal punishment in Hell, while the worst punishment will be reserved for the worst evildoers. Whoever is a believer will be rewarded with entrance to Paradise. He may expect punishment for sins in Hell before this (purgative role), but this will be temporally limited and not endless.136 According to this understanding, the purgation by Fire is not so much a punishment or chastisement as it is curative, putting man into a proper state to be able to enjoy the bliss of the happier abode, a clear proto-Sufite idea. At the same time, since Fire has been made as the reward for Unbelief, which is the greatest of offences, others than the Unbelievers were so rewarded (and remain forever in the Fire) but that would be an injustice to them, because they are not really Unbelievers. God’s reward is an act of God’s grace, while punishment is an act of God’s justice (‘adl); if He wills He pardons, and if He wills He punishes for a time and then lets the person enter the Garden.137 According to the same verses and against the over-­rational understanding of the Mu‘tazila, God’s mercy (rah.ma) is contemplated as the main characteristic, remote from a possible rational human control, but in possession of a power rooted in the oneness of God, which may go beyond the human capacity for understanding of the moral aspect as dictated by the divine. The Qur’ān underlines a couple of passages that could be helpful in our disquisition. In VII: 156, it states: ‘And ordain for us that which is good, in this life and in the Hereafter: for we have turned unto Thee.’ He said: ‘With My punishment I visit whom I will; but my mercy extended to all things. That (mercy) I shall ordain for those who do right, and practise regular charity, and those who believe in Our signs’, while XI: 119 states: ‘Except those on whom thy Lord hath bestowed His Mercy: and for this did He create them: and the Word of thy Lord shall be fulfilled: I will fill Hell with Jinns and men all together.’138 However, not all of the Mu‘tazila rejected the possibility that God will not forgive those who commit serious sins without some act of repentance on their part. Muh.ammad Ibn Shabīb al-Bas.rī (d. unknown, who was identified as a Mu‘tazilite with a Murji’te- Qadarite ideological position)139 agrees on the matter

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of God’s threat to those who commit serious sins and declare it permissible to hold that God will forgive their sins without any act of repentance (tawba), because one who commits a grave sin does not necessarily lose faith.140 The postponement of judgement (irjā’) is the basis for this speculative thought of the afterlife. Abū H.  anīfah was once asked: where does the idea of irjā’ come from? Tell me the names of these things if you are truthful (I: 31), Thus when they were asked about a thing which they did not know, they delegated it to God. This is also true of those who commit grave sins, because if there had been one good deed accepted by God, all other bad deeds, except polytheism might be forgiven. Therefore the committer of the grave sin is not to abide perpetually in Hell, but his affair is postponed until the judgement of God who, if He wishes, may forgive him.141 ‘Indeed, those things that are good remove those that are evil’ (XI: 114) but also, ‘We shall expel out of you all the evil in you’ (IV: 31). So God mentioned different kinds of atonements by way of which one may be excused. If God wishes, He will punish man in accordance with his deed, or He will reward him in accordance with his good deeds. As He said, ‘Then shall anyone who has done an atom’s weight of good, see it, but whoever has done an atom’s weight of evil will see that’ (XCIX: 7–8) and other similar verses in which the mention of the punishment for evil and the reward for good is made. This is the characteristic of justice in punishment, while if the reward were granted that would be God’s grace. This kind of irjā is binding.142 If the judgement is up to God, religious belief is up to human beings, as explained by al-Māturīdī through the affirmation of heart (al-­tas.  dīq bi-­l-qalb) and avowal with the tongue (al-­iqrār bi-­l-lisān). A Muslim believer is someone who testifies with sincere conviction that there is one God and that Muh.ammad is His messenger. However, the scholar of Samarkand’s first contention argued that faith is not a matter of cognition but rather of assent. Belief ’s understanding does not presuppose the knowledge about the object we believe in, we do not know the past prophets but we believe in them, and also we believe that there is Satan, but we do not believe in it. Heart and tongue are both clearly highlighted in the Qur’ān X: 90–92: We took the children of Israel across the sea. Pharaoh and his troops pursued them in arrogance and aggression. But as he was drowning he cried ‘I believe there is no God except the one the children of Israel believe in’ I submit to Him. Now? When you had always been a rebel and a troublemaker! Today, we shall save only your corpse as sign to all posterity. A great many people fail to heed our signs.

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Belief is not impossible for the Pharaoh (Fir‘awn) either. Al-Māturīdī, however, in the Kitāb al-Tawh.īd,143 tried to problematize the Quranic verse: ‘If Pharaoh had been able to believe, he would have been able to invalidate God’s fore-­ knowledge. This is of Pharaoh and of everyone who in God’s knowledge will not believe.’ If God knows from all eternity that Pharaoh cannot believe, the above Quranic verses, which are indicative of this Great Unbeliever’s conversion, raise a major doubt about God’s omniscience. At the same time, this predestinarian approach raises another question: if his acceptance of belief is impossible, how could the Pharaoh be considered responsible for his unbelief? If God’s knowledge for all eternity supports the Pharaoh’s infidelity and, after it, the death-­contingency stressed his conversion, this is symptomatic that God is ignorant.144 Eric Ormsby argued that underneath these logical and philosophical concern lurks the more difficult – indeed, the excruciating – theological problem of why God singles some out for belief and subsequent salvation, and others for unbelief and subsequent damnation. What kind of God condemns those whom He himself has made as they are?145 However, the problem became even greater if we consider all Islamic Tafsīr,146 as argued by Roberto Tottoli, in which Archangel Gabriel tried to fill the Pharaoh’s mouth with stones and mud so that he would not recant his infidelity while drowning.147 Apart from the absurdity of this last image, al-Māturīdī does not seem to consider his theory of ikhtiyār: God’s role is to create the capacity that enables man to perform what he has decided to do; could Allah prevent him from pronouncing the Shahādah, considering the Pharaoh’s dual option between dying as a Human being who considered himself as a God or dying as a Human being who believes in a monotheistic upper divinity? God cannot, as also clearly reported in X: 88: And Moses said, ‘Our Lord, you have given Pharaoh and his chiefs splendour and wealth in this present life and here they are, Lord, leading others astray from Your path. Our Lord obliterates their wealth and hardens their hearts so that they do not believe until they see the agonizing torment.’

This precludes wa-­anā min al-­muslimīn (and I’m among those who prostrate themselves), a genuine profession of faith which ‘probably’ pushed God to save him. It is hard to confirm whether al-Māturīdī rationally supported the possibility of Pharaoh’s salvation; however, putting it in the Kitāb al-Tawh.īd is indicative that he wanted, at least, to approach this topic in its main text.

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As a conclusion, is important to emphasize how al-Māturīdī highlights the temporary nature of the punishment for Muslims who commit grave sins, but also for the Unbelievers who ask for forgiveness and declare their belief in the oneness of God. It would be impossible for the Pharaoh to pronounce a full Shahādah including the part on the Prophet Muh.ammad, considering the preIslamic nature of the event reported. However, if the gates of Hell open to allow a part of its inhabitants to abandon it, the concept of annihilation (Fanā’) is problematically unconsidered by the scholar of Samarkand. Al-Māturīdī’s understanding of the finiteness of the world is clarified in its analysis and its duality: the world includes good and evil, small and big, good and bad things as well as light and darkness. These facets are related to the world’s possibilities for change; this change could lead to disappearance and annihilation; whatever is liable to complete destruction cannot be in the world by itself. The author’s conclusion is that the world was created by an agent. At the same time, the world is made of parts and halves and if the whole is made up of finite parts, it could not become infinite. Al-Māturīdī clarifies that the world has a beginning because its physical nature is significantly connected with a beginning and with a creator; the world is known through this physical perception and not through a spiritual reasoning; for the above reasons the world cannot be eternal.148 However, al-Māturīdī’s refutation of the possibility of the world’s eternity is the basis of his argument that things unlike by nature repel each other. Muh.ammad Ibn Shabīb said about that topic what we too think is its meaning, that, since that which exists (al-­qā’im) must, as it is, be composed of mutual opposition (al-­tad.ādd) and contradiction (al-­tanāqud), since it always exists like that, its coming to be is false, inasmuch as the coming to be of anything of the whole can only be imagined on the basis that it is something which exists in the whole. Along with that, each being of the whole is that which blocks the existence of the other. So, to say that the World came into being of itself is false. [. . .] Mutual opposition exists by nature. If it were possible for both to transcend their nature in which the mutual opposing resides, opposition necessitating what I have said, by their own choice (bi-­l-ikhtiyār) then it would also be possible for it to choose annihilation for itself, though exists by its own nature. Now, since both these options are false, it is proven that the world came to be after it had not been, by the action of one who gave it temporal being; likewise, it came to be as it is, a blend of difference and agreement.149

Ibn Shabīb’s point of view was also adopted by al-Māturīdī with an added peculiarity, the use of evil as an element in the proof of the existence of a

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muh.dith;150 nevertheless, the above assertion of the world’s finiteness is also rationally related to its annihilation (Fanā’). In spite of this, the Scholar under examination, like al-Ash‘arī before him, on the one hand is able to define God’s mercy as one of the main factors of salvation in the afterlife, and on the other hand is also the first mutakallim who identified the salvation of an Unbeliever as possible. The Pharaoh’s Shahādah, albeit incomplete, is symbolically performed by the main authority of kufr, a man who made himself God, but who has the option of performing it, declaring the rediscovery of faith in God. However, this author, like the majority of the early Muslim theologians, is still far from exploring how the finiteness of the world and the big Fanā’, the annihilation of earthly life, will shape a new world, its new physicality or spirituality. Al- Māturīdī’s eschatological view is still more physical than spiritual as is that of al-Ash‘arī and a part of the Mu‘tazila. A clear understanding of God’s beatific vision of the afterlife and a descriptive passage of the damned, Muslims or not, from Hell to Paradise, had not received special attention by al- Māturīdī. There is a clear theological comprehension of salvation of Muslim grave sinners, and probably also of unbelievers, but the key issue to clarifying this point remains obscure. The Kitāb al-Sawād al-­a‘z.ām, by al-H.  akīm al-Samarqandī (d. 953/341), an author of the same geographical area and historical period, still maintains that Paradise and Hell are created but everlasting, whoever maintained that both were uncreated is a disbeliever, while whoever says that both are transitory is a Jahamite.151 Al- Māturīdī, despite being aware that what has a beginning must have an end, leaves no trace of a possible annihilation of afterlife as well. It is very likely that al-Māturīdī, or a Maturidian follower such as Najm adDīn al-Nasafī, worked on the Rad.d. Kitāb wa’īd al-­fussaq lī-­al-Ka‘bī (work attributed to al-Māturīdī, but that has never been found, and could only be speculatively considered as related to the Scholar of Samarkand’s vision of the afterlife), which distinguished the day of judgement and the temporary physical suffering of human bodies in Hell, their process of purification and reaching God’s paradise, abandoning a temporary Hell. However, the methodology which confirms these steps remains unknown. An important distinction was clearly emerging in Islamic Kalām of the tenth century: Ash‘arite and Muturidian schools established an Islamic theological orthodoxy which until al-Ghazālī evidently emphasized the distinction between Falsafa, its speculations and Kalām. The finiteness of the world, but also the reflection on human souls and world cosmology are partially considered, if the

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big Fanā’, the annihilation of earthly life is rationally understood in relation to the accomplishment of the world, the reflection on the different categories of resurrection, the role of the human soul, and the achievement of the afterlife need to wait, after the early Mu‘tazilite speculation, for Islamic falsafa methodology. Nevertheless, some Mu‘tazilite authors such as an-Naz.z.ām and al-Jāh.iz, alAsh‘arī and al-Māturīdī had already identified the spiritual being of the afterlife, the salvation of non-Muslim children and the redemption of polytheists: these are paradigmatic key points of the depopulation of Hell.

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Islamic Philosophy (Falsafa) and the Annihilation of the Non-Body Rationally Explained

The previous chapters have clarified that the Annihilation of the Fire is not an orthodox Islamic doctrine unanimously upheld by the majority of Muslim experts. On the contrary, from the eighth century onwards, the Fanā’ al-Nār is rarely reported in early Kalām, and remained a limited option due to the presence of an emerging orthodox theology that, while it endorsed the salvation of Muslims who had sinned gravely, remained unclear regarding the believers of other faiths. Few experts in Islamic thought maintained there was physical annihilation of fire (and of Heaven too) as an expression of a Neo-Platonic understanding of the world (Jahm ibn S.afwān and partially Abū al-Hudhayl), and those who argued about the Fanā’ of Human Soul in Kalām (al-Jāh.iz.) and in early Mysticism remained quite limited in number. With the ninth century, a preliminary theological awareness of the soul’s independence from the human body timidly started to be asserted in Kalām. This is why al-Muh.āsibī and al-Tirmidhī are also rationally able to explain the Soul-Annihilation and its purification process in Hell, while the mutakallimūn remained distant, giving a more esoteric description of the afterlife. In spite of this, in the ninth–tenth centuries, we can foresee the theological insights and problems that will emerge on the Fanā’ al-Nār in the following centuries. Al-Ghazālī’s idea of the afterlife, as it will appear in the Kitāb dhikr al-­mawt wa-­mā ba‘dahu, is a union of rational, philosophic and esoteric positions, as already mentioned in Chapters 1 and 2. In the formative centuries of Islām, no concrete attention is paid either to the fate of the Ahl al-Kitāb, who will come into view with some Mu‘tazilites and alMāturīdī, God’s mercy and the Pharaoh’s case, but also more precisely with the Ash‘arite reviver. Is it God’s mercy which allows the purification process or is it

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the physical–spiritual tortures in ‘Hell’ that lead to an expiation process? Or rather, is it the immaterial torture of the human soul that will, in an unpredictable future, empty Hell? The Neo-Platonic understanding of early Islamic theology, which focuses on the necessary end of what has been created by God, is confirmed both if, as maintained by the Mu‘tazila, Allah creates the Afterlife after the last judgement, and, as argued by the Ash‘arite, God had designed Heaven and Hell from the beginning: in the tenth century, the debate on when God created the hereafter will clearly appear as unproductive and no longer of any particular importance. In addition, if the Devil had been annihilated as eschatologically implicit in all the Semitic religious traditions and Islām before the Yawm al-Dīn, as manifested with the annihiliation of the Dajjāl by the Mahdī for the Sunnis and for the Shiites, it is rationally impossible that He can be the master of Hell; this means that God, besides being the creator of Hell, is also its master, or rather that Hell does not have a real owner. So, is ‘Hell’ still necessarily existent? Although deeply confusing due to the presence of various Kalām positions, the eighth– ninth-­century authors highlight the presence of a double annihilation in Islamic eschatology: the first physical, and platonically connected with God’s creation; the second (for Ascetic authors) related to the annihilation of human souls and a process of purification concerning the souls of the damned. This is a fascinating hypothesis that will emerge more explicitly in the tenth– twelfth centuries through the works of Islamic philosophy (Falsafa) and the renovators of Kalām.

Al-Kindī and an early philosophical understanding of eschatology Al-Kindī’s contribution to the formation of theological and philosophical thought coincided with the reception and assimilation of foreign concepts and methodology of Antiquity which entitled him to play a prominent role in a growing comprehension of God’s metaphysics. The early Mu‘tazilite contribution in the early steps of falsafa has been clearly supported by authors such as R. Walzer, Majid Fakhry and P. Adamson.1 For al-Kindī (d. 873/259) metaphysics is theology, because it is an explanation of things that subsist without matter although they may exist together with what does have matter.2 In First Philosophy, a major treatise dedicated by al-Kindī to

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the ‘Abbasid caliph al-Mu‘tas.im (d. 842/227), he defines philosophy as ‘the knowledge of the realities of things, according to human capacity’ and metaphysics as ‘the knowledge of the first reality which is the cause of every reality’.3 The basic aspects of this philosophical method are shown in al-Kindī’s own syncretic approach to the presentation and discussion of philosophical problems. In First Philosophy, the Arab author tried to define a framework based on the Neo-Platonist theory of emanation and the concept of the One, plus the basic Aristotelian principles of being as well as the metaphysics of causality and intellectual knowledge. Al-Kindī argued for creation ex nihilo, based on the Platonic emanation of intellect, soul and matter from the One, but no natural causation in which the First Being is created by God’s eternal will. On one of the major philosophical problems, namely the nature of resurrection, he asserted the immortality of the individual soul and claimed this to be the rational explanation for resurrection.4 However, al-Kindī’s comprehension of his eschatological view begins with his cosmology, in which the Arab philosopher proposes a theory that is neither Aristotelian nor Neo-Platonic; like the Ikhwān al-S.afā, our author admits the existence of the five constitutive elements of the universe but, in contrast with J. Philoponus and his Aristotelian approach,5 he underlines that these elements are the basics on which creation was made possible. It would be one of the first times that a notable author will elaborate a cosmological analysis that directly reflects on his eschatological understanding and on the hypothesis concerning the formation of the soul. To support, as Aristotle did, the proposition that among these five elements, air, fire, water, earth and aether, the last named has a different essence because it is related to the celestial spheres is like an admission that these spheres are not susceptible to corruption and transformation as a motionless permanence. While criticizing the lack of rational logic concerning the immanence of the celestial spheres, the Arab philosopher argued, as Pythagoras6 did, that these spheres are populated by life and intelligence and can also elaborate a proairesis, a selective will. Al-Kindī’s thought on the prostration of the celestial bodies and their submission to God implies a direct inspiration from the Quranic passage (LV, 1–6): ‘(Allah) Most Gracious! It is He Who has taught the Qur’ān, He has created man: He has taught him speech (and intelligence). The sun and the moon follow courses (exactly) computed; and the herbs and the trees – both (alike) prostrate in adoration.’ Al-Kindī argued that the word sujūd, used in the last verse, should not

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be translated using the verb prostrate, but rather with obey as it was in pre-Islamic poetry.7 God is therefore the real Agent or cause in the world. Our philosopher, however, who always tried to reconcile the Greek spirit with the Qur’anic message, also defined the Agent as the great causal chain of being, more in the spirit of Aristotelianism than that of Neo-Platonism, which will later bring the violent reaction of Ash‘arites when these causal chains will be identified with ‘secondary’ causalities interposing active entities between God and its creature, curtailing God’s omnipotence and sovereignty in the world.8 All the entities of the celestial sphere, which act in relation to the sublunary world, must have the most sublime reason; on the contrary, as the treatise Proximate Efficient Cause of Generation and Corruption showed, al-Kindī inquires into the function of the intermediate or subordinate agent and God’s universal disposition of things through the levels of his wisdom. In spite of this, Pythagoras’ subsequent axiom, that the celestial entities are the main causes of the ‘being rational’ of humans, is able to demonstrate that these essences are at the origin of all the animated forms, belonging to the world below and are at the origin of reason, the peculiar feature of human nature.9 Majid Fakhry highlighted: Al-Kindī supported that the celestial spheres which transmitted life to the sublunary entities, must be, as directly, as indirectly, for the same reason, animated in the same way. Being higher than the earth entities, and liable to corruption and generation, they must be exempted from generation and corruption, and for the same reason they must own life in their essence as eternal, in order that vital essence can belong accidentally and in a transitory way to the creatures below.10

This hypothesis needs to be considered again in relation to a Pythagorean– Platonic axiom concerning the affiliation of souls to the celestial spheres, but also the conception of the accidental and temporary union of soul and body. The soul in origin is combined with the incorruptible spheres, affiliated as being an incorporeal substance, which for Plato’s philosophy is rooted in the temporary union with bodies, even though it remains the principle of life, which co-­exists with the organic body for a given period and then relinquishes it without affecting its corporeality. Like Plato, al-Kindī subscribes to the tripartite theory of the soul, or the view that the soul consists of the rational, the irascible and the concupiscent parts. Upon this theory, he develops, like almost all the ethical philosophers of Islām,

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an ethical doctrine according to which wisdom is the virtue or excellence of the rational part, courage the virtue of the irascible part and temperance that of the concupiscent part. Al-Kindī’s neo-Platonic assumption is that the soul is a simple entity, whose substance is analogous to the Creator’s own substance, just as the light of the sun is analogous to the sun, and being divine and spiritual in essence, the soul is distinct from the body and is in opposition to it.11

The soul and its purification process in a cosmological vision Upon the separation of the soul from the body on death, the soul will dwell in the world of the spheres for a while, and then ascend to the higher intelligible world. The soul will leave its temporary dwelling in the body to re-­join the Real World on which the light of the creator shines, of which it will be able to partake of all knowledge so that nothing will remain hidden from it.12 However, not all the souls will be allowed to join that higher world at once. Some will linger in the different spheres on account of their impurities and when they are cleansed of this grime will be allowed to ascend to higher spheres. In the Discourse on the Soul there is a clarifying passage which describes the heaviness of this soul with an almost infernal accent: ‘Say to those who weep, whose nature is to weep about grievous things: it is necessary to weep and to do more weeping, for him who neglects his soul, and goes too far in pursuing vulgar, base, unclean, false desires which bring wickedness, and incline his nature to the nature of beasts.’13 When it has become thoroughly purified, the soul will be allowed to join the intelligible world, enjoy divine favour and grasp all manners of cognition of which it was oblivious during its earthly career.14 It is evident that even if we could not define this view as a theory of Fanā’ alNār, some relevant elements of an annihilation of human evil and a temporary expiation are already well rooted in al-Kindī’s thought, not precisely theologically but cosmologically and philosophically. Some souls will undergo purification in stages of abiding temporarily in the sphere of the moon and subsequently in that of Mercury and the spheres beyond it, until they become thoroughly cleansed and are fit to be ushered into the intelligible world. This indeed is the burden of the philosophers’ teaching [. . .]. Only through purification will the soul be able, having shed its bodily frame, to join the intelligible or divine world. The lower world is but a bridge that leads our souls into the higher world after death, where they will be able to partake of the intellectual vision of God.15

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‘Hell’ is no longer a place of torment and suffering, but it is the lower heavens where human souls need to reside, weeping, to purify themselves from the physical adornment of their no longer existent body. It is also important to highlight, referring to the above quotation, how some eschatological elements, such as the bridge or the vision of God, are included in this soteriological view; this is a further aspect related to al-Kindī’s attempt not to completely evade a theological sphere. In the same century, while Abū al-Hudahyl was arguing about the Annihilation of the World, al-Kindī, influenced by Philoponus, stated that a finite world could not be eternal: it is also beyond God’s power to make the Earth eternal ex parte ante, but it is possible, as argued by the Mu‘tazila, to give an eternal existence ex parte post. It has then been made clear that time cannot be infinite, since there cannot be a quantity, or anything that has a quantity, that is infinity in actuality. Thus all time has a limit in actuality, and body is not prior to time. So it is impossible that the body of the universe be infinite, because of its being (li anniyatihī); the being of the body of the universe is necessarily finite, and the body of the universe cannot have existed only.16

The Arab philosopher established that the body alone is not essentially alive because it is not having a body that explains being alive; on the contrary, it is having a soul, which is the quiddity of life in the body, that emphasizes the presence of an incorporeal substance essentially related to the living being. However, al-Kindī calls ‘soul’ not only the form of the living being, but the intellectual form of the living thing, a denominator of the human species.17 The following passage itemizes the characteristics of human souls which, considering Plato’s Republic, emerge as simple, incorruptible and immaterial: these qualities acquire a different value in opposition to the lust and the aggressiveness when it is connected with the body. A worldly life that is only physical and related to its materiality is not real life and is impossible to realize. The Soul is separated from his body and different from it, and its substance is a divine, spiritual substance, as is seen from the nobility of its nature and its opposition to the desires and the irascibility that befall the body. This is because the irascible faculty moves man at some times, and incites him to commit a serious transgression. But this soul is opposed to it, and prohibits the anger from committing its act, or from pursuing rage and its vengeance and restrains it. And this is a clear proof that the faculty by which the man becomes angry is not this soul [. . .] As for the desiring faculty, it longs at certain times for certain desires,

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and the intellectual soul considers that it is a mistake, and that it leads to a deplorable state, and thus it prohibits this and opposes it.18

The Intellectual Soul is then the soul rather than being one of the soul’s parts: the lower faculties are the expression of the interrelation of the soul with the body; others are connected with the soul alone and it is considering these ‘simple substances’ that the soul can survive the death of the body and go to live the life that is best for it, pure intellectual contemplation. Druart in ‘al-Kindī’s Ethics’ pointed out that the Arab philosopher is under the influence of Plato (Theaetetus) when he argued that trying to do the best is to achieve ‘a full knowledge of God’ (as we will see in Ibn Sīnā) and, as stated in the Discourse, ‘the intellectual soul achieves knowledge of the noble things’ in the intelligible world by trying to imitate the Creator.19 This closeness to the divine is not the expression of a complete union (annihilation) or identity with God, but doing actions like those of God. However, how would God, the author of this providentially complex cosmos, therefore seem to be ultimately responsible for evils in the sublunary world? This is another debate that affected the Islamic theological world in the ninth century. As Fazzo and Wiesner argued,20 this is al-Kindī’s reflection on Alexander of Aphrodisia’s On providence, which distinguished between ‘universal providence’ (tabdīr al-­kullī) and particular providence (tabdīr al-­juz’ī): the former is attributable to God and the latter to the heavens; however, if the One must have the other, it is clear that it is God who causes every particular event. Al-Kindī was aware that the evil in the world could be explained either by saying that the heavens are not a perfect instrument (lower ones should also cleanse the soul after death), or that matter cannot perfectly receive the forms providence gives to it. Nevertheless, the Arab philosopher argued that humans possess powers of choice (ikhtiyār) and volition (irāda), following the Mu‘tazilite tradition, even though this could not make human action exempt from celestial causation. Perhaps the heavens causally determine the choice we make even though we are still choosing in a meaningful sense. Mankind’s actions (isti‘māl) are caused by a volition which is in turn caused by an inclination (khāt.ir) which itself is caused by an impulse (sānih.). However, if our actions are caused by the stars of heavens, why does it seem to us that we exercise free will? The main reason is our incomplete knowledge of the cosmos, so it is only out of ignorance that we believe in the contingency of things and, as in previous theological debates on similar topics, if determinism is

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true, then our deliberations, hopes and fears are groundless because the heavens have already determined what will happen. Some of his most important works – Fī al-Falsafa al‘awlā (On First Philosophy), Prostration for the Outermost Heavenly Body and Its Submission to God and Proximate Cause of Generation and Corruption – are related to a pro-Mu‘tazilite environment, even though, on the other hand, some of his positions remained quite different. It is therefore relevant to acknowledge that al-Kindī’s cosmological and metaphysics vision requires theological bases to avoid creating an irreparable rift with the Islamic religion. In spite of this, we could properly describe his eschatological route as widely linked with the theological problems of the world’s evil, the finiteness of earthly life, but also the necessary knowledge about the afterlife and the first clear distinction between the human body’s physical dimension and its spiritual and metaphysical nature. For the first time in Islamic thought, an author is able to portray the complexity of human physiology in relation to God, on the one hand, and Natura Naturans, on the other. Muh.ammad Ibn Zakariyā al-Rāzī (d. 925/312), like al-Kindī, suggested that the empowerment and the progression of the souls towards the superior world or the celestial spheres is directly linked to true knowledge of philosophy. According to this Persian author, achieving truth could not be uniquely attributed to the immortal soul of an individual man. Al-Rāzī supported the view that God created men, giving them the rational knowledge of the intellect and the essence of His divinity, with the objective of reawakening the soul from the terrestrial drowsiness of the physical body and reminding it of its true destiny of citizenship of a superior and intelligible world. The soul pushes human beings to be aware of the need to search for this superior world through the elaboration of philosophy. However, according to the Persian philosopher and physician, the soul became enamoured of matter and sought to be united with it and endow it with form so that it might partake of bodily pleasures. In view of this unusual behaviour and its resistance to its normal anti-­matter activity, God decided to create this world with its material forms in order to enable the soul to satisfy the physical pleasures for a determined time. At the same time, God created the human being, giving Reason to him from the essence of its divinity, to encourage its soul to rouse from its earthly slumber in a physical body and remind it of its genuine destiny as an inhabitant of the higher intelligible world through the study of philosophy.21 If the soul can go

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further into this study, it will also be able to achieve its salvation and annihilate itself to re-­join the intelligible world, whereby it will be unconfined within an old Pythagorean ‘wheel of birth’. On the contrary, the human soul that cannot be purified by the study of philosophy, will continue to reside in its earthly life until it discovers the therapeutic and purgative virtue of philosophy. At the beginning, all souls are equal and tread the same path, as all men are equal as regards intelligence when they are born and only their education will promote the evidence of differences. This specific vision, rooted in equality in relation to a common fate, integrates al-Kindī’s and al-Rāzī’s thought into a creationist context. However, when the ultimate target has been reached, the human soul, guided by reason, will be restored to its true dwelling while the ‘lower world’ will be annihilated and matter returns to its original condition of absolute formlessness and purity.22 Philosophy assumed a mystical therapeutic function and in the following centuries its ethical approach will act as a hinge between the world as physically perceived and the metaphysical as explained within Islamic philosophy and S.u¯fism. This vision is clearly in competition with the religious understanding. God remained the eternal creator, but also the soul remained bound to Rāzī’s system and co-­eternal in this bold attempt to clarify the justification of the world’s creation.23 If for al-Kindī, the visible world has been created ex-­nihilo, for the Persian theorist, God, the soul, time, space and matter co-­existed from the beginning. Al-Rāzī highlighted the axiom that God was forced to create the physical world to permit the gratification of the soul’s union with matter; this vision combines Platonic and possible H.arrānean or Manichean elements,24 and concludes that the world was created in time, out of pre-­existing matter, as Plato had already taught. The problem that al-Rāzī highlights and that will echo in the subsequent polemical treatise between theology and philosophy is whether God created the world out of a necessity of nature or by an act of free will. Thinking about the first assumption, the logical consequence would be that God created the world in time, since a natural product must necessarily ensue upon its natural agent in time. God became a natural agent, implying that the soul is also parenthetically related to God, co-­eternal but still immature, because inexperienced in achieving its own target: union with material forms. On the contrary, if God created the world out of an act of free will, of his own decision, a new question clearly emerged about the reasons why God chose this particular time to shape it.25

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Al-Rāzī is unable to clarify the basis concerning the eternity of the Creator and soul; he maintained that both are eternal while the physical world is transitory and, like Plato, he posits the reincarnation of the soul as a condition for its ultimate release, through the study of philosophy, from the wheel of birth and rebirth.26 Philosophy is the only route for the soul’s purification and its release from the physicality of the body, which emphasizes the contrast of a Platonic–Pythagorean understanding of the metaphysics with the Islamic concept of revelation and prophecy. The reincarnation of souls, illustrated by Al-Rāzī, is described as a cyclic process linked to a rising soul activity which prompts and awakens it from the lethargy of the physical body. This vision is clearly in debt to Plato’s analysis27 but in its rationalistic premises rejected the revelation and the prophetic role of mediator between God and man.28 The verbal and conceptual conflict between Islamic theology and falsafa began here: the historical attempt to make the revelation unnecessary, because the human soul is perfectly capable of working on the nature of the creator in order to be the metaphysical and mystical link with the soteriological vision of the afterlife.

Al-Fārābī (d. 950/338), his virtuous city, his ‘virtuous happiness’ and his annihilation The initial debate on the interrelation between Kalām and Falsafa, the connection of divination and prophecy as deeply inserted in the innate faculty of the human soul and not as a para-­normal power, continued to be jointly explained by alFārābī (d. 950/338) through his analysis of man and his Neo-Platonic and Aristotelian metaphysics. Prophecy is preserved for the human rational faculty and is also considered as an important facet of man’s perfection, but the primacy of reason and philosophy is emphasized. Mankind could imagine with the support of divine inspiration (wah.y) the highest philosophical knowledge, but the same could also be reached through a different path: the emanative philosophical theory.29 It is through it that al-Fārābī is able to shape his interesting eschatological development in the ‘virtuous city’. The emanation of all things from the first being is systematically related to the overabundance of his being and perfection, which is generative of the whole

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order of the universe: a natural and generous act entirely independent of his choice or desire. Moreover, during this process, the First being does not require any intermediary agency, accident or instruments; there are no problems in this formative process because there is nothing that can be interposed between the creative process and the creator. There can be no impediments to the emanation process.30 However, the emanation process is a reflection of a ‘creative’ paradigm in which the constitutive elements, physical and spiritual, suggest the existence of a complex nature. The human’s faculties are the expression of its complex nature: the vegetative is symptomatic of its nutrient capacity; the sensitive is related to the perception of the tangible qualities (heat, cold, etc.); the appetitive is the sense through which the human being can perceive tastes, smells, sounds and colours; and, finally, the representative or imaginative sense (typical of religions), in which repulsion or desires are innate and classified in relation to detecting disgust or appreciation. The formative sense to which all the above faculties are subservient is the rational one.

Happiness through the intellect Intelligere, the intelligible, is how to distinguish the good from the bad, learn the arts and sciences, emphasize and augment the appetites for the intellect.31 The ethical approach is therefore projected towards a moral eschatology of the intellect, quite typical of an urbanized society in which human rationality is interrelated with a structured sociology of mutual understanding. The rational faculty is the depot of intelligible forms which can be classified into two different classes: the immaterial substances whose essence is to be both subjects and objects of intelligibility in acting and that are separated from matter, and the potentially intelligible which are associated with matter (minerals, plants, but also all things which have corporeal matter).32 This is the main schema for which the human intellect survives the human body which is only a physical matter that needs to receive an intelligible form. Humans are indeed potentially intelligent in contrast with pure matter that cannot be intelligible either potentially or in acting. In other words, in their material substance there is not the ability to become intelligible; neither the rational power nor what you own by nature can become intelligible by themselves, because to do so they need something which comes from outside of them and can be transposed from being potential to acting.33 In the same way, the human being is rich in rational power and, by analogy, reflecting on the connection between the light and sight, the imaginative power

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became intelligible through its rational understanding. These are the first intelligible acts in human beings and can be divided into three categories: the primary principle of geometrical–sensorial knowledge (dimensions); the primary principles of ethical knowledge able to shape the distinction between good and evil; and, finally, the primary principles of metaphysical knowledge by virtue of which the human being could perceive the origin, causes, ranks of the First Cause and of the First Intellect.34 Al-Fārābī’s understanding of the human rational faculty addresses the practical faculties of will and desire to finally reach the ultimate goal of wish and choice: happiness. It is through speculation on its rational faculty that, according to al-Fārābī, there is the possibility of attaining happiness, which becomes maximum when the soul dissociates itself from everything material and bodily related, to join the host of ‘separate intelligence’ in the intelligible world, which is the soul’s ultimate abode: a place lacking physical matter which will be preserved forever.35 When the substance of man becomes the closest thing to the intellective agent, this is supreme happiness. If for the human intellect, the main action is to bring out its essence, its physical matter is no longer necessary, as there is no need for any faculty of the soul that resides in the body.36

This is a transcendent attitude more inclined towards a S.u¯fī position than towards the one emerging in the madīnat al-­fād.ilah. However, al-Fārābī rejects the ‘lonely’ life recommend by S.ūfism and protoS.ūfism, despite his espousal of the semi-­mystical ideal of contact with the Active Intellect (or First Intellect, which is synonymous in Neo-Platonic literature)37 that is the real object of all human cognition and choice: a first example of a soteriological path to reach happiness. As with Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s idea of human sociability, man needs to live in society and collaborate: human perfection for the sake of which human nature was ordered is not possible without human association.38 The city becomes the paradigmatic projection of the human ethical approach to earthly life, but also, we will see, to the afterlife. This society from the largest dimension, entire humanity, via the Ummah,39 reached the virtuous city, in which the co-­ operative efforts of its citizens are designated to promote a good and happy life through the virtues of human beings. Al-Fārābī also stresses the number of striking resemblances between many of the fundamental features of Islām and the good regime envisaged by classical political philosophy in general and by Plato in the Laws in particular.40

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The virtuous city: a theoretical model Two moral virtues clearly appear in the philosopher’s ethical scheme and are necessary for the virtuous city: friendship and justice. Friendship is either natural and instinctive or voluntary. Voluntary friendship is grounded in the community of virtue, advantage or pleasure, which brings people together; whereas natural friendship is grounded in the community of beliefs concerning the First Principle, or God, the spiritual entities, or angels, and that of pious individuals, who are the models for others to follow.41

The community, however, extends this bonding virtue from the origin of the world highlighting the relationship between human beings and the higher spiritual entity, with God, making religion one of the most important factors of friendship in the virtuous city. The nature of Justice (‘adl) is, on the contrary, more a political virtue than a religious one and is classified as a way in which man through his virtuous actions regulates the relations between the citizens in an egalitarian form, proportionate to the recipient’s merit.42 Afterwards, al-Fārābī also described the primary qualification that the ruler of the virtuous city must possess in a special kind of knowledge of divine and human things. The formative qualities are clearly related to the natural disposition and aptitude to rule and in comparison to the First Cause, the chief ruler of the virtuous city must possess full intellectual perfection, as both subject and object of thought (‘āqil, ma‘qūl), but is also able to receive from the Active Intellect the knowledge of details (another peculiarity which orthodox Kalām could not admit). At this point the ruler is able to achieve the condition known as the acquired intellect (‘aql mustafād), the highest intellectual stage reachable by humankind, and if this condition is bound by the imaginative human faculty, the ruler could become the beneficiary of a revelation from God as well, who transmits his message through the Active Intellect, an intermediary. Thus, the ruler could become, considering his rational faculty, a perfect philosopher and, by virtue of what is his imaginative faculty, a prophet who is called upon to warn and foresee future events in order to give the citizens their details. The man able to reach this condition is for al-Fārābī worthier than anybody else to lead the virtuous city as chief ruler, and to shape happiness and to guide all to obtain it. Rational and imaginative faculties are outlined together to promote a philosopher-­prophetic king who should have a constant passion for any knowledge that he will reveal to endure forever: Plato’s world of ideas corresponds to al-Fārābī’s intelligible world. The same philosopher-­ruler should

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also be a lover of truth and hater of falsehood, temperate and not a devotee of money, brave and without a physical and intellectual fear of death, because it is only a passage to another form and status.43 However, the virtuous city is clearly contrasted with more generic forms of human associations and by different forms of cities: the ignorant city, the perverse, that transformed itself from a previous status and finally the one that deviated from the right path. In all of them the inhabitants have never apprehended the nature of true happiness; in some cities, the rulers might be content to seek glory or honour for themselves either through virtue, wealth, good breeding or conquest. The cities of ignorance are those in which the inhabitants are lured by the false pleasures of life, such as different forms of selfishness or lawlessness, or where the abuse of freedom, predative violence or materialism have taken over.44 The physical materiality of this world is clearly in contrast with the virtuous city: in the other cities there is an excessive accommodation to personal honour, monetary wealth, the command of violence, and so on. In the virtuous city, the inhabitants act and increase their knowledge together. Indeed, every citizen acquires happiness through what he has in common with others and what is proper to his rank. As a conclusive assumption, the non-­virtuous cities, in their different forms and contents, are the ones where although their inhabitants have apprehended the truth about God, the afterlife and the nature of true happiness have failed to live up to this truth; while, in several cases, false knowledge has brought a false prophet who has resorted to deception and trickery in achieving his aims; finally there are the cities that were once virtuous but after a while became perverted and false.45 By contrast, the virtuous city stands out as a moral and theoretical model, in which the citizens have apprehended the truth about God, the Active Intellect and the afterlife, and live together through the principles of virtues. Their qualities in the earthly life emerged as analogous with their actions which increased their perfection and perseverance in good deeds, which whether simple (gathering the fruits of the earth) or complex (writing) give them the ability to do them increasingly better. This ability to do things increasingly better also augments spiritual enjoyment, as well as the joy that man perceives in himself for having made the best of his ability. This is happiness: the human soul’s search for a status that was initially connected with the materiality of doing well examines perfection until reaching its material limit; to explore the lack of need of the material, becoming free of it, no longer being deteriorated by matter’s corruption of matter and no longer needing to subsist in an earthly life.46

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A plural and inclusive eschatological vision: happiness as an inter-­religious quality The happiness that the soul is destined to enjoy in the life to come is neither uniform nor definitive; however, as religious eschatology tacitly presupposes, the physical vocabulary adopted on the earth to describe the soul in a body needs to be abandoned: the human soul does not take on a different form or shape and we cannot describe it as moving or fixed: without a referring body, the soul and all that was anchored to the body, physically and cognitively, disappears. Al-Fārābī’s eschatological perception of the hereafter is rationally related to every individual soul and its psychological status perceived during its earthly life. For the nature of each soul depends upon the body that served as its temporary abode, and it is clear that during their terrestrial life each body behaved in a peculiar way preserving a peculiar character. Following the death of the body, the soul still feels, at the beginning, related to a body. Then, it acquires a more evident awareness of its new status, which reflects upon the condition of the body with which it was associated during its earthly livelihood, with its percentage of happiness and misery.47 Al-Fārābī’s eschatological idea of the hereafter is clearly dual. On the one hand, the souls of the individual virtuous members of the righteous city; on the other hand, the souls and bodies of the ignorant towns. Concerning the first category, the body is evidently annihilated (the first Fanā’) and the ‘salvation’ is reserved for the individual virtuous souls, but also as a collective city recovery with a union of souls which enhances the pleasure due to the increased intelligible presence. In relation to the timing of the body’s death, that of the previous souls increases the pleasure of the newcomers to the group, but also of those who have previously passed away because every intelligible supplement increases the happiness of the entire group. Our philosopher in the madīnat al-­fād.ilah compared this enlargement of the intelligible union with the art of writing and the perseverance of the playwright in writing.48 The meeting of one soul with others and the increasing quality of each corresponds to the acts of a writer who, thanks to them, increases his capacity and excellence in writing. And since the souls who meet are infinite, the increase of the power and of enjoyment of each of them is multiplied infinitely with the passage of time. It is interesting to highlight how the soteriological ‘vision’ of al-Fārābī solves the problem of immortality and, like Aristotle, assigns it to the intellectual part

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of the soul only; however, his methodology is more complex in adopting a stronger link to Plato’s ultimate destiny of the soul, though radically in contrast with the orthodox Islamic doctrine of bodily resurrection and the indiscriminate survival of all souls, ignorant and intelligent alike. Reflecting on the inhabitants of the un-­virtuous cities, they are, on the contrary, so materially related that their souls need a body to subsist. The spiritual provisions may be acquired through virtuous ideas and the souls could be freed from matter, even if they reside in a different city; however, the evil psychological inclination muddies the good propensity to act correctly, creating a serious detriment to the soul. The human senses preserved the intelligible and rational awareness to concentrate on its spiritual domain and are the same ones that push human beings to be univocally concentrated on their exclusive physicality without rationality; the human is unable to perceive the sadness that derives from this lack of spirituality. However, after a whole life spent caring exclusively for its own senses, the pain of the soul when it tries to get away from matter becomes unbearable. Finally, in a similar way to the union of individual souls in happiness, on the earth, the union of suffering souls with others is also an enhancer of pain.49 Subsisting now in a disembodied state (after the body’s death), they will endlessly suffer the desires which the pleasures of the senses had satisfied while they were united with the body, and their suffering will increase as they are joined by the throngs of fellow wayward souls departing this world.50 If the citizens of the ignorant and perverse cities cannot escape from their material bond, remaining in this deadly status until their annihilation (Fanā’),51 those of the deviant and transformed cities have a real scapegoat, who had deceived them and led them away from happiness and must be considered as a member of the ignorant and perverse city. However, and this is the peculiarity of al-Fārābī’s eschatological vision, all the citizens of these cities will be annihilated like those of the most wicked, even though a part of the effective responsibility is connected with the one who convinced them to withdraw from their previous happiness. Finally, some inhabitants of the virtuous city may be forced to perform the depraved actions of the ignorant cities. According to how much those victims of compulsion continue to resent what they have been compelled to do, their souls will not be marked by the evil traits of the citizens of the depraved city. This is why they will not be harmed by depraved actions, unless they have been forced to live with the inhabitants of ignorant or depraved cities against their will.52

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In conclusion, al-Fārābī’s idea of the hereafter is exclusively determined by the soul’s degree of knowledge and virtue attained during its earthly experience. The souls that have failed to understand their spiritual disposition, identified by a religious and philosophical inclination, and the limits of matter, are rationally condemned to perish through clear annihilation; there is no redemption, it is not possible to escape from this destiny because for their entire earthly life, these souls have not been able to perceive anything other than their physical needs. The suffering and the annihilation of these souls clearly identify the futility of their lives on earth; the sublunar world no longer needs them because basically the world has not been enriched by their presence. In antithesis the perfect man and ruler in the virtuous state has achieved this perfection in becoming intellect and intelligible in actu. The rational faculty in relation with the imaginative faculty makes this man a recipient of revelation and God grants him revelation through the medium of the Active Intellect to reach the acquired one. The man that achieved such perfection can be united with the Active Intellect that, as an intermediary between God and the lower heavens, makes him parenthetical to the angelic population of the celestial cosmos. In making some references to the permanence of the ‘ignorant’ souls in matter, M. Fakhry presumed that al-Fārābī believed in the transmigration of the soul from matter to matter53: animal and human souls to other animal and human souls, whereas R. Walzer omitted this possibility in Al-Farabi on the Perfect State,54 and this is also my opinion. The paradigmatic passage that is still unclear and that is particularly relevant for this work is relative to what the inhabitants of the virtuous cities have in common: For each community and for the inhabitants of each city, knowledge is often imitatively represented to make it increasingly understandable to them; for which the knowledge can range from a little to a lot, depending on the community. In every community, representations other than those of other communities are formed. This is why you can find in the community and in the virtuous city different religions, although all tend towards a single happiness and towards the same goals. When these things are demonstratively known, they cannot be verbally disputed, neither by means of unintended falsifications nor due to an imperfect understanding, [. . .], on the contrary, these common aspects known through an imitative knowledge, can risk the objection on different pieces, on aspects more or less rare or several, that are more or less obvious or hidden. It can happen indeed, that among those who know these things through imitation processes, there are some issues on which they stay open to challenge and decide not to proceed further.55

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Paraphrasing al-Fārābī’s sentence and considering the virtuous cities in which the imaginative sense and knowledge need to create a representation of the truth to make it understandable, every community, with its clear differences, shaped a different religion, but all tend towards final happiness; ergo, they are symptomatically related to the final soul’s joy of the afterlife. Al-Fārābī’s awareness of this world is so weightily linked to the truth that he already anticipates the realistic difficulties linked to this inclusive factor, arguing about the existence of protesters (nawābit) who, outside the community, aim to bring out the differences, without considering the common denominator.56 If in this section of the Virtuous City the rational superiority of the philosopher over the imaginative need for religious representation is particularly emphasized, the equality of virtuous cities, the common fate of those relying on different religions, will share for al-Fārābī a common happiness. For the first time, although al-Kindī did not make any religious distinctions between the members of different faiths, soteriological ‘happiness’ is a comprehensive target that does not implement clear distinctions. Reflecting on the citizens of the ignorant cities, their annihilation is symptomatically connected with their inheritance: the lack of knowledge which brings a lack of understanding denotes the futility of their existence and the incapacity to produce ‘happiness’. These perishing souls are no longer necessary for eschatological awareness and their misery is linked with the lack of legacy that has shaped them during their earthly life. There is no possible reconciliation and there is no mercy. Islamic falsafa, in particular concerning the vision of the afterlife, is structurally unable to provide an opportunity for recovery; the rational understanding of the cosmos fixes unchangeable rules and the virtuous city is ethically responsible for human activism. The annihilation is for al-Fārābī that of perdition, that of the impossibility of reconciliation; a human soul that for its entire life has been unable to feel even a limited level of the intellect’s happiness is useless for the hereafter – that is, it is left in the eternal oblivion.

Ibn Sīnā (d. 1037/428) and the return to God (ma‘ād) Falsafa seeks to throw light on the way that Islamic philosophy was able to rationally describe a cyclical process in which the protagonist was not God only, as the creator, but the active intelligence of the soul, the only entity capable of putting the physical world in relation with the celestial spheres.

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If al-Maturidī played a significant part, theologically, by considering God’s mercy as a paradigmatic and irrational quality of the divinity, even able to embrace the worst of the unbelievers, Ibn Sīnā is the shaper of the human soul, the one who establishes not only its origin and evolution, but also its return (ma‘ād) and its term. The demonstration of the soul’s survival after the body’s death and the receiving of eternal blessing or punishment require independent demonstrations and cannot simply be inferred from the fact that souls, as animated and vivid, exist. Ibn Sīnā, reinterpreting Aristotelian cosmology through a monotheistic Islamic key, reconsidered the divinity through the presence of a First Intelligence which is a direct emanation of God; the role of the Qur’ān and Islamic religious tradition is also evident in Ibn Sīnā’s duty to baptize the intelligences and the celestial souls with the angels and to conform more closely to religious beliefs. However, this work does not have the goal of addressing the entire philosophical Avicennian construct, but only the one concerning his eschatological analysis through his metaphysics and also through the necessary human understanding of it.57 The potential intellect, the first temporary intelligibility that can emerge within the theoretical faculty of the human rational soul, according to Avicenna, comes into existence as something personal to each individual. The acquisition, during life, of primary truths could bring the rational soul to operate by itself without any help from the sensitive or imaginative faculties, reaching the stage of development, called by Ibn Sīnā the actual intellect (intellect in actu). The empowerment of the actual intellect and its fully operative strength brings our mind into the ‘aql mustafād, the intellect acquisitus. In spite of this, an important distinction from al-Fārābī reflects that the intelligible forms that the human rational faculty receives are not produced by abstraction from matter, but emanate directly from the Active Intelligence; moreover, when the intellective soul actually becomes operating, it reaches self-­ knowledge, a working power and abilities that could increase in relation to the ongoing acquisition of customary comprehension of the material and immaterial: in other words, the capability to know about the immanent world in which human beings live. The habitual reason, furthermore, might be viewed as partly actual and partly potential: the above acquisitus, which is destined to try and understand the super mundane world. The latter governs all the worldly processes of generation and corruption including the process of cognition; that is the active intellect. The reason acquired by humans is the only one that through this process of acquisition of knowledge (cognition) can foster the comprehension of human

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destiny; however, the ‘acquisition’ is not uniform in all human beings. On the contrary, the understanding of the universal motions and the fate of human souls is related by virtue of an inner power which is usually called ‘holy reason’ and which is reserved as a divine favour to very few.58 For Avicenna the true nature of the human being cannot be identified with the human body; even though the human self has close ties with the body because the intellect initially needs the body in order to acquire that potential intelligible to allow it to perform its proper physical activities and also to perfect itself.59 Ibn Sīnā identified human moral temperaments, following Aristotle’s position in the Nicomachean Ethics (II, 1–6) and arguing that certain actions are directly originated by the soul without prior deliberation; however, as already stated in Islamic Kalām, humans usually act upon the mean between two contrary moral temperaments deciding between excesses and deficiency, but in order to acquire a moderate disposition.60 Immoderation is typically related to our animal faculties and physical body: Avicenna maintains that transcending the conditions that tie us to the body and preserve the proper state of the rational soul is the best way to prepare the rational soul to go beyond and transcend the body. Human perfection can only be reached through our rational faculties which bring intellectual activity; in antithesis to this direction, our body constantly distracts from this intellectual tension bringing us back to our bodily desires and corruption, even if the future of the afterlife will push us towards the abandonment of the material world to reach the heavens of the classical Islamic cosmology, which we have already dealt with in the previous authors.61

Ibn Sīnā and the philosophical discourse It is in Avicenna’s Metaphysics (al-Shifā’) that the Soul’s destiny in the afterlife is clarified because the main subject of this work reflects on the entities that are separable from matter both in reality and in definition, but also the primary causes of both physical and spiritual reality as well as the cause of all causes or the principle of all principles: namely God.62 It is obvious that, for the above reasons, man’s existence and survival in the hereafter require partnership through a reciprocal transaction which demands law (sunnah) and justice (‘adl), but also a lawgiver and a dispenser of justice, because laws make up part of the overall order of the good that exists in the cosmos. Avicenna clarifies that it is impossible that divine providence (‘ināya ūla), which is directly connected with the Necessary Existent and the First Cause of

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the universe, would not provide the very basis of these laws necessary for human existence and survival, considering the divine lawgivers in the form of prophets as well. This is Ibn Sīnā’s theological–religious understanding of man’s existence which is closely linked with the First Principle of being: the maker, the one and the omnipotent who knows the hidden and the manifest.63 God’s existence is not related to a precise place; it cannot be verbally described, even though the prophetic words try to simplify him. The human attempt to reach an understanding is usually a cause of incomprehensions and conflicts because divine wisdom is not easily acquired by everyone. It is for these reasons that human beings need common words and concepts, ‘the Revelations’, to properly comprehend the belief of resurrection in a manner that they can conceive of, reflecting on eternal bliss and misery through parables and on the true nature of the afterlife.64 According to the fact that there are few prophetic souls in the physical world, Avicenna argued that the Prophet must also impose certain obligations and laws to instil in human beings the contemplation of God through prayer, acts of worship, fasting and pilgrimages. This praxis should better prepare us to dissociate ourselves from the distraction of our material body focusing more on God. This is the real reason why the prophetic religions exist in the world: to preserve men’s welfare for the afterlife providing that true happiness (al-Fārābī’s concept) in the hereafter is achieved through the soul’s detaching itself out of piety and against the acquisition of bodily dispositions which opposed this meaning of happiness. This purification–terrestrial process is directly connected with moral actions and habits which turn the soul away from the body and the material senses. The bestiality of the human body and its actions are clearly the material enemy of this refined attempt which performed spiritual acts by instilling a propensity repelling it from this physical body and its influences. When the soul encounters bodily acts, these will not produce in it the propensities and positive disposition that they would normally produce when the soul submits to them everything. For this reason, the one who speaks truth has said: surely the good deed drives away the bad deeds (Qur. XI: 114). If this act persists in man, then he will acquire the positive disposition of turning in the direction of truth and away from error. He thus becomes well prepared to be delivered unto true happiness after bodily separation.65

Avicenna, in antithesis to al-Kindī and al-Rāzī, accords a certain measure of credibility to religious truth, but clearly regards it as lying outside the scope of

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philosophical discourse. It is presumably an inferior type of truth, accessible to the masses at large, and is received on faith in prophetic reports and instructions.

Ma ‘ād and the destiny of human souls In spite of this, the Risāla al-­ad.h.awiyya fī al-­ma‘ād66 argued about the soul’s existence before the creation of the body and the return of the former after the annihilation of the latter, to the best possible location (h.ayyiz), paradise (al‘Illiyyūn) for the good man and, on the contrary, to the most squalid Hell (alSijjīn) for the perverse. The Muslim philosopher also argued that this is a classical idea of the ancients, in the texts of the Hebrews’ prophets, but also in the H.arranians (in this case conceived both as Sabeans and as Eastern Christians); the holy Qur’ān confirmed in this regard: ‘But you, soul at peace, return to your Lord well pleased and well pleasing’ (Qur., LXXXIX: 27–28) in which the term ma ‘ād is clearly used in relation to the return from a place of origin. The following disquisition explains the approaches on this return in relation to a physical ma‘ād, a spiritual one (for souls), and a third option for both, corporeal and spiritual at the same time. This analysis is particular relevant because in a perceptible way Avicenna allows us to understand to whom and where such theories are assigned. 1  Those who admit only a physical return are the Muslims who claimed a material understanding of the afterlife; Avicenna called them ahl al-­jadal, the dialectical, those who use verbal confrontation, and he was probably referring to the mutakallimūn, the Muslim theologians,67 who maintained that God will re-­ create another ‘body’ after the resurrection, even if they were incapable of explaining in which way. However, the members of this group are divided into several sects in relation to the fate of these resurrected bodies.

(I) Those that are divided into good and bad, both eternally rewarded in heaven or hell (this group should be limited to the more conservative Mu‘tazilites and Khārijites, especially those of the first centuries);68 (II) Those that are divided into three categories: the believers, eternally in Heaven; the Muslim hypocrites (a term historically conceived by H.asān al-Bas.rī and by the Mu‘tazila, but concerning the terrestrial life and not the hereafter) whose destiny belongs to God, but it is hard to maintain that they will be eternally condemned to Hell (this has usually been considered

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a Murjī‘te position, but also related to Ibn al-Rewandī);69 and finally the Kāfir, who will be eternally punished, an opinion which is present to varying degrees in all the Islamic theological schools. However, (III)  the third group for Avicenna, in relation to his period (tenth– eleventh centuries) and his knowledge of Islamic sects, are those who do not will be punished forever whether they are believers or unfaithful.70 Finally, (IV)  the fourth group says that no one will be punished or rewarded eternally.71 2  Those who admit the return of the soul and of the body: death leads to a separation of the soul from the body, but the soul will return to it during the second creation, in the same body as before. However, some theologians, during the age of Ibn Sīnā, had already identified the metaphorical language of the holy scripture, questioning the human soul as incorporeal, while others, related to the Ash‘arite school, consider the human soul in the afterlife as a slim body. There are also those who interpret the return of both as a double reward and punishment, physical and spiritual at the same time; this is the position of al-Muqammis (d. 937/325) a Jewish philosopher native of Raqqa.72 Finally, the Christians interpret the reward and punishment of the soul as only spiritual, but the information on Avicenna’s specific knowledge of the different Eastern Christian Churches has only been partially analysed by S. Pines.73 3  Ultimately, there are those who admit the return of the soul only, but in this case too some distinctions are necessary:

(I)

One group nevertheless says that the soul is corporeal, but Avicenna is unable to explain in better terms who they are. (II) A second group believes in the bright jawhar (a substance), related to the world of light, mixed with the body that is the essence of darkness which is connected with the world of gloom. These are clearly the dualists and the manicheans. The happiness of the soul is the liberation of light from darkness, in its journey towards the celestial spheres in the direction of the world of light; its torment consists of remaining in the world of darkness.74 (III) A third group considers the reward and punishment in returning in a physical body: they are the believers in metempsychosis.75 Finally, (IV)  there are those who considered the soul imprisoned in an ‘ālam ‘uns.urī (the world of the elements) and escape from it (probably some Gnostics, the Ikhwān al-S.afā’ and different mystics), and the h.ukamā’

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who consider this liberation as perfectionist purification from the materiality and physicality of nature: they are the philosophers. *  However, the confutation of the first group (I) is linked with the hermeneutical interpretation of the Holy Scriptures; Avicenna is aware that the revealed law has been prophetically made known for human beings to promote a Shah (essential essence in existence) within the unity of God (Tawh.īd), an undivided essential creator without qualities, quantity, space, location and so on. Would it ever be possible to explain to an anthropomorphic being, a God who is the exact opposite? The literal interpretation of the Qur’an like that of the Torah presents several steps that are general and abstract, without determination or explanation, while concerning the Sunna there are so many traditions that are completely anthropomorphic. This is the main argument concerning this disquisition: the presence of figurative (majāz) language in the Qur’an that makes use of metaphors (isti‘ārāt) in antithesis to a literal (z.āhira) comprehension of the divinity and its unity. ‘Those who pledge loyalty to you (the Prophet) are actually pledging loyalty to God himself, God’s hand is placed on theirs and anyone who breaks his pledge does so to his own detriment’ (Qur., XLVIII: 10) or ‘Your Lord is God, who created the heavens and earth in six days, then established Himself on the throne [. . .]’ (Qur., VII: 54) are clearly examples in which the hand of God or his physical throne are a metaphorical understanding of his pact with human beings and his rule over the world and in it.76 Ibn Sīnā also explained that both the extremes of these positions are harmful: if the entire word of God is a metaphoric understanding of its Shah (essential essence in existence), where is its clarity, while, on the contrary, if the entire text is to be literally interpreted, first of all, can we imagine a man like God? And second, where can we find clarity again? It is therefore evident that in the Islamic holy book, as well as in the Jewish and Christian ones, there are some literal parts that are to be interpreted allegorically, as well as some metaphorical verses that have to be spelled out clearly.77 The revealed laws came to talk to the people of what can be comprehended, bringing the main meanings closer to their mentality through examples in which anthropomorphism becomes explanatory of what is hard to understand. Could what belongs to the afterlife, as well as to the nature of God, if spiritual and immaterially conceived, be understood by human nature? In order that the revealed message does not become elitist, it is therefore necessary to promote its simplification.78

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However, Avicenna concludes this confutation of the first group, arguing that man is not man because of his matter, but because of his shape that exists in the matter; all his actions are exclusively linked and exist due to the shape of his matter. If his form disappeared from his physical matter, returning to its original element, this man would be annihilated. Afterwards, a new human form was created in this physical material; it would create another man, completely different from the first. However, none is judged or blameworthy, deserving reward or damnation because of his physical matter but because of its shape: God judges human beings because they are human beings, not because they are dust and clay. It is clear that God’s final reward and punishment does not refer to the physical body of a dead man, but to a new body recreated by God for the afterlife; in other words, it would no longer be the body of the man who did wrong or good and therefore was judged for both. It is clear that Avicenna considers those who argued about the ma‘ād of the body only as being very far from the truth.79 The logical confutation of those who believed in the return of the body and of the soul, on the other hand, reflects on a first problem concerning the real identity of the mortal body and of the resurrected one. If a dead body is resurrected as it was before death, Avicenna argued about the possibility whether this physical matter could be identical to the body of the creature when alive; however, this is in contrast with the Ash‘arite theory of being or not being and is classified as absurd: the state of not being (‘adam) for the generated (al-­kā’in) and for the generable (mumkin al-­kawn) is identical; that is, the one that no longer exists and the one that does not yet exist, but will probably exist, are both non-­existent. It is impossible for some parts of the human body that have been buried, have decomposed and become organic substances for the nourishment of other human beings to be re-­created, considering this matter as belonging only to an individual man and not to others.80 The confutation also continued in relation to the advocates of metempsychosis, the ongoing soul resurrection from one body to another without considering the main differences between the animal and plant world. However, it is therefore important to explain how Ibn Sīnā, after the refutation of the alternatives to the resurrection of the soul only, distinguishes the Islamic–Christian (probably only Nestorian) debate on the ma‘ād, interpreting the similarities between these two religions on the resurrection of the body and of the soul, attributing a subsidiary fault or goodness, but interpreting the scriptures as metaphysically related with a single spiritual reward and punishment. Man’s anniyya (the self) could not be the body or its flesh (jasad) which are temporarily related to its physical life; moreover, it is sometimes possible to

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separate a part of the brain from it, preserving man’s nature.81 The man becomes so familiar with his body that his union with it makes him wonder about the impossibility of a separation. Nevertheless, man’s anniyya is the soul, which is not considered, including by the religious laws, because the corporeal suffering has replaced the emotional suffering. The religious laws82 were forced to desire reward and fear punishment, in a purely sensitive key because of this deep familiarity with the body. On the contrary, only the wise souls are able to support the spiritual ma‘ād, which does not require a transformation into something different from ourselves, but we are just stripped from things external to us and which cover us.83 The human soul is thus a separate form and is immaterial, perpetual and not subject to corruption because what exists cannot escape, either as needed (wājib al-­wujūd) or as possible (mumkin al-­wujūd); in advance, everything that is not physically linked with matter cannot be corrupted because what is immaterial is permanent while what is corruptible is material: so the human soul, like its intelligence, is not corruptible even after its body. Furthermore, there can only be two states of the soul after the body’s death: happiness or unhappiness. The rational soul (nafs nāt.iqa) is able to better perceive than the other faculties (quwwa, nutritive, appetitive, sensitive, etc.), ¯ because it is absolutely simple and completely detached from matter, but also because it is directly connected with the intelligence (‘aql) which is necessary and universally prepared to perceive the spiritual forms, the First Being of the entire existence and its knowledge, the angels as the celestial spheres. It is therefore evident that perception of this immateriality is more perfectible (kamāl) because it is linked with the essential qualities of every being that existed, stripped of its material status. It is clear that, in the next world, the pleasures experienced by the soul could not be compared with those of a material world; in other words, it will be pure spiritual–intellectual pleasure.84 Ibn Sīnā interprets the possibility of entering this post-­mortem state of perfection becoming part of the angelic substances; during the earthly life, on the other hand, it is impossible for the rational soul to consider this connection with the angelic world as real as our bodily faculties are predominant over our rational understanding. Sensual perception, anger and lust enhance the power of the former over the latter. The joy of contemplation is abandoned for the pleasures of materiality. The ma‘ād and its duplicity is clearly linked with this perfectible status: happiness after death occurs when the soul is freed from the body and from the influences of nature, and strips the body, perfect in essence, admiring the essence of the

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One who has the supreme power, the spirit beings who worship Him, the world’s sublime, reaching its perfection in Him (God). On the contrary, real misery is the opposite of all this, and just as the above happiness is great, so the corresponding unhappiness is extremely painful.85

An eschatological vision without redemption The real problem in this eschatological understanding of the ma‘ād is no longer connected with the physical world but with the influx and the provision laid down by the body, as long as it was in life and in the soul. If anger, lust or more generally a physical materialism establish and assert themselves in the soul, when the latter separates itself from the body, its predominant material disposition will prevent true perfection and unearthly happiness, and the soul will be as when it was still in the body.86 Moderation and religious observance are the antidotes to this corruption and, as reported by L. Gardet,87 these cultural practices (‘Ibādat) are for Avicenna part of the active and progressive purification process. As a conclusion to this section it is significant to highlight the categories of happiness and unhappiness that the famous philosopher emphasizes at the end of the Risāla al-­ad.h.awiyya fī al-­ma ‘ād, and that are so similar in relation to those we will shortly look at in detail in al-Ghazālī’s Fays.al al-Tafriqa bayna al-Islām wa al-Zandaqa.

1. The perfect and purified souls that have absolute happiness. 2. The perfect but un-­purified souls that are in the barzakh,88 an intermediary location, a barrier that is between them and their desire, purification and liberation. The false body available prevents them from reaching absolute happiness. So the soul, like its actions that distracted it, which ceased with separation from the body, begins to feel happiness, but at the same time it is prevented because of the previous vicious disposition: this makes it suffer immensely. However, this is not an eternal disposition, but through a purification process this status will disappear and the soul will become free, attaining happiness. 3. Imperfect souls (nāqis.a) that had the idea of perfection, but have not sought it, or have denied and fought it, not believing in this possibility. So they will now suffer eternally because of their imperfection. 4. Imperfect souls that have never been conscious of the perfection intended for them. The Islamic religion described them as ‘infidels of good faith’: they

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welcomed the prophets (Moses, Jesus, etc.), but they never knew the prophet Muh.ammad and his law. They are therefore not guilty of not following it. In the Gnostic Avicennian interpretation, these souls have believed in a corporeal afterlife without knowing the possibility of an exclusively spiritual future life. 5. Imperfect souls that out of ignorance have never had the idea of perfection that was intended for them (this category comprises people with intellectual handicaps or children). The first of the last two categories could achieve a faint reflection of happiness because they have rationally perceived, as argued by the philosophers and by the Mu‘tazilite, the existence of God through pure natural reason, but without a revelation. No other words are spent on the last category. There is a clear ambiguity, as reported by J. Michot,89 in the Avicennian eschatology, which is clearly connected with his attempt to reconcile an Islamic religious vision with a more philosophical and Gnostic one. The ultimate fate of the soul consists of achieving ‘conjunction’ with this active celestial intelligence, whereby it perceives the beauty and goodness of the intelligible world and of the First Being. Therein, Ibn Sīnā had to recognize that this sublimated fate of understanding the superiority of celestial spheres was reserved for a privileged few, the philosophers or the prophets. In continuity, the existence of an active intelligence (’aql fa’āl) from which ¯ human souls are a direct emanation, projecting gnosis on those who are able to acquire it, is also an expression of the specific qualities concerning the human intellect which has the potential for an Angel’s nature. Its dual structure – a practice-­oriented and a contemplative intellect – has usually been designed as a blessed power of thought (’aql Qudsī). The incoherence of this eschatological understanding reflects mainly on different aspects: the incapability of limiting the predetermined features of the above categories, such as imagining a God that is uniquely considered in a Gnostic comprehension. This intellective First Being is unable to feel mercy for the children in the last category that have no imperfections, but having died prematurely, before the age of reason, will not feel clear happiness. On the contrary, for the souls of simpletons, who never understood their proper perfection as humans, Ibn Sīnā believes that if they have lived moderate lives, presumably following the dictates set down by the prophet, then the separation of their souls from their bodies will be relatively easy. Avicenna in this case argued that through God’s mercy they will come to a state of comfort and rest, not feeling the intense pleasures of the truly blessed,

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but nor will they feel any pain. It is clear that the rational being is more appreciative than the unconscious being, like children who have never reached the age of reason. This alleged lack of sensitivity is directly connected to Avicenna’s observations concerning the presence of Evil in our world.90 As a first aspect, evil (sharr) is shown in many ways: deficiency and imperfection are symptomatically related with ignorance and deformity (physical), if we consider aspects related with the inner souls and body, but also the lack of a natural facet which induces the suffering of the matter: an excessively cold or hot climate, which impacts the sensitive world of plants, animals or humans. As for al-Jāh.īz, evil is the lack of good, in other words: a privation of some perfection required by the nature of a thing. The lack of sight for a human being as for a feline is an evil imperfection because both base part of their lives on the physical quality of sight. However, and in continuity with the Mu‘tazilite analysis, nothing is pure evil for Ibn Sīnā either, but like the notion of good, evil is also always relative to the kind of thing suffering the evil. Moreover, anything with an existence within a phase of final perfection can be touched by evil. The higher intelligences and so the pure souls that have reached happiness could feel evil because this characteristic is univocally linked with the material–physical sub-­lunar world. The things of the sublunary world are not the sort of things that come to be, fully realizing their proper perfection. Instead, they will acquire this perfection with a clear process of change. Evil thus needs to be fully considered as privation of some good proper to the kind of things that are temporally connected to a potential, but also a deprivation of it. Avicenna rationally adopts a clear recognition that none of the various things that make up the natural order are essentially a cause of evil or an evil cause. As argued by the Mu‘tazilites, it cannot be said that the Necessary Existent (God) creates evil per se, but evil is a necessary evolutionary consequence of creating the world. In spite of this, for Avicenna human deformity is caused by two contrary causal chains that intersect. For example one interferes with another in a conflicting natural way in the mother’s womb (such as a high fever during the protracted foetal development); nothing is essentially the cause of the deformity – rather, it is the accidental conjunction of two causal series that produce the evil. As argued above, God is not the shaper of evil, but sometimes it is a necessary consequence of creating good. Evil is thus something existential in relation to the natural accidental evolution of life in the physical world. Avicenna’s position on moral evil is not very dissimilar, when it arises as an individual decision in such a line of action. The individual has personally decided to act following this

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line because it is linked with a habitual moral temperament disposing him or her to desire some apparent good that is expected to result from that act. This defective judgement emerges when the practical intellect does not overcome its state of being but capitulates to the body’s natural desires. In this case too, and as again reported by the Mu‘tazila, God is not responsible for these moral evil actions why it is not why of being human that moral evils exist, but owing to immoral personal decisions on the part of individual humans. Moral evil is not caused by God, but human beings are agents and responsible for their actions; Ibn Sīnā also maintains that this moral responsibility can be reconciled with the type of causal determinism he endorses.91 It is therefore clear that Avicenna argued that the Necessary Existent could have created a world free of evil, denying that it would have been a better world; because there is no world like the present one in which there are temporary and evolutionary physical belongings that can be existent without the kind of evil accidents already mentioned. The evolutionary causative process of the world is closely linked with a progressive perfectionism, from not being to existence and from there to a proper new development; there is no cause of the fact that certain species are subject to evil, just as there is no cause of their being subject to time, change and the limitation of matter. A world, free of evil, could be created by God if devoid of all the species subject to time, change and the limitations of matter. However, a world without evil is also a world that does not necessarily need good and perfection. It is clear, then, for Avicenna that a world in which evil can exist is better than a world where it cannot; even though the Persian philosopher never tried to elaborate a concept of optimum world, God is the creator of the best world possible. Nevertheless, it is exclusively human responsibility that can rejoice in the visio beatifica of the post-­mortem, even though Ibn Sīnā is a little reluctant to relieve the ignorance of human beings (as all those who lived before the Prophet of Islam) of responsibility, as causally linked to the above time and change of the physical world. The inferior level of happiness reached, as for the inhabitants of Dante’s Limbo, is not rationally clear in an eschatological landscape that, in continuity with the previous parts of this work, weakens religious affiliation encouraging a shared salvation.

4

The Islamic Definitive Understanding of the Fanā’ al-Nār Neo-Ash‘arism and Neo-H.anbalism’s Elucubrations (Twelfth–Fourteenth Centuries)

In the previous three chapters, Islamic formative thought on the Annihilation of the Fire has been analysed following different approaches that usually characterized every religious understanding: the piety of mysticism, the rational theological attitude (which in Christianity would be Scholasticism) and the philosophical-­cosmological speculation. The methodological line of these chapters is closely related to the historical phases of Islam, on the one hand, but also to the evolutionary process of maturation due to its background of reference, on the other. The emerging differences between Kalām, Falsafa and mysticism concerning the annihilation of the afterlife are shown by the sources quoted in this book even though they are closely connected with one another. The Fanā’ an-Nār, as described by Avicenna, the champion of Neo-Platonic cosmology who centred the afterlife on the notion of the intellect (‘aql- ‘uqūl), achieved a form of speculation denying all previous forms of intelligible awareness of the hereafter. ‘The highest part of the human soul which connects the individual with a hierarchy of heavenly intellects whose apex is God, from the First Intellect emanates’1 denied the corporeal ascension as well as the distinction between the souls of virtuous who will envision and experience the pleasures of paradise from those of wicked people who on the contrary will have an imaginative experience of the torments of Hell. However, the imagery of the divine ‘promise and threat’ (al-­wa‘d wa-­l-wa‘īd) contained in the scriptures continues to enjoy the function of developing speculation on the afterlife. Avicenna’s cosmological eschatology denied the assumptions previously reported by al-H.ārith al-Muh.āsibī to al-Māturīdī, but his finalized elaboration is shaped by the intellectual suppositions developed earlier.

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If the human being is called to life to attend divine’s truth, it is necessary that his nature could be updated to this specific involvement [. . .] It was necessary that a specific affinity with the divine was amalgamated with the human nature [. . .] For this purpose, mankind has been endowed of life, reason, wisdom and of all qualities worthy of God, so each of them could desire what is akin. And as eternity is inherent in the divinity, our nature should not be totally devoid, but to have in itself the immortality available. For this specific reason and for this innate ability, it could thus tend toward what is above it and retain the desire of eternity.2

Gregory of Nyssa clarifies human research as tending to eternity, but also the close necessary ‘affinity’ of making God a comprehensive entity; a famous h.adīth states: ‘He who knows himself (in Arabic, his soul) will know his Lord’; The soul will strive to regain its original abode in the intelligent world through the profession of spiritual divine creeds and also through discourse of noble philosophical matters, according to the Socratic path, while practising mysticism, asceticism and monasticism according to the Christian path, and clinging to the Hanafi religion [i.e. Islam].3

Human eternity and God’s comprehension are the main reasons why eschatology exists. Human curiosity needs to be more familiar with the secrets of its existence through a real understanding of what the human soul is, but also through Zeitgeist: a speculation on God which puts Him ‘in the spotlight’, as the Avicennian system clarified. On this journey the disquisitions on the annihilation of Hell are linked with the process of Islamic intellectual and spiritual maturation from Jahm ibn S.afwān (d. 746/128) as the first Muslim scholar (some doubts remain as to whether he really converted to the new religion) who theoretically imagined a physical annihilation of the afterlife, until the fourteenth century, to work on a more definitive awareness of the Annihilation of the Fire and the salvation of Others: an open and universal concept of salvation that breaks the boundaries between belief and unbelief. However, a more definitive understanding of the Annihilation of Hell needs a way back to God; the Visio Beatifica cannot be only interpreted as a cosmological process in which the un-­virtuous souls are distinguished and separated by a purgative terrestrial existence without a clearly defined ethical background. Denying the role of revelation is denying the role of God, but it is through a literal and metaphorical combined interpretation of the scripture that the notion of Heaven and Hell emerged as locations of the afterlife. After Avicenna, Islamic

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thought had to revive the religious sciences to give back a primary role to God and His revelations. The role of al-Ghazālī as a reformer is shown by his being a complex author who adopted different interpretative approaches to renew Islamic understanding. Al-Ghazālī’s al-Iqtis.ād fī l-I‘tiqād, for example, is historically considered an Ash‘arite treaty; however, this work needs to be viewed as an attempt to bring this traditional-­orthodox school into harmony with the author’s thinking, to recast it in such a way that it could be given a legitimate place in the wider context of his own theology. Viewed on a superficial level, the traditional theses are retained and set out against the usual collection of counter-­theses, while the language is, so to speak, updated by an admixture of Aristotelian and, in some cases, expressly Avicennian terms and concepts, a procedure justified on one level because of the growing interest in the teaching of the falāsifa, whose influence is evident already in alJuwaynī’s Risāla al-Nizāmiyyah. As we have seen, however, the matter is much more complex than this. Traditional arguments are retained where convenient and are modified or nuanced or fudged where suitable or necessary.4

Al-Ghazālī, in the Iqtis.ād, considered the classical Ash‘arite theories concerning the contingency of the world and the existence of God as formally imperfect and inadequate. The same author explicitly points the reader towards Avicennian ontology which considers the proper conceptual foundation for truly demonstrative proof by inserting it at the end of the general statement of the argument. At the same time, al-Ghazālī retains the classical argument for the divine origin and authority of the revelation, imperfectly related to miracles, even if these constitute the only evidence that is formally appropriate to a tract of this kind and intellectually accessible to its presumed audience: an elitist statement that introduced him to being closer to philosophers. According to ethical judgements and the thesis that God is not subject to ethical obligation, he offers definitions that can be superficially harmonized with traditional explanations, but the basic conception of which, since he maintains that both God’s acts and His commands can be fully rationalized, is not compatible with traditional teaching.5 The reviver of Islamic theology failed to consider Iqtis.ād as an ordinary manual of Ash‘arite theology because its opinion on a comprehensive review of issues is very different compared with the classical thought of the orthodox school, not least concerning the juridical condition under which accusation of unbelief (kufr) may validly be made.

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Al-Ghazālī insists that assertions that do not in fact formally reject the teaching of the Qur’ān or of the Prophet cannot serve as the basis for such an accusation; on the contrary, they may be considered by people who do not fully understand them. Belief is personal consent to what is taught in the word of God and Tradition, while unbelief is the intentional rejection of it.6

The fate of others as God’s mercy: Al-Ghazālī (d. 1111/504) and the hereafter of compromise The author’s questions about the fate of others (Muslims who have sinned gravely, but in particular non-Muslims) was briefly summarized at the end of the Introduction with a couple of questions – ‘Is the Mercy (rah.mah) of Allah prevalent over His Justice? Is the love (wudūd) of God prevalent over His judgement?’ – as expressions of a pantheistic and unitarian mystic vision, in which God’s compassion is the only quality able to save human beings regardless of their actions. Nevertheless, well before tackling this subject, it is important to emphasize this h.adīth, as reported by Muh.yī al-Dīn Yah.yā Al-Nawawī (d. 1277/675): I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) say, ‘Allah the Almighty has said: “O Son of Adam, as long as you invoke Me and ask of Me, I shall forgive you for what you have done, and I shall not mind. O Son of Adam, were your sins to reach the clouds of the sky and you then asked forgiveness from Me, I would forgive you. O Son of Adam, were you to come to me with sins nearly as great as the Earth, and were you then to face me, ascribing no partner to Me, I would bring you forgiveness nearly as great as it [too].” It was related by at-Tirmidhī (d. 892/278), who said that it was an authentic h.adīth.’7

The importance of this tradition is related not so much to the fact that those who ask for forgiveness will be forgiven (Qur. IV: 110), although burdened by a mass of innumerable sins, but to some veiled aspects. The only request that God demands from the sinner who asks for forgiveness (istighfār) is not to be ascribed as a partner to Him, even though this h.adīth is not attributed only to Muslim believers, but to all the sons of Adam, humanity in its entirety, or rather, at least, everyone who has an Abrahamic lineage. There are a few other traditions that usually adopt this definition despite the thousands of traditions in the classic collections and some of them are related to a request for forgiveness or God’s appeal to preserve human beings from

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committing evildoers: ‘the Messenger of Allah said: “There is no vow to commit an act of disobedience or with regard to that which the son of Adam does not possess.”’8 Furthermore, the significance of emphasizing the fact that the term Son of Adam is equally attributed to Muslims, but also the contrary, is highlighted by this h.adīth, ‘The Satan touches every son of Adam on the day when his mother gives birth to him with the exception of Mary and her son’,9 in which the above term is univocally ascribed at least to Muslims but also to the Ahl al-Kitāb. According to the above tradition, God’s mercy assumes a paradigmatic interdisciplinary attitude which sometimes reaches the absurd;10 however, if through Avicenna or more in general philosophy, Islām became aware of the proximity of God to his creature’s essence, his soul, it is rationally essential to understand the finite nature of Hell, because since the soul is a ‘part’ of God, or an emanation that comes from Him, it is impossible for God to eternally punish Himself and, as a logical consequence, it is impossible that there was a place, created by Him, in which there is not his essential presence. The complexity of the answer responds to the intricacy of an author such as al-Ghazālī (d. 1111/504), whose works, according to when they were written, denote a process of inner maturation that is not so dissimilar from what I have set out in this text.

A short journey within Ghazālī’s inner maturation Al-Ghazālī is usually celebrated for his efforts to reconcile the philosophical, theological, legal and mystical tradition of Islām into one system of thought; as G.F. Hourani reports in his chronology,11 al-Ghazālī’s academic career and publications, thirty–thirty-­five years long (al- Ghazālī probably died at the age of 50–53), was initially symptomatic of essays of law and jurisprudence in parallel with his first period of teaching, but also, during the period he spent in Baghdād, the first polemic works on ‘ilm al-Kalām, philosophy and S.ūfism.12 Al-Ghazālī’s increasing importance as a Jurist and theologian is related to his increasingly prominent role at court as the main scholar under the vizier Niz.ām al-Mulk; his arrival in Baghdād was due to his appointment as a professor at the madrasa Niz.āmiyya.13 These treatises, in his first period (eleven years), were followed by his greatest encyclopaedic work, the Ih.yā’ ‘ulūm ad-Dīn, a multi-­volume text (four tomes with ten books each) divided into four parts, dealing with devotional practices, social customs, the causes of perdition and the means of salvation. This work,

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however, probably caused great frustration in the author culminating, after a second period in the capital, in his seclusion that was to last almost until his death and that made him refuse a request to return to teaching at the Niz. āmiyya in 1110/503. It is hard to investigate al-Ghazālī’s six-­month-long spiritual crisis: he probably began by doubting the validity of existing doctrines and schools (knowledge as such), and eventually came to question the efficacy of the tools of knowledge. This crisis brought on a physical illness which prevented him from speaking or teaching, and, having attained the truth by means of the light with which God had illuminated his heart, finally caused him to leave his working position giving up wealth, fame and influence, rejecting public and official places until his death. In al-Munqidh,14 the Islamic reviver seems to have pronounced, ‘I chose seclusion, desiring solitude and the purification of the heart through dikhr’, and as reported by ‘Abd al-Ghāfir al-Fārisī15: ‘Then he returned to his homeland where he stayed close to his family. He was preoccupied with meditation and he was tenacious of his time. He was the precious goal and the perseverance of the hearts for those who were sealed to him and those who come to see him.’ It is in relation to the last years of his life (from 1097/490), when he settled for good in Nīshāpūr and T.ūs, that al-Ghazālī’s textual originality emerged as more mystical than at the beginning of his career, effectively expanding the understanding of an author who is still complex and paradigmatic today. His rebuttal of the eternalists’ thesis is linked with the assertion that the world was created in time through an eternal decree of God, while his rejection of the claim that the lapse of time that separates the eternal decree of God and the creation of the world involves the supposition that Allah could not accomplish the creation at once and is not based on demonstrative grounds, but is simply a dogmatic assertion.16 According to the author of the Tahlāfut, much of what the philosophers say concerning the incorporeal or spiritual pleasures reserved to the soul in the afterlife is in conformity with the teaching of the scripture. Al-Ghazālī argues instead that their knowledge of the immortality of the soul and the spiritual pleasures or pains of the hereafter are known through unaided reason and that there are only two types of pleasure and pain that man can experience after death: the spiritual and the physical. There is no logical absurdity in maintaining the existence of both as also reported by the scripture. In other words, the reviver of Islamic theology accused the philosophers of depicting Qur’anic sensuous pleasures and pains as allegories and linked with a metaphoric understanding for the masses.

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If God is certainly not an anthropomorphic entity, the bodily rewards and punishments as alluded to in the Qur’ān are not logically impossible, as God had already created the human body once. God could thus restore the soul on the Day of Judgement into a body that was identical with its original body and thereby enable it to partake of both bodily and unbodily pleasure. In fact, he finally argued, complete happiness is bound up with both.17 However, the eschatological awareness of al-Ghazālī, as emerging from the Tahāfut al-Falāsifah, is very far from the idea that emerges in later texts. Al-Ghazālī’s crisis probably began when he realized that in order to be a sincere Muslim and in antithesis to his incoherence in academic teaching, he had to revolutionize his life. He knew that his journey to God would take him away from the obstacles of ‘reprehensible habits and vicious qualities’, stemming from his attachment to his current lifestyle full of honours, fame and official recognition. The rational knowledge gained from juridical and theological studies did not purify his soul of everything other than God. This is the evolutionary maturation process, previously mentioned, and that could be attributed to an individual believer, but also to an Ummah able to generate authors like him. Two main treatises, not directly linked with the Ih.yā’ ‘ulūm ad-Dīn and its Kitāb dhikr al-­mawt wa-­mā ba‘dahu, complete al-Ghazālī’s meditations on the afterlife and the annihilation of the fire: the Mishkāt al-Anwār and the Fays.al alTafriqa bayna al-Islām wa al-Zandaqa. The evident differences between these two texts highlight the author’s capability to re-­shape Islamic studies through the twofold analysis of theology and mysticism.

Mishkāt al-Anwār and the categories of an eschatological hierarchy The Mishkāt al-Anwār takes its starting point from Qur’ān XXIV: 35, a verse playing on the imagery of an oil lamp.18 Avicenna had interpreted the imagery in the verse as an allegorical representation of the human intellectual process,19 while al-Ghazālī adopted a similar one, but in more philosophical and cosmological terms. The Mishkāt recognized many classes of men that directly ascend to the true heavens and attain a genuine understanding of God, but it is important to mention here only a few of them: those who know what they do through ‘scientific knowledge’ (‘irfān ‘ilmī) or verification, those who are in a state of direct experience (h.āl dhawqī), as immersed in the heavens, and those S.ūfī philosophers who argued about the Lord as the mover of everything by means of command and not direct contact.20

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The members of a fourth group are, however, the only ones that could be considered as having been in the pantheistic danger of imagining themselves identical with God, but are clearly superior to the members of the first groups because they tried to be part of a direct experience. Therefore, they have turned their faces from the one who moves the heavens, from the one who moves the furthest celestial body, from the one who commands moving them, to Him who originates the One who commands moving the heavens. Here is the sight of the groups that perceives its burning up, effaced and annihilation.21

A practice that al-Ghazālī clarified first of all as different from union with God (ittih.ād), but achieved once the believer becomes aware that all being is God, all actions are God’s action and all love is God’s love. Fanā’s al-­nafs, the annihilation of the self, as for al-Junayd and al-Muh.āsibī, is related to someone who is really able to see the world through the sight of a true understanding of divine oneness.22 There is nothing in existence other than God, He is everything that exists. And it is here that Mishkāt al-Anwār reconnects with Qur’ān XXVIII: 88, ‘Everything is perishing except his face’, nothing will remain save the One, the Real. This is the last status, the final end of those who have arrived.23 This is the Reviver’s final step, the absolute perfection for which the human soul may yearn, the cosmological imaginative afterlife, the highest expression of God’s love. God is the only one existing in the existence. ‘The monistic paradigm views the granting of existence as essentially virtual so that in the final analysis God alone exists, whereas the monotheistic paradigm sees the granting of existence as real.’24 A. Treiger argued in his article that The Niche of Lights shaped both perspectives: the Lord and the Creator, but also the only true existent one. In this text, al-Ghazālī’s attempt is to present an interrelated cosmology and psychology, through which a thoughtful Muslim might explain what the universe is and what it means to be human in a manner that is in harmony with the Qur’ān and the Tradition. The main protagonist of this work is Tawh.īd, the unity of God, but also in God. The light became a synonym of existence and everything existing in the universe exists either by virtue of itself, or by virtue of another, that the first fount of light is light by virtue of itself and that the true existent being is God, just as the true light is God.25 Al-Ghazālī’s reflection on Qur’ān XXVIII: 88, however, is quite different from that of Jahm Ibn Safwān: the everything perishes does not mean that everything perishes at a particular moment, but rather that it perishes eternally and everlastingly (abadan).26 The world outside God does not actually perish and in emphasizing the world as perishable, the scripture means that the world

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exists eternally by reason of another and not by reason of itself. This is clearly in contrast with al-Ghazālī’s position as it emerged in the Tahāfut al-Falāsifah, in which the author insists that belief in the past eternity of the world is incompatible with a belief in a First Cause, in the existence of God, supporting the heretic position of those who endorse the world’s eternity.27 However, al-Ghazālī’s clear intent is that the world of the future will eternally exist, but not that it has existed from all eternity in the past which, in other words, could be more easily explained in reasoning that the world of the afterlife will certainly be eternal, but that of the past, as created by God, will probably not. As for Avicenna, al-Ghazālī uses analogies from the emanationist repertoire. The human intellect is illuminated and brought to actuality by an emanation from the transcendent region and specifically from a single spirit, or angel, or prototypical divine scripture, these all appearing as locutions for the active intellect.28 The prophetic spirit for the Reformer (al-Ghazālī) as for Ibn Sīnā also possesses direct experience, a blessed man with an inspired imaginative faculty. Mishkāt al-Anwār also emerged in his esoteric awareness as an important eschatological text in which the hierarchy is toppled by the categories of pure light to which are opposed those of pure darkness. The souls veiled by pure darkness include atheists who believe neither in God nor in the Last Day and who prefer the life of this world over the life to come. These are of two kinds: (1) those who consider Nature as opposed to God, as an expression of the ultimate cause of the universe; and (2) those who live the life of beasts: ‘their veil is their murky souls and dark appetites. There is no darkness more intense than caprice and the soul.’29 The latter is further divided into four other groups: (1) those for whom sensual delight is their god; (2) those who believe that life’s target is victory, conquest, taking captives and killing (al-Ghazālī probably attributed this fate to Bedouins, Kurds and fools he knew personally); (3) those whose main goal is to acquire as much economic wealth as possible, abundance of properties and the maximum extension of wealth; (4) those who claim having rational faculties, seek influence, fame and honour at court, seeking happiness from the elevation of their role in the society. The author maintains that in all the aforementioned four categories, there are people who say with their tongues: ‘There is no God but God.’ However, it may happen that fear causes them to say this, or they do so to show off and adorn themselves to the Muslims, or to seek provisions from their wealth, or to be zealous in helping the religion of their fathers. If this saying does not cause these people to do good works, then it does not bring them out of the darkness into light.30

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The next category of Mishkāt al-Anwār reflects on those veiled by a mixture of light and darkness and who are divided into three other groups: (1) Those who are veiled by sensory darkness, ‘they comprise several companies of people, none of whom fails to pass beyond attending to his own soul to strive at becoming godlike and to look forward to knowledge of his lord.’31 Here there are idolaters, animists and those who are connected with shamanic religions. (2) The second category is veiled by some lights along with the darkness of imagination. They are able to go beyond the senses, but not of the imagination. They still believe that there is someone at the top of the throne. These are the members of the Mujassima, Karrāmiya and some traditionalist Muslims. (3) The third category are those veiled by the darkness of the intellect’s falsity. Gairdner identified them with the H.anbalites and early Ash‘arites.32 No Christians or Hebrews are included in these categories. Perhaps he found it particularly difficult to do so in relation to the discussion assumed here versus the divine and not versus Muh.ammad or other prophets. In spite of this, in the Iqtis.ād fī l-I‘tiqād, where the analysis concerning nonMuslims is relatively detailed, we could have placed Jews and Christians between the dualists and the Muslim anthropomorphists in the class of those who are veiled by a mixture of light and darkness, and in which the Naturalists and the Brahimis are the most damnable of all.33 The low position attributed to Ash‘arites and H.anbalites is notable, in continuity with all the mutakallimūn, who are accused of distorting reason to make God incomprehensible to ordinary men. At the time of the Mishkāt, the science of Kalām, as already emerged in the Iqtis.ād, but also in a later treatise as Fī Iljām al-‘Awāmm ‘an ‘Ilm al-Kalām,34 had probably long ceased to interest him, narrowing the scope of its possible utility down to a vanishing point. Al-Ghazālī does not seem to have even thought it worthwhile to place the Mu‘tazilites in this ranking scheme, nor to keep the condemnatory allusions to orthodox and unorthodox theologians very distinct.

Fays.al al-Tafriqa bayna al-Islām wa al-Zandaqa: the criterion to distinguish belief from unbelief If Mishkāt al-Anwār clarified the categories of the afterlife, the eschatological awareness of Fays.al al-Tafriqa bayna al-Islām wa al-Zandaqa,35 probably composed in 1106/499 in the paradigmatic spirit of change that gripped our author in the last part of his life, reflects not only on the distinction between

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Islām and Zandaqa, but between those who will be saved and those who will not. This text, despite the Mishkāt, is less esoteric and, I would suggest, more for ordinary men and mutakallimūn. In sharp contrast with Ash‘arite doxographers such as al-Baghdādī, who in Us.ūl ad-Dīn, but also in Farq bayna al-Firāq, considered all those who stray from orthodoxy as being accused of heresy,36 the Islamic Reformer responds using the classic three fundamental principles: unbelief is the rejection of the monotheistic understanding of God, of the Prophet and of the vision of the hereafter. This statement is extremely inclusive, at least considering the Islamic community and scholars: mutakallimūn, mystics and philosophers, regardless of their individual theories, remained blindly tied to the above three main principles. The first target of this text is to condemn a particular type of extremism: the one linked to the overuse of religious rationalism, an aspect that he himself would have to struggle to overcome. This form of extremism addresses in particular the extremists who accused their colleagues, above all those who had lived decades earlier, demolishing their theories without the opportunity of having a real debate. The secondary target, in spite of this, are the Crypto-­infidels (the Zindīq/zanādiqa), who hide behind figurative interpretations (ta’wīl), in order to conceal their opposition to the religion of the Prophet.37 However, just as alGhazālī himself recognized within his mystical–gnostic works, it is important to distinguish between those metaphoric interpretations to which acknowledgement is still possible and those that could be exposed to the risk of Unbelief. To deem, however, that a statement is a lie, is to deny that it is true; while to deem that a statement is true, for al-Ghazālī, is related to acknowledge the existence of its referent. Existence could be clearly perceived at five levels: ontological, sensorial, conceptual, rational (noetic) and analogical. Know that everyone who interprets a statement of the Lawgiver in accordance with one of the preceding levels has deemed such statements to be true. Deeming a statement to be a lie (takhdīb), on the other hand, is to deny its correspondence to any of these levels and to claim that it represents no reality at all, that it is a pure lie, and that the Lawgiver’s aims in delivering it was simply to deceive people or to promote the common good (mas.lah.a). This is pure unbelief and masked infidelity. Other than this, however, it is improper to brand as an unbeliever anyone who engages in figurative interpretation, as long as he observes the rule of figurative interpretation.38

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The above five levels are hierarchically structured from the more literal, also considering it sensorially, but distinguishing the ontological from the sensorial in relation to the correct interpretation of the evidence: the human being has the perception that it is the sun that revolves around the earth but, as we know, it is the contrary. What could be sensorially true is ontologically false. The main problem of understanding between the different theological schools is not linked to a problem of scripture interpretation, but the complementary idea of each level of comprehension that every mutakallim has of the deity and of the part of text which clarifies the passage. If, for the Mu‘tazila, God’s Tawh.īd is the main starting point on which to build the ethical system, every different opinion would cause inconsistency to the essential divine monotheism. Al-Ghazālī clearly refuted the distinguishing counter-­opposition between Traditionalist and Rationalist in relation to the acceptance (by the latter) and denial (by the former) of figurative interpretation. Even Ah.mad Ibn H.anbal, who had been historically depicted as the main forerunner and ta’wīl opponent, adopted the figurative elucidation concerning traditions that argued that the singular believer’s heart rested between God’s two fingers. The famous H.  anbalite theologian never worked at adopting an Aristotelian– Neoplatonic-­inspired tradition of speculative rationalism, fostering, on the contrary, a more literal approach, though this is not an aspect to be condemned or eulogized, but symptomatic of his age. The lack of knowledge on astronomy due to the absence of an ancient philosophical awareness is linked to the ignorance to which human beings are entitled, but which is often also the main cause for their oppression. This is the main target of al-Ghazālī which will clearly emerge in the Fays.al: the literalist interpretation of the scripture could be considered crude and banal, predestinarian and full of personal resignation, but this will appear so only to those who do not share his interpretative presuppositions. If the majority of the society prefers this interpretation, stupidity or ignorance could be no more synonymous with Unbelief than intelligence and education are with faith. Personal faith could not be judged univocally on the basis of a theological interpretation.39 This passage is particularly important for our analysis because the author, by intelligently denying the existence of disbelief on theological grounds, makes a relevant connection between religious sensitivity and history, historicizing religious maturity and its opposite in the ongoing age of reference; but we will return to this below.

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The absolute truth does not exist; the truth is a pure matter of perspective. What al-Ghazālī would advocate is a smart critical examination of all the theological assumptions based on logical evidence; in other words, a non-­ideological approach. However, our author was not so naïve as to really believe that this could properly happen during his time; as regards his approach to the end of life, al-Ghazālī was far less dubious about the power of reason per se, than he was convinced of the limits of its usefulness in the private versus the public domain.40 Al-Ghazālī’s investigative criterion in relation to Muslim unbelievers is contingent on some specific instances: (1) The examiner’s ability to distinguish the scripture verses that are or are not figurative in accusing the suspected sceptic. (2) The analysis of the ‘diffused congruence’ of the passage under examination in relation to the existence of a rich or poor tradition on it – in other words, if the verse being analysed has kept the same meaning that it had in the Prophet’s time, when its original godly significance reached human beings for the first time. On this important passage, al-Ghazālī asked: Is it conceivable that the number of transmitters required to sustain diffuse congruence could have fallen below the required level during any of these generations, while the very impossibility of such an occurrence is one of the requirements of diffuse congruence to begin with, such as obtains in the case of the Qur’ān? As for text other than the Qur’ān (the Sunnah), making such a determination is extremely difficult. And only those who study the books of history, the conditions of bygone generations, the book of h.adīth, the status and the conditions of the transmitters of reports, as well as their objectives in transmitting the doctrines they transmit, can successfully undertake such a task.41

Here above, as already maintained on the previous page, the author emphasized the need to study the topic in an interdisciplinary way, starting with history books, as prominently highlighted; but also, at the same time, he argued that if for the Qur’ān this is possible, concerning the Tradition it is extremely difficult, as already stated by the Mu‘tazila in the ninth century. (3) Investigating whether the idea of unbelief is related to a sufficient number of sources on which there is a clear consensus; in spite of this, the examiner also needs to certify that its opposing point of view is strongly supported by an adequate number of theories. A person’s denial of consensus on a specific religious topic could accuse him of being ignorant or related to a wrong position but not of being an unbeliever. (4) A new logical meaning about, for example, a specific Quranic verse, on which there is no consensus, had to be reached through a preliminary investigation and not in contrast with the scripture. If logical proof is definitive,

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it can serve as a licence to engage in figurative interpretation, even remote; if it is not, it has to be considered only as an apparent meaning of the text under examination. (5) Finally, there are clearly absurd theories that do not represent a significant detriment and, even if they are false and abominable, they did not pose a threat to religion. The foulness of a believer could not become a rationale to declare someone’s unbelief when none of the main three assumptions to describe an unbeliever had been mystified.42 All these preceding considerations were regarded by al-Ghazālī as the main rational instances for a declaration of Unbelief; the enormous amount of information necessary to condemn someone is clearly a deterrent not to cause conflicts on a religious basis; as expressed by the Qur’ān, human beings have not been made powerful on the earth to judge their peers, but to follow God’s will and there is no verse in the Islamic Word that emphasizes human judgement and over-­zealous pursuit of the approach to justice, but, on the contrary, there are many verses on God’s decisionism at the end of time. However, if the above classification is uniquely attributable to Muslim believers, our work also reflects on the fate of others.

The fate of non-Muslims Al- Ghazālī assumed that non-Muslims could be divided into three categories: (1) those who had never even heard of the name of the Prophet Muh.ammad; (2) those who lived in Dār al-Islām or close to it and knew the true character of Islām and of the Prophet; (3) those who are in the middle, who probably knew something of Islām and Muh.ammad, but their information was limited or contradictory.43 This is the paradigmatic passage of Fays.al; in continuity with his other works, the reviver of Islamic thought established the condemnation of disbelief in connection both with history and with geography. The importance of the former is related (as in Dante’s Divine Comedy) to the prominent idea that there was a time when Christianity like Islām was not in history (a pre-Christian era like a pre-Islamic one), but also, and this is the significance of the latter, different geographical areas in which the Islamic prophetic message had not yet arrived or a limited amount of information was not sufficient to understand the nature of this religion. This was the case of people that already during Ghazālī’s era lived in still unknown continents such as America and Oceania, or other regions in Africa or Eurasia, where knowledge of Islām was limited, either due to its absence or resistance.

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There are indeed many specific cases where none of them could be properly considered an unbeliever or be accused of unbelief. Al-Ghazālī, in the Iqtis.ād44 and the Ih.yā’, asserts: The Qur’ān, from the beginning to its end is an argument with the unbelievers [. . .] At the same time the Prophet did not cease to dispute and debate with the deniers. God starts to debate with them in the best manner (XVI: 125). So the Companions also used to dispute with the deniers and debate with them but only where there was a need. And the need for it was low during this era. [. . .] Disputing has only one benefit: to protect the Islamic creed for the common people and to guard it from the confusion of the innovators by various kinds of topics.45

Finally, (4) those people, non-Muslims who do not immediately (or ever) convert upon learning about the Prophet’s real word and miracles. Those who are religious and are not among those who prefer the life of this world to the hereafter possessed a faith in God and, on the last day, whatever religious community they might belong to (even if death takes them before they can confirm Muh.ammad’s final message): God will be compassionate towards them, forgiving them, at his highest level of mercy.46 Anyone who migrates for God’s cause will find many a refuge and great plenty in the earth and if one leaves home as a migrant towards God and his messenger and is then overtaken by death, his reward from God is sure. God is most forgiving and most merciful. Qur., IV: 99–100

This could be considered the fourth of Ghazālī’s categories of non-Muslims in which seeking truth is a saving quality even though this believer will never convert to Islām. Summarizing it with the other three: The first is made up of believers of other religions or unbelievers who have never heard of the Prophet and will be saved by God, because ignorance is not a possible reason for condemnation. The second are those who rejected or ignored the Islamic message even though they appreciated its real message in its entirety; here it is clear that God will condemn them all to Hell. Finally, there are those who, for different reasons – geographical, historical or again out of ignorance – have acquired a limited or misleading knowledge of Islām: God’s mercy will open Heaven’s gates for them all. If the condemnation of the second category is clearly related to their rejection of the truth, for the others, al-Ghazālī was probably influenced, as reported in the al-Mustas.fā,47 by al-Jāh.īz who reported how Jews, Christians and atheists

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who do not recognize the truth of the final message, as well as those who will never come to realize that they should investigate the final message, will be excused because God ‘does not burden any soul with more than it can bear’ (Qur. II: 286). As al-Ghazālī knows perfectly well, many Jews, Christians or Dualists still remained in the Islamic world who persisted in being faithful to their fathers’ religion. Their ‘burden’ is the inability to recognize the truth or to distinguish evidence of the Prophet as being better than their fathers’ religions. It is therefore necessary to promote a clear distinction between those whose intellect would be excessively burdened in recognizing its untrue religious disposition and those, on the contrary, whose intellect could sustain and support such a change. Both cases are clearly related to the second and fourth category of the Fays.al; however, an important question that still subsists is whether God’s mercy is also attributable to the truth-­seekers who are not monotheists. It is again necessary to reconsider the figure of the Pharaoh, who for alGhazālī does not need to be judged only as a principal human example of unbelief, but he is also evoked as the epitome of human self: prone to considering himself completely independent from God, to make himself God on Earth (but in a different way from the main role given by God to man in the ancient scriptures), usurping God’s prerogatives, but moaning and weeping obedience when the fear of death is imminent.48 However, as in Dante’s Divine Comedy, it would be like rebuking Plato, Aristotle, Galen and Pythagoras, with thousands and thousands of human beings going to Hell, because they lived before the real clarification of monotheism. All of them, in fact, could be considered in al-Ghazālī’s first category, but also the Reviver’s soteriological understanding of non-­monotheism and its optimism: Just as most people of the world enjoy material health and well-­being or live in enviable circumstances, inasmuch as, given the choice, they would choose life over death and annihilation (the physical one), and just as it is rare for even a tormented person to wish for death, so too it will be rare for one to dwell in Hellfire forever, compared to the number of those who will be saved outright and those who will ultimately be taken out of the Hellfire. None of this, it should be noted, is a function of God’s attribute of mercy having changed in any way due to changes in our circumstances. It is simply the fact of our being in this world or in the hereafter that changes.49 Otherwise, there would be no meaning to the statement of the Prophet: the first thing that God inscribed in the first book was, ‘I’m God, there is no God but me. My mercy outstrips my wrath.’ Thus,

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whoever says. ‘There is no God but God and Muh.ammad is His servant and Messenger, for him in Paradise.’ Moreover, you should know that the precedence and vastness of God’s mercy has revealed itself to the people of spiritual insight through various means and illuminations other than the reports and anecdotes that have come into their possession. But citing all of this would take up too much time.50

It is clear that God’s mercy (which ‘outstrips my wrath’) is for all. It is also evident that in this text al-Ghazālī indicates that everlasting damnation will be limited and rare; even though, as previous Ghazalian texts like Ih.yā51 showed, the author makes a distinction between those who will attain success (al-­fā’izūn) and those who will be saved (al-­nājūn). While the former are Heaven-­linked, the latter will reside in Limbo (al-­a‘rāf) between Heaven and Hell, and are those who never received the call of the word of God, the mentally ill and the children of the unbelievers: people who never obeyed or disobeyed God during their lives. However, some doubts remained, both in relation to previous theological positions regarding the fate of children, and to the Fays.al text itself which, written after the Ih.yā’, is entirely dedicated to the destiny of the afterlife, never mentioning Limbo. In spite of this, al-­a‘rāf is an illogical place, because, considering the previous quotation on God’s mercy, it would insinuate that this location, so close to Paradise, is not reached by God’s rah.mah, also in clear contrast with the Quranic message (VII: 46–49) that states the opposite.52 It is possible that this intermediate space might be regarded as a temporary location, where no Muslims of the groups, the second excluded, would be after being taken into Paradise.

God’s mercy in the Ghazalian Vision Fays.al, like Mishkāt, are not the only works that are closely related to al-Ghazālī’s view of the afterlife: Vol. IV, book XL of the Ih.yā, in fact, is entirely dedicated to evoking death and the hereafter and was probably written some years before the Fays.al; nevertheless, a few aspects need to be added to this analysis. The human requests for forgiveness are confirmed as particularly numerous, but as God’s emissary (the Prophet) has said, ‘On the day of Arising, God shall joyfully appear before us, and declare: Rejoice, or assembly of Muslims! For there is not one of you that has not had his place in Hell taken by a Jew or a Christian.’53 As God’s mercy outstripped his wrath, the prophet’s intercession is reported as vividly related to biblical tradition. However, there are two classes of mediation:

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one of relief and mercy on the day of Judgement – ‘On the day of Arising, God shall give Adam to intercede on behalf of a hundred and ten million of his seed’54 – and another, to be exercised exclusively by the Prophet Muh.ammad, by which sinners shall be delivered from the infernal regions. This is supported by Sunna: ‘My intercession is for those of my nation who are guilty of great sins’; the intercession of God’s emissary is only for the man that ruined himself and burdened his back. There is indeed a double intercession (Shafā‘ah), that of the Prophets of the Old Testament, of Adam, Abraham and Moses, but also of Jesus ‘for their nations (as religious communities)’, and that of the Prophet Muh.ammad, the Seal of the prophets. However, there remain in al-Ghazālī some contradictory sources about the true recipients of this intercession. In Ad-Dourra al-Fākhira (a pseudo-Ghazalian text on which there are some doubts of attribution),55 the real Shafā‘ah is exclusively that of Muh.ammad: The prophet says: I will appoint myself to it! I will go to his presence! I will get that God will grant his grace to those who want and to those who love him. So he will head to the veils of Majesty, beg permission to see God that will be granted. Then raise the veil, penetrated beside the throne, he prostrated himself in worship and will persist in this attitude for a thousand years, addressing to God praises that no one had given him before.56

This will be pronounced for all (unbelievers), but, secondly, for every individual Prophet. Noah, Moses, David, Jesus and Muh.ammad will be interrogated individually with their nations. As reported in Qur. VII: 6,57 all the words of God will be read and after every community will be divided, the wicked on the one hand, the believers on the other.58 The wicked of every nation will be dropped in Hell, where they will stay and dwell for their sins. However, sometimes God grants his pardon during the trial, except for premeditated murders and idolaters; these crimes never obtain God’s immediate forgiveness (the murderers gave death to those to whom God had given life), and their grave sin could not be omitted by the intercession of anyone, before being purified.59 The one who is more favourably helped by God, comes out of Hell after a thousand years, completely consumed. H.asan al-Bas.rī, used to say in his speeches: oh it would pleased to heaven that I was that man! Certainly H.asan was very informative about the mysteries of the future life.60

This quotation is undoubtedly important, as al-Ghazālī, or whoever else wrote it, confirmed not only Hell’s purgative role, but also that in the first century of Islām, H.asan al-Bas.rī was inclined to support this idea; of course, as reported by

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the famous author of the formative age, H.asan was arbitrarily used during the following centuries to support different theological arguments, and to give it an illustrious paternity. There is no man however, who has been condemned in Hell (during the Judgement), without the angels stopping him (because of their knowledge of the mysteries of the world to come), even those which are addressed as those who have no happiness, or that have been created to serve as materials and food for Hell. Stopped them! They need to be interrogated! Then they will weep and shriek their teeth asking forgiveness and admitting their sins. And God shall say to the angels: Wherever you find a dinar’s weight of good in anyone’s heart bring that person forth of Hell; thus they bring forth a great throng. Then they said: Oh our Lord! We have left therein none of those whom You ordered us to take, But he says: Go back and whenever you find half-­dinar’s weight of good in anyone’s heart bring him forth from Hell, and thus they bring out another great throng. [. . .] Then God shall say: the angels have interceded, the prophets have interceded, the believers have interceded; none remains now except the Most merciful of the merciful. And He takes up a handful, and there emerged a people that never once did good, who have been turned to cinders. He casts them into a river at the mouths of Heaven which is called the river of life, from which they grow as do seeds cast upon the banks of a flash-­flood. Have you not seen that what grows between the stones and the trees is yellow and green, while that which is in the shade is white? And they said, O emissary of God! It is just as though you had been a shepherd in the desert! And he said: Then they emerged like pearls. Around their necks are rings, so that they are recognised by the people of Heaven, who say, Behold the slaves freed by the all-­merciful, those whom he brought into Heaven although they had never done any praiseworthy thing, nor sent before them the slightest good! Then he says: Enter into Heaven, where whatsoever you see shall be yours. And they say, Oh our Lord! You have given us that which You never bestowed upon anyone before us! And God says, And I have for you something which is better still, O our Lord! They say, And what could be better still? My Satisfaction with you! He replies, for henceforth I shall never be wrathful against you again. This has been narrated by al-Bukhārī and Muslim in their S.ah.īh.s.61

This H.adīth definitively clarifies how the all-Merciful could also be the absolute saviour. Al-Ghazālī in the last part of the XL book of the Ih.yā’, entirely on God’s mercy, lists all the most important Quranic verses and prophetic traditions in which God is salvation, indiscriminately and all-­encompassing; it may not be a coincidence that this is the last book of the last volume of his main work.

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God’s mercy is soteriologically conclusive and irrefutable. Even with the Maqs.ad al-­asnā,62 the mercy of God is perfect and all-­inclusive: it is perfect in the sense that He not only wills the satisfaction of the needs and of the needy, but actually satisfies them. It is all-­inclusive in that it includes the worthy and the unworthy, this life and that which is to come, and encompasses the essential needs and advantages that go beyond them. Thus he is in truth the absolutely compassionate. A historical understanding of al-Ghazālī’s immense amount of work would be necessary to better clarify its academic but also more human process of inner maturation as a Muslim believer; its written sources are particularly helpful, but the breadth of his work, however, makes this type of analysis somewhat problematic. Al-Ghazālī’s coherence, specifically concerning his position on Islamic philosophy, has been sufficiently questioned by H. Davidson,63 Eric Linn Ormsby and R. Frank. However, this section clearly emerges as particularly important for a double understanding of the divine and the author’s vision of the afterlife: in Mishkāt al-Anwār, the esoteric comprehension of God is purified by physical materiality and the veils are the expression of a vision of the hereafter in which annihilation in God will be an option only for the prophet-­philosophers;64 on the contrary, other works, such as Fays.al, but also Ih.yā’, are projected towards the emptying of Hell, due to a progressive lack of inhabitants in relation to God’s mercy and its purgative role. This option is not considered at all in the esoteric text, in which, on the contrary, the veil of darkness is permanently attributed. In spite of this, al-Ghazālī still lingers more on its theological inclusivism, or the relevant criterion for non-Muslims’ salvation, in which, it is also important to highlight, there is still a group that for the famous Reviver could not be saved. Only God’s mercy can save them. Is Fanā’ al-Nār therefore possible? Hell is not really purgative, as expressed by early mystics; the Others could finally settle more in Paradise than Hell, but God’s mercy remained rationally incomprehensible and, like the assumption of others, a dogmatic belief. On the one hand, al-Ghazālī seems to stress the idea that philosophical reasoning is the best way to know God; syllogism and prophetic perception are, in Mishkāt, the way for saints and philosophers to reach God and be annihilated in his infinity; however, the supreme way to know God for this author is not through mysticism and philosophy, but continued to be, even though Ibn Sīnā had an enormous influence on him, the result of the interpretation of the Qur’ān and the Traditions.

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The fate of others in later H.anbalism (fourteenth century) The process of mystification of sources and theological production that are considered dangerously innovative has always been a practice frequently used in Islām, as in all religions. The Mu‘tazila, for example, went from being the primary Islamic defence against the Manichean, Iranian dualism and Christian oriental debaters (ninth century), to be considered the main unorthodox antiMuh.addithīn theological school (tenth century); the same members of this school went from taking a critical stance on the excessive ‘creation’ of traditions, to being those who were strongly attacked and mystified by this creative process. In parallel, Ibn Taymiyya’s eschatological vision (d. 1328/728) is closely connected with this ‘maturation’ process of Islamic thought. However, if today, Ibn Taymiyya’s position on S.ufism and Falsafa, but also on the conflict between reason and revelation, has shaped this H.anbalite theologian into a violent detractor of Islamic sophistication and a trivial inquisitor of religious thought,65 a ‘real’ understanding, at least on his afterlife’s visio, should be able to show us a different perspective. Working on Ibn Taymiyya’s eschatological view and, more specifically, on his main disciple, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah (d. 1350/750) through which we have the best acknowledgement, is the conclusive step to investigate the theoretical understanding of Fanā’ al-Nār.

Ibn Taymiyya and evilness The general position of Ibn Taymiyya on God’s complex creation is that it is usually a blessing to reveal God’s wisdom, mercy and power; nothing is left to chance and the very creation of evil is itself responsive to his omniscience. The Qur’ān, moreover, is clear on that: everything is from God (IV: 78), God is the creator of all, which clearly also includes evil. Ibn Taymiyya argues that there is nothing among the existent things that God creates that is evil overall and in general.66 It is reported by him that the existent evil is restricted, no names of God are related to evil and the same divinity created evil to be an inevitable founding element of humanity. The main H.anbalite opinion is that human beings would not be human if God had created them differently; evil gives, in God’s wise purpose, the educational function of deterrence and guidance away from the wrong path.67 ‘So when they angered us, we took vengeance on them and we drowned them all together. We set them as a precedent and an example to later generations’

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(Qur. XLIII: 55–56). Again the Egyptian and the Pharaoh’s role are a deterrent for the future. Human sins and failures are usually considered as lessons to evoke reflection, which in modern psychology is defined as reality testing. Evil becomes a necessary precondition for repentance: ‘God did not decree anything for the believer except what is good for him.’ The believer is he who does not persist in a sin but repents from it. Thus, it becomes a good deed. He does not cease repenting from it until he enters Paradise by means of his repentance from it. A sin necessitates a servant’s humility, his subjection, invocation of God, his asking Him for forgiveness and his bearing witness to his poverty and to his need for Him and that no one can forgive sins except Him. Because of the sin, good things happen to the believer that would not have happened without this. Therefore, this decree is good for him.68

His main disciple, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, will start from here to explain that sins and disobedience afford God the occasion to demonstrate His mercy and forgiveness.69 Ibn Taymiyya’s ethical understanding of the evil’s source is, however, the starting point of this last section. The holy Qur’ān, in IV: 78–79, clearly argues: Death will overtake you no matter where you may be, even inside high towers. When good fortune comes their way, they say, ‘This is from God’, but when harm befalls them, they say, ‘This is from you (Prophet).’ Say to them, both come from God. What is the matter with these people that they can barely understand what they are told? Anything good that happens to you (Prophet) is from God; anything bad is ultimately from yourself. We have sent you as a messenger to people; God is sufficient witness.

These paradigmatic verses, which consider a position that was usually mistrusted in earlier times, showed how Ibn Taymiyya also, like al-Ghazālī70 and al-Māturīdī71 before him, needed to partially reconsider who is ‘ultimately’ the shaper of evil action on the earth. The nafs in the Quranic verse is usually translated by ‘self, soul or person’: it could create both obedience and disobedience, the former as well as the latter, the first and its contrary, as an anti-­early Ash‘arite position testified in Kalām. The awareness of Ibn Taymiyya’s irāda is related to an evil affliction that comes from the person who submits himself to sins that God creates. The act of disobedience is located in human beings: obedience is a blessing that comes to a person from God while disobedience is an affliction that comes to him because of himself and, in some sense, he does it.72

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A position that still seems illogically linked to the human being’s capability of doing good (or its contrary), but that is certainly innovative in a late Islamic period of theological development and that approached previously unthinkable positions, reached, many centuries after the Mu‘tazila, very similar questions: ‘If acts of obedience and acts of disobedience are predetermined (muqaddar) and blessings and afflictions are predetermined, then what is the difference between good things, which are blessings, and evil things, which are afflictions, so as to deem the one from God and the other from the human soul?’73 A strict predetermination of human actions is furthermore unreliable and ineffective because it is impossible to make a real distinction between good things and their opposite. In spite of this, the omission of a prohibited thing is an act of obedience to a command which explains how human knowledge is aware of what is forbidden. God’s main ethical understanding is based on a reward for omitting evil deeds, but also for the recognition of divine love. Moreover, there is no reward for omitting forbidden things that one never thought of committing, and there is no punishment for neglecting to do what is commanded, unless there is a perverse refusal to obey.74 Ibn Taymiyya was able to identify the roots of evil deeds in ignorance and lack of knowledge. The Fit.ra is not sufficient to bring human beings towards a correct guidance and it is here that the later H.anbalite reached another anti-­ predestinarian goal: if it is knowledge that leads men to follow good deeds avoiding the contrary, it is clear that if God is the creator of everything, knowledge included, human beings are empowered by the divine to remain in ignorance or the opposite. The good certainly comes from God and it is a blessing for Him to impose it on human beings, but at least it is mankind that partially decided to remain ignorant or not. According to the above passages, there are therefore different typologies of obedience and the contrary in Ibn Taymiyya’s human comprehension of the divine; as the cases of disobedience are more important for our study than the former, the distinction is dual: there are those who are not aware of their disobedience due to lack of knowledge and proper guidance (similar to al-Ghazālī’s position in Fays.al), but there are also those who could be permanently disobedient and aware that their actions are evil ones. Ibn Taymiyya’s position on the human comprehension of the divine emphasizes that its lack of knowledge is nothing at all, because God is the divine creator of the existing thing, not of the contrary, namely ignorance.

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Ibn Taymiyya and the temporary nature of Hell The eschatological awareness of Ibn Taymiyya became important regarding the punishment of human sins. Here, Ibn Taymiyya highlights the need to distinguish the historical phase in which human beings acted without the presence of a real God’s messenger, and the one when the Prophet reached society and a more coherent punishment could be conferred. A pre-Islamic Arab world could not be chastised in relation only to the ethical awareness of the Fit.ra. This opinion is attributable to Muslims as for other believers, as the Qur’ān clearly states: (XVII: 15) ‘No soul will bear another’s burden, nor do we punish until we have sent a messenger’. However, the H.anbalite argued and commented on the above verse, saying that each individual divine message is based on God’s truth and every believer will be judged in relation to its message of reference, because since they have a portion of the message, their responsibility is related to this part: the Hebrews to the Old Testament, the Christians to the Gospels, the Muslims to the Qur’ān. In particular, referring to Jesus’ status, they could have made mistakes, but as long as they struggle for the truth, they will not be judged differently and will be as blameworthy as every Muslim who, striving for the truth, makes mistakes on Islamic scripture.75 In clear logical continuity with the Quranic verse II, 62: ‘The Muslim believers, the Jews, the Christian and the Sabians, all those who believe in God and the last day and do well, will have their rewards with their Lord. No fear for them, nor will they grieve.’ This reflection is completely detached from Ibn Taymiyya’s obvious opinion that Islām is also authentic and even superior to the other revelations; the above view is an expression of the H.anbalite’s personal understanding and acquisition of inter-­religious eschatological competences as well as of awareness of what the Islamic world of God truly attests on this topic. The Quranic verses mentioned above are indicative that the Islamic text could easily become inclusivist or exclusivist in relation to the interpretation that the expert decided to encourage. It would not be necessary therefore to attribute to the Islamic Tradition a greater role but, as it was in the past, only that of confirmation, of what emerges from the Qur’ān. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah in the Shifā’ asked his master if Hell was everlasting, obtaining as a short response that this topic was cryptic, vital and serious at the same time.76 However, al-Radd ‘alā man qāla bi-­fanā’ al-­janna wa l-­nār is able to give some relevant information about the H.anbalite point of view; the topic nevertheless has already been dealt with in M. Hassan Khalil’s Islam and the Fate of Others.77

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Ibn Taymiyya’s methodological exposition needs some limited adjustments in relation to what has already emerged in this text. Ibn Taymiyya’s Fanā’ al-Nār is technically considered through three options and in relation to Heaven as well: (1) that both persist eternally; (2) that both will eventually perish; (3) that Heaven will last while Hell will be annihilated, which is also Ibn Taymiyya’s position.78 If the first is the canonical version, literally interpreted from what the Qur’ān and the Tradition supports, the second reconsiders the position, as previously reported in reference to authors such as Jahm Ibn S.afwān and Abū al-Hudhayl: the first is probably in relation to an early example of Neo-Platonic understanding in Islamic thought, the second to a Gnostic Christian awareness, at least as maintained by J. Van Ess.79 What is incredibly sterile in Ibn Taymiyya’s analysis about the third option is his methodological approach. On the one hand, to argue about Heaven’s eternity, he used some classic Quranic verses, XI: 108, XIII: 35, LVI: 33,80 while in supporting the eventual annihilation of Hell, he starts with a banal semantic analysis that had already been adopted in the previous centuries, or, worse, bringing up traditions with an evident lack of credibility, even giving acknowledgement to the Isnād method.81 The famous H.asan al-Bas.rī is again reconsidered and transformed into a transmitter of H.adīth which has as their main source the second rightly guided caliph ‘Umār, but these traditions remain very weak and uncanonical.82 Ibn Taymiyya will subsequently insist on the semantic analysis concerning the real meaning of ahl al-Nār (people of the Fire), and abadan (for a long time and not forever), an option that will be used by J. Robson in his well-­known article that was analysed in the introduction. Finally, our author starts the only possible investigation on the real Qur’anic verses in which the non-­eternity of Hell is literally mentioned (LXXVIII: 21–23), which says, ‘Hell lies in wait, a home for oppressors to stay in for a long, long time, where they will taste no coolness, no drink’; and XI: 106–108: The wretched ones will be in the Fire, sighing and groaning, there to remain for as long as the heavens and earth endure, unless your Lord wills otherwise: your Lord carries out whatever He wills. As for those who have been blessed, they will be in Paradise, there to remain as long as the heavens and earth endure, unless your Lord, wills otherwise an unceasing gift.

Both Meccan verses are indicative of the possibility of salvation from Hell. However, the second one is particularly important for our work because it confirmed the ‘Big Fanā’’, proving, at the same time, that the philosophical

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cosmological vision of the world, Hell and Heaven, will exist as long as the heavens and the earth last; that is until the known world continues to exist. This is still more problematic, because this option literally clarified Jahm ibn S.afwān’s early position on the final annihilation of both. However, the interpretation of these verses could also be different. Ibn Taymiyya stressed that Heaven is fundamentally different from Hell because evil is completely in antithesis to God’s nature, or, better, evil is ignorance of God and of the divine as previously reported.83 In spite of this, evil is the non-­ existence of something, an essence, the privation of an intellectual knowledge that God and his word are love and mercy. As for the Mu‘tazilite al-Jāh.īz, the H.anbalite author argued that Hell is related to the complete absence of good, but certainly not of God, which is, on the contrary, everywhere. So, if on the one hand, evil is the non-­existence of God and the ignorance of Him, not created by Him, but by human souls, for this reason it could not be absolute, because what is created by a secondary cause is any case submitted to God’s wise purpose. It is therefore clear that the human souls that will continue to be mostly afflicted by the ignorance of the divine need to dwell for a long period of time in a place of chastisement and purification, created for them by God himself as reported by the Qur’ān. Once all the inhabitants of Hell finish purging their ignorance, the same location will cease to exist.84 This analysis is also in continuity with Ibn Taymiyya’s optimism on God’s justice and with that of an author such as al-Māturīdī.85 Justice puts everything in the correct place, while injustice puts something in a place other than its own; in spite of this, it is not permissible for the natural constitution that God in His justice, mercy and wisdom punishes those who do good work and raises the un-­ purified ignorants to merits and awards.86 This is a very rational position in which the promise and the threat are clearly respected in continuity with another later Mu‘tazilite attitude about God’s injustice which is not impossible for Him, but it is not chosen by God himself: God has the power to pursue unfairness, but then why praise and pray to Him?87

Tawh.īd and Wah.dat al-Wujūd, an irreconcilable position The most relevant aspect, however, has not yet been revealed. The H.anbalite is perfectly aware of the existence of a mystical theory on Fanā’, because he had

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worked on it in the Kitāb iqtidā’ al-S.irāt. al-­mustaqīm mukhālafat as.h.āb al-­ jah.īm,88 in which he clarified his awareness on what speculative S.ūfism defined, identifying it with Ibn al-‘Arabī’s (d. 1240/637) and Ibn Sab‘īn’s (d. 1270/668)89 opinions of Fanā’. The problem of this kind of annihilation is that it first culminates in the belief of the contemplation of the Pure Essence, in God’s self, which represents the highest degree of witnessing, and second the monistic doctrine of the Wah.dat al-Wujūd,90 the unity of existence which – this is the accusation of the H.anbalite – is an attempt to destroy the main theological theory of Islām: the Tawh.īd. Ibn Taymiyya’s analysis of annihilation in Al-Radd remains rational and theologically oriented, with a limited influence by Islamic philosophy and S.ūfism; the main objection made against the latter is linked with a clear Kalām response: a God stripped of all its attributes is, for all intents and purposes, an impotent God. The presence of a pantheistic and Gnostic image of the divinity is clear. Ibn Taymiyya argues that all moral life is God; one cannot even associate, for example, the attribute of Will in such an inactive entity, because first there is no Will and second there is obviously no meaning of Quranic teaching about divine commands or prohibition. God becomes a shadowy entity and an undifferentiated aggregate of everything, a single being dwelling in every phenomenon. Are all human beings not aware in their hearts of what is appreciated by God, of what angers the same divinity? Early mysticism, as reported in the first chapter in the thought of al-Muh.āsibī and al-Junayd, while understanding the Fanā’ in God, exhorted a differentiation between God’s Command and Prohibition, between what pleases Him and what displeases Him; so that you would love what He loves and detest what He detests, also because, in contrast to that, it would be unusual to wonder about the soul’s purification (tazkiyya al-­nafs). The H.anbalite’s critique would continue towards the essence of Ibn ‘Arabī’s doctrine of Wah.dat which maintains that God has no control over the essences of the individuals and has no choice except to bring them into existence. Therefore, He is not responsible for our destinies.91 If the first assumption is explicable, the second is unassailable. In spite of this, our eternal fixed essences (‘ayān) are not properly ourselves. They are only God’s ideas of ourselves in eternity with no power or will at all. Beliefs are our beliefs when we think about them and hold them, and acts are our acts when we will and perform them. The beliefs and acts contained in our essences are not ours in the sense that it is necessary to hold us responsible for them. According to that, it is

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also not true that beliefs and acts proceed from our essences. They proceed, as Ibn ‘Arabī explains, not according to us, but from the will of God. We have no will of our own other than the will of God. Finally, if God is not responsible because His will does not fashion our essences and only brings what they have into existence, we will be far less responsible for our so-­called beliefs and acts, because we neither choose them in eternity nor do we implement them now; in other words, total irresponsibility. It is God who implements them in us.92 Ibn Taymiyya’s imperative to demolish this argument reflects on the human responsibility for our wondering and actions which preclude thinking that our beliefs and acts are rationally linked with our essences; so it is not the pantheistic understanding of the divine that will encompass all, no distinction from what is ready to be close to the divine and what needs purification, but it is Ibn Taymiyya’s independent judgement that suggests that it is the human soul that reaches the divine when it is ready to embrace it. Ibn ‘Arabī’s Fanā’ is likely to be unethical, while that of the H.anbalite clearly presupposed action on the moral plane in temporal life, since man’s acts not only determined the extent of his reward and punishment in the world to come, but were also the very raison d’être of the Divine Judgement. Man must act, so that God may judge and Allāh will do that because this knowledge is derived from the Quranic revelation.93 It is evident that the final work of Ibn Taymiyya, al-Radd, probably written while he was imprisoned in Cairo, is symptomatically connected with his previous works in which his complaint against S.ūfī’s orders and the popular forms of religiosity that affected common people is abundantly confirmed in his career. Ibn Taymiyya did not believe in any form of annihilation, but in a Universalist theological understanding of the afterlife clearly rooted in the Qur’an (XI: 106– 108, but also II: 62) and Tradition: ‘Death will come in a form of spotted ram, and will be slaughtered between Heaven and Hell. It will be said: People of the Garden, abiding, there is no death; People of the Fire, abiding, there is no death.’94

Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya and the undetermined will of God It is historically reported that Ibn Taymiyya’s last arguments do not seem to have generated greater interest or even been known until his disciple, Ibn Qayyim alJawziyya (d. 1350/750), renewed interest in this topic in his H.ādī al-Arwāh., probably written in about 1345/745.95

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B. Abrahamov in Islamic Theology reports the main arguments used by the opponents of Hell’s annihilation or, better, its emptying, in turn refuted by Ibn Taymiyya’s main scholar:

1. The eternity of Hell is based on general consensus; however, as this work clearly disproved, if on the one hand a majority group of Islamic experts maintained the eternity of Hell’s punishment from the eighth century, there is another group, on the other hand, that argued the opposite, as early as the second century of the Islamic age. 2. The Qur’ān generally maintains that Hell is eternal; this is, however, clearly in contrast with some specific verses (XI: 106–108; II: 62; LXXVII: 22–23; XXXIX: 53, etc.), Ibn Qayyim’s interpretation is that the everlasting stay of the unbelievers in Hell is conditioned by the existence of the same; so as long as Hell exists, the unbelievers dwell in it, but when it perishes, the unbelievers will move to Paradise. 3. According to Tradition only Muslim sinners will leave Hell; this option is already answered by the above option. Ibn Qayyim maintained that Muslim sinners will leave Hell, but the unbelievers will too when the Fire is annihilated. 4. Jahm Ibn S.afwān’s sectarian idea of the perdition of the afterlife is different from the idea, already elaborated by Ibn Taymiyya, about the annihilation of Hell only, which is a view, says Ibn Qayyim, maintained by the companions of the Prophet himself. 5. Finally, Hell’s eternity is known by reason and sam‘; Ibn Qayyim answers that reward and punishment are clearly attested in the Qur’ān. However, if proof of an eternal reward is apparent, as is that concerning Hell’s abandonment of Muslim sinners, the unbelievers’ punishment is disputed and unclear, which is why the search in the word of God must be more sophisticated.96 Ibn Qayyim, therefore, feels less sure than his master about the unbelievers’ salvation and, logically, about Hell’s final annihilation. However, as with other previous authors, it is important to understand first of all how Ibn Qayyim conceives evil and evilness. Ibn Taymiyya’s follower, updating an early understanding on Kalām about when Heaven and Hell were created by God, questions the differences between the Garden of Eden and Paradise. The perfection of the physical world of the Garden is certainly dissimilar from that of Heaven, but at the same time, God’s wise purpose in highlighting its excellence is evidently limited by the clear absence of evil in this perfect Garden.

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In spite of this, Ibn Qayyim, concerning the Miftāh., argued about the necessity of Adam’s fall from the Garden as a necessary manifestation of God’s real knowledge. God’s power, mercy and justice, for example, could be considered not really existent if Adam had remained in Eden, far away from the real problems of human beings. Only by sending Adam into the realm of trial could this give God the opportunity to be truly known in his entirety, adopting the attributes of forgiveness and mercy, but also punishment and justice.97 It is clear that Adam’s fall from the Garden is willed by God and could be metaphorically considered a fall from the true knowledge of the divinity, but for Adam it is also true comprehension of the everyday problems and the evilness that this understanding could certainly bring out. Nevertheless, establishing God’s fundamental goodness and justice is not only a way of discerning God’s wise purposes in the act of creating Iblis, but it is also a way of clarifying that God’s creation of Iblis is certainly linked with divine attributes such as mercy and forgiveness which themselves are necessary concomitant with God’s essence. In other words, God needs to create Iblīs and evil in the world, to be able to properly act and behave like God through His wise purpose. Ibn Qayyim inherits this position from his master, who, in turn, is closely linked with his Twelver Shī‘īte colleague al-‘Allāmah Ibn al-Mut.ahhar al-H.illī (d. 1325/725), in clear contrast with the Ash‘arite attitude. Ibn Taymiyya, although stating that God is the sole creator of human acts, in antithesis to al-H.illī and against Ash‘arism, maintains that God’s acting for wise purposes does not mean that God was imperfect before undertaking any of his acts. God does not love human beings in order to obtain something from them; God’s love for humans is instead deeply related to the same sentiment he has for Himself and His creation.98 Ibn Qayyim’s position is not different from that of his master: God created all things, evil included (even though for both it is human souls that commit evils actions), for wise purposes by virtue of which they are fully good. As an example, the Pharaoh’s rebellion against God’s will (through Moses’ command) and his punishment is a deterrent against disobedience and an instrument to encourage spiritual growth; Ibn Qayyim adds that imperfection needs to know perfection, that the creation of Iblīs provides an enemy against which to strive, to improve, to grow in the servitude to God and, in continuity with that, as a catalyst by which to distinguish the good from the bad. This position is very similar to the one that emerged from M. T. Heemskers’s text on suffering in Mu‘tazilite theology.99 Ibn Qayyim, returning to Adam’s fall from the Garden, adds that God decided to remove the first man from the Garden because happiness (a philosophical

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term encountered several times in this work) could only be obtained through troubles and suffering; the world arena in which God placed the human being under taklīf (obligation), to consider every singular struggle towards perfection and amelioration.100 However, in addition, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya also rejects the determinist position (early Ash‘arite) that God shapes people from the beginning to have them languish eternally in the fire. No one is created to be a perennial unbeliever; the Fit.ra is evidently created by God in every human being to emphasize divine love in supporting his unity and final destination. God’s wise purpose in punishment is not vengeance, but a purification process.101 Fire is a peculiar punishment rooted in a purge, suffering, a remedy (dawā’) against maladies that in this case are not physical, but spiritual (as for the Pharaoh).102

The closure of the Rim: Ibn Qayyim and proto-S.ufism The rational analysis of Ibn Taymiyya’s disciple is followed by his mystical comprehension of the human soul in the Kitāb al-Rūh.,103 in which a rational theology and mysticism meet to shape, in a late H.anbalite era, an unprecedented speculation. Ibn Qayyim is aware of the existence of authors, from al-Tirmidhī and alJunayd, to al-Ghazālī, who have argued about the necessary distinctions between the spirit and the body of human beings with a methodological approach which is indicative of a rational, but at the same time mystical, awareness of the transcendent. It is also evident that Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah’s writings affected their influence; according to the main aspects of the Kitāb al-Rūh., the spirit that was insufflated by God into Adam is the same that the divine blew into Mary’s womb as also reported by the Qur’ān (IV: 171) and the Gospels. This spirit created by God in some of his prophets is not dissimilar to human souls that will be taken back by Him at the time of death (XXXIX: 42): God is indeed the creator of human bodies as well as of human souls.104 The only difference between Jesus’ soul and that of the other human beings is that God has reserved this specific spirit for him only; this aspect, which has also been adopted by the H.anbalite to refute the Christian speculation about the divine nature of Jesus, introduces his questionings about the non-­existence of a predestined mankind in relation to the mīthāq (the covenant of Adam, Qur. VII: 172–173).105 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya argues that the notion of Fit.ra like that of sons of Adam is not linked to an admission of a pre-­existence of human beings, as for

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Rabbinic Judaism and Christian Patristics, the Islamic scholar is rationally aware that human souls came into the world with their bodies and not before them; the pact of Adam is highlighted at two different moments: before the creation of Adam, but also afterwards, with his sons, the inheritance of the nations to whom God will send the prophets.106 The main paradigmatic problem is linked with the interpretation of the mīthāq as a clear symptom of God’s predetermination (qadar): different traditions argued this, in contrast with the Qur’ān, which in antithesis for our scholar does not maintain this option. As a conclusion, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya will argue that human souls are insufflated into bodies at the same instant when both are created; however, the term rūh. is synonymous with soul, not in connection with a specific body (this is the anomaly of Jesus), but with a spiritual designation which comes directly from God, even if through an angel. God’s rūh. becomes a source of inspiration and guide for human beings’ spiritual sensitiveness, impacting on the individual being with an attitude that could be more related to the physical world: in this case the role of the human body is preponderant over its spirit, but also, on the contrary, over the spiritual one; this is the case in which the soul becomes more slender. Ibn Qayyim’s elaboration in this case is very close to that of al-Tirmidhī.107 However, the thinner the soul becomes, the more it can understand the love of God and His mercy. The idea of a conclusive apocatastasis (Fanā’) in the divine light of divine benevolence is not only a soteriogical aspect that al-Tirmidhī evaluates in the Kitāb al-­Amt.āl, as univocally connected with the souls already established within Paradise, but is also related with the hearts of the inhabitants of Hell. For the ninth-­century mystic, Paradise is located just above Hell with a porous border from which the water in which the chosen have cleaned themselves is drunk by the damned below; this water is a purgative source that in the short or long term will purify their hearts, finding God’s mercy as the main reason for the exit from Hell.108 Ibn Qayyim was perfectly aware of al-Tirmidhī’s entire eschatological production, since in the Kitāb al-Rūh. our scholar argued about the heart as a spiritual location of the soul: the peaceful one is accompanied by an angel, while the one still linked to the evil is escorted by a devil. Ibn Qayyim, nevertheless, like his master, refuted the dangerous finale of Ibn ‘Arabī, in which human souls are a limited part of the divine spirit, a theophany of the divine attributes, even if Qur’ān XVII: 85, recites: ‘Prophet, they ask you about the Spirit. Say: the Spirit is part of my Lord’s domain. You have been given a little knowledge.’ It is therefore

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evident that the human soul is at the origin related to God, an aspect that alJawziyyah is unable to refute.109

Later H.anbalism eschatology and Neo-Wahhābism negation In al-Shifā’, as in the Kitāb al-Rūh., evil is declared as necessary for a greater good and even if God hated it and disapproved when Iblīs conquered part of the human’s heart, Allāh has shaped him to make Him the greater pardoner and to provide a full manifestation of His mercy, His names and attributes.110 It is therefore clear that, although in contrast with Mu‘tazilite Kalām, which argued that it was impossible for God to create evilness, Ibn Taymiyya’s and Ibn Qayyim’s interpretation of Allāh’s wise purpose supported the contrary in connection with a clear Ghazalian ‘optimum’.111 In spite of this, and in opposition with contemporary authors such as ‘Alī al-H.arbī’s attempt112 to prove that both scholars supported the eternity of HellFire, God’s mercy will prevail over all, as doubly argued by Ibn Taymiyya in Fanā’ al-Nār and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya in the Mukhtas.ar al-S.awā‘iq.113 Al-Jawziyyah’s arguments on the non-­eternity of the Fire seem to be put sub judice by the Saudi scholar’s interpretation114 of Zād al-Ma‘ād,115 where God’s associationist must be considered disgusting in constitution and disgusting in essence and Fire could not cleanse their foulness. The Garden for the associationists continued to be forbidden. However, in the same text, a few lines above, Ibn Qayyim also argued: And what is meant is that Allah has shaped signs for the unhappiness and happiness by which they are known. And there might be two components in a man (i.e. good and evil), so whichever of them is predominant, he belongs to its people; so if Allah wishes good for His slave, He will purify him before death and he will not require cleansing by the Fire (this is probably the case of who asks for forgiveness). The Wisdom of Him, Most High rejects that He should make the slave to be accompanied in his abode by his evil deeds and so He places him in the Fire in order to cleanse him of sins. And the time for which he will remain in the Fire is dependent upon the rapidity or slowness with which the sins are removed.116

This is followed by the phrase sub judice: But since the polytheist is evil by nature, the Fire does not cleanse him, just as if a dog enters the sea (it is not cleansed), while because the Believer is free from sins, the Fire is forbidden to him, since there is nothing in him which necessitates cleansing; so Glorified be He Whose Wisdom overwhelms the minds.

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However, this sentence needs to be interpreted because it is less clear than the one above it: first of all, why should the polytheist not be purified? Furthermore, when a dog enters the sea, it is usually to cleanse itself from foulness; in the end, ‘so Glorified be He Whose Wisdom overwhelms the minds’ is a phrase that turns God’s real intent upside-­down, paraphrasing it, God is glorified for His Wisdom which overwhelms minds, the logical understanding of human beings, the ‘false’ rational comprehension of God by mankind. We could therefore claim that the last phrase is in continuity with the preceding one, in contrast with al-H.arbī’s interpretation. In spite of this, the other two sentences in which Ibn Qayyim seems to argue about the eternity of the Fire, in the Ijtimā‘al-­juyūsh and T.arīq al-Hijratayn, are still weaker than the preceding sentence and rooted in very weak traditions.117 In this work, the author did not want to argue about the Fanā’ al-Nār, using weak supportive H.adīth118 but at the same time he certainly could not take them into account to his disadvantage. As a conclusion, and as reported by Jon Hoover119 it is possible that Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya had more doubts on the annihilation of the fire than his master, probably also due to the attempted refutation by Taqī ad-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 1355/755) who in 1347/747, a few years before Ibn Qayyim’s death, tried to deny Ibn Taymiyya’s arguments of the Fanā’. Al-Jawziyyah’s texts are not dated and if we are able to maintain that H.ādī probably precedes Mukhtas.ar al-S.awā‘iq and is followed by Shifā’, the texts in which Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya seems to assume a less clear position on the eternity of the Fire, it could follow Subkī’s attempt to dispute Ibn Taymiyya and his disciple. But, as reported above, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s phrases in which he seems to abandon the previous positions are weak and too limited to assert with clarity this new arrangement. However, it is in relation to Ibn al-Wazīr (d. 1436/839), a Yemenite scholar with a Zaydī background, but who decided to abandon it for a more Sunnī theological view,120 that a mediating approach between the positions of al- Subkī and Ibn Taymiyya emerged in two texts: al-‘Awās.im wa al-­qawās.im and Īthār alH.aqq ‘alā al-Khalq. If Ibn al-Wazīr confirms the Sunnite attitude that an unrepentant Muslim hypocrite is an unbeliever who will spend eternity in Hell, he also adds that the true monotheists will eventually enter Paradise, passing a limited period of time in Hell, as punishment: a Hell that, I presume, took on a purgative role and could not remain eternal for Muslim unbelievers, while it would be temporary for a Christian or a Jew.121

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In Īthār al-H.aqq, the Yemenite scholar maintains that the attribution of disbelief is one of the worst crimes one could commit against fellow Muslims, as already maintained by al-Ghazālī in an earlier century. Nevertheless, God could act for wise purposes that human beings are normally unable to understand; the Quranic exception of ‘istithnā’122 concerning the eternity of the Fire (VI, 128; XI, 107) or, better, the chastisement of the People of the fire was something that God willed for himself. Nevertheless, the unbelievers have not been shaped by God for chastisement only, but probably for many reasons, which very likely include testing God’s blessing versus those who denied his existence.123 One passage by Ibn al-Wazīr is, from my point of view, particularly important: If the purpose of the Fire is reformative and therapeutic, as in the theology of Ibn Taymiyya, chastisement of unbelievers must eventually come to an end. If the purpose of the Fire is retribution for the entirely unforgivable sin of associating partners with God, chastisement must be eternal. Consigning unbelievers to Hell eternally implies that Hell’s ultimate wise purpose is retribution, and consigning them to Hell temporarily implies that its ultimate wise purpose is reform.124

If it is logical that a Muslim unbeliever is a sinner, could he also be an unbeliever because he is an associationist? Ibn al-Qayyim, in Zād al-Ma‘ād, when he uses the word ‘polytheists’, referring to those of the Meccan–Medinian Prophetic phase, also defined the Magians125 in the same way, clearly distinguishing them from the Arab Christians and the Jews. In this case adopting Ibn al-H.arbī’s methodology, the whole of the Arab Christian and Jewish communities are liable to be saved. Opposing that, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s idea of the Fire is both reformative and retributive, or better purgative and corrective, because when a damned human soul, including a polytheist, is condemned by God to Hell, he becomes aware of his ignorance and misguided attitude during earthly life, so is able to ask for forgiveness. It is not the location that makes Hell reformative or retributive, but God’s mercy. A God that forgives the infidel Muslim, or worse a Muslim associationist, but who also forgives the children of the unbelievers, like the other monotheist believers in relation to the message of their scriptures, certainly has the power to forgive, after a long purgative period in Hell, even the worst of the unbelievers, who could be a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, but also an associationist.

Conclusion Islamic orthodoxy clarified that Heaven and Hell are both created by God – specifically, both were generated by Allah at the correct time, with different positions on what the ‘exact’ time was (Ash‘arite and Mu‘tazilite positions) – while the Garden of Eden was shaped for a precise reason – to accommodate Adam and Eve. There were, however, significant differences between the Garden of Eden and Heaven and Hell: the first is physically linked with a luxuriant nature but the others to the unclear corporeal–spiritual state expressed within the revelation. The holy Qur’ān maintains the uncertainty concerning the afterlife; during the formative age the predominant understanding of joys and torments was literal, while the more the speculation of Kalām and proto-S.ūfism prevailed, the more important the metaphorical interpretation of the text became. The Islamic revelation, in any case, differentiates, for example, between two categories of the inhabitants of paradise: there are ‘those who precede’ (al-­ sābiqūn) and ‘those who are brought near to God’ (al-­muqarrabūn), including both humans and angels. The general principles of punishment and reward are established according to what they did during their lifetime and this eschatological ranking clearly emerges in the esoteric text by al-Ghazālī, Mishkāt al-Anwār, but also from more classical texts such as Ih.yā’ ‘ulūm ad-Dīn and Fays.al al-Tafriqa. At the same time, the annihilation of individuality continues to be shaped both in Heaven and in Hell: in the latter it is effected through the bestialization of the damned through a physical punishment in which the integrity is lost forever; for the former it is identified with the inner joy of coming closer and closer to God.1 Nevertheless, it is important for the above reasons to highlight that if the Islamic hereafter is physically related to a more literal interpretation, a consumptive process can affect both inhabitants reshaping the concept of annihilation as a normal praxis confirmed in the esoteric verses (XXIV, 35; VII, 46–49) on the Fanā’, although it should be stressed that no one has even been able to explain how God re-­shapes our body after physical terrestrial death.

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On the contrary, an intangible afterlife, populated by damned and blessed souls, decreed an ethereal eschatology in which punishment and reward are more strictly related to distance and closeness to God and with the puri­­­­ fication of the soul as already envisaged in the ninth century by proto-Sufite authors. However, in both cases the Fanā’ an-Nār can be logically explained. Body consumption in Hell, on one side, is a long process that will bring a soul ‘nakedness’, a purification from the body that caused suffering during its entire earthly life; the soul’s consumption, on the other side, needs to be purified from having lived within a body that outraged it, making it suffer during the physical existence.2 If God’s theodicy is emphasized during the Day of Judgement, God’s mercy is shown in the hereafter, as both are manifestations of His omnipotence.

For an intra-Abrahamic dialogue on salvation Abandoning for a moment the theological assumptions, one question spontaneously arises. While Origen (185–254 AD) was already capable of elaborating the apocatastasis in the third century, in the Islamic world why do we need to wait for authors such as al-Ghazālī (d. 1111/504), Ibn ‘Arabī (d. 1240/ 637) or Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328/728) for a real understanding of the annihilation of afterlife, or at least, the most theological side of it? Even though the Islamic prophetic word is the last, and the Prophet Muh.ammad too, reflecting on an Abrahamic tradition (Qur. XXX, 40), the geography that has received the Qur’ān was probably historically unprepared to effectively fully comprehend the universal complexity of its revealed message. In the New Testament Acts of the Apostles III: 19–21: Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.

In the Qur’ān, XI: 106–108: The wretched ones will be in Fire, sighing and groaning, there to remain for as long as the heavens and earth endure, unless your Lord will otherwise: your Lord carries out whatever He wills. As for those who have been blessed, they will be in

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Paradise, there to remain as long as the heavens and earth endure, unless your Lord will otherwise, an unceasing gift.

The above verses that are indicative of the apocatastasis/Fanā’ remained limited and unclear. Nevertheless, if the eastern Mediterranean cultural background of the first centuries of Christianity established a theory of annihilation in connection with ancient Greek philosophy, cosmology, Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism, in addition to Judaic sources, the pre-­urban cultural environment of H.ijāz. was still between a polytheistic and monotheistic religious awareness.3 This could be the main cause for the lack of a theological comprehension of the annihilation of afterlife until the fifth–sixth centuries of the Islamic age, even though, in proto-S.ūfism, authors such as al-Muh.āsibī and al-Junayd had already discovered in depth the background of the Fanā’ in the third century. If, on the one hand, the influence of eastern Christian authors (Ephraim the Syrian, Isaac of Nineveh, etc.) on the early Muslim mystics of the ninth century has been historically considered by many academics,4 on the other hand, the Islamic Kalām Reviver (al-Ghazālī) and H.anbalite renovators (Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah) will take several centuries to consider the protoSufite annihilation understanding of the hereafter, entering nevertheless into conflict with the ‘excessive’ esotericism of the wah.dat al-­wujūd’s metaphysics of Ibn al-‘Arabī. It is evident that Islamic eschatological comprehension of the afterlife and more specifically of the Fanā’ an-Nār needed a long period of religious maturation which is equivalent to the inner process of understanding of the divine by any man who considered himself a ‘seeker of truth’. The apocatastasis’ ethical theory in Christianity, on the contrary, is the complex result of religious, philosophical, esoteric and cosmological speculations, as a sum of different cultural and religious assumptions that will also be partially declared as blasphemous by the Church in the sixth century. The Fanā’ an-Nār of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah is a theological elaboration that affects a long process of Islamic interdisciplinary maturation of Kalām, Falsafa, with the decisive contribution of proto-S.ūfism. The speculation on evilness, for example, moved first of all from a Mu‘tazilite position that emphasized God’s incapacity to create evil: an ethical assumption that will be reshaped by the same school a few centuries later through the idea that whatever happens has a divine purpose (even if certain occurrences or injustices are not completely understood by human nature), to an orthodox

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stance according to which God created evil in the world, but it is human beings who shaped it through concrete actions. However, the Ash‘arite predestinarian attitude, in the tenth and eleventh centuries argued that whatever happens in society and in the world is most absolutely God’s will, God’s plan, the Divine Destiny that has a precise and wise purpose even if the events seem to be evil; therefore, all good and evil is the result of God’s decree, which no human can modify or alter. This is a point of view that denied the possibility of being correctly judged by Allah during the Yawm ad-Dīn: how could God condemn or save a life to Hell or Paradise if all men’s evil acts are from the Will of God? If man always performs God’s Will no matter what he does, then God’s condemnation regarding wrongdoing would be meaningless and so would any punishment for wrongdoing.5 Maturidism and al-Ghazālī will contribute to change this illogical predestinarian position. Al-Māturīdī will re-­elaborate the idea that a person when acting always has the capacity to do two contrary actions and this is ikhtiyār, human free choice. Human beings are the true agents of their actions, while these actions are at the same time created by God. Al-Ghazālī, on the contrary, admits two powers in human acts, God’s power and human power. The Reviver tries to harmonize God’s omnipotence and our own responsibility for our actions. Human responsibility for the quality of the act is attributable to the singular believer while creation is still ascribed to God.6 If al-Ghazālī’s position will be taken as the orthodox one, the theological topic under examination: the speculation of the presence of evilness in the world, as the identification of who can perform evil acts, was a peculiar debate that would affect Kalām for many centuries (eighth–eleventh) and which continues even today. This short resumé clarifies the theological path necessary to reach a more common understanding on a visio canonica (orthodox view) which, linked with other ethical aspects, denotes the need for an internal process of Islamic maturation. However, the entire theoretical analysis of this volume, completely disengaged from the contemporary perspective, needs a minimal conclusive projection in the present to encourage new academic research in the area. It was not until the twentieth century that Christianity, during the II Vatican Council (Lumen Gentium, 21 November 1964), stated the possibility of salvation for non-Christians as well, declaring de facto the eschatological temperament of the ‘Pilgrim’ Church and its union with a celestial Church. On the contrary, the Islamic world, and specifically the Arab one, finds it hard to religiously admit

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today, in a historical phase dominated by the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ and Islamophobia, what the Qur’ān clearly asserts: ‘The believers, the Christians, the Jews and the Sabians, all those who believe in God and the Last Day and do good – will have their rewards with their Lord. No fear for them, nor will they grieve’ (II: 62). Interpreting the above passage, it is indicative that the believers, the Christians, the Jews and the Sabians are comprehensive of all the populations or religions that were known to and knowable by an Arab inhabitant of Mecca or Medina in the sixth century, and therefore embraces the whole of mankind that the Prophet Muh.ammad could also have known at that time. The annihilation of Hell, nevertheless, did not disappear with Ibn Qayyim alJawziyyah in the fourteenth century, but continued to be quite popular afterwards. The Persian Mullā S.adrā Shīrāzī (d. 1640/1049), while partially contesting the soteriological understanding of Ibn ‘Arabī’s Fus.ūs. and Futūh.āt, stated that people will enter Heaven and Hell on account of their actions and will remain in their respective abodes by virtue of their intentions. There are people in Hell that could be eternally tormented because they are unable to free themselves from the veils of darkness or materiality. If you say that these statements which indicate that the cessation of chastisement for the people of the Fire is inconsistent with what I have just said concerning the lastingness of pain for them, I say the following: I do not agree that these are inconsistent with one another, for there is no inconsistency between the non– cessation of eternal chastisement for the people of the Fire and its cessation for each of them at one moment.7

What S.adrā tried to establish in this assumption is not very clear, but he probably wanted to defend a position that reconciled the idea of some form of abiding punishment in Hell with God’s all-­encompassing mercy. However, the Persian scholar in his Tafsīr Sūrat al-Fātih.a argues that the end for all is mercy because God’s mercy embraces all things with respect to existence and quiddity. So the existence of wrath, in terms of the entity of wrath, is also from God’s mercy. For this reason, His mercy outstrips His wrath, since His being encompasses everything, as He says, And my mercy embraces all things (VII: 156). All the entities and quiddities – all of which are reached by the existential mercy – include the entities of wrath and vengeance.8 The interesting eschatological analysis of S.adrā is linked with the idea that Hell is none other than the corporeal world in which the soul is kept down by matter. If the soul cannot rise beyond the prison of corporeality, it will end up in

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Hell, remaining in its failed state, while, on the contrary, souls that have become fully actualized, will enter Paradise recognizing it as their original home. The final answer on Hell’s eternity is for the Persian scholar a clear negation of it. A human being could not suffer eternally for actions that were purely finite in their nature. Again, as previously noted, Hell is a purgative location where God’s mercy is also all-­merciful and an eternal state of suffering for any human being would contradict this fundamental principle.9 If Mullā S.adrā manifests his conviction that Divine infinite mercy is the main cause of Fanā’ an-Nār, ‘Abd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (d. 1731/1143) declared inter-­ religious equality in consideration of the juridical awareness that when the Ahl al-Kitāb paid the jizya, they gain happiness (sa‘āda): the real meaning of this, does not only reflect on the living after death in Heaven obtaining the eternal favour of God’s bliss, but they are legally assured of happiness in their daily life because they save and protect their life with their properties and honour.10 By paying the jizya, they become like the Muslims: it is forbidden to fight against them, to interfere with their property and children, to slander, curse or defame them, or more generally to harm them. A Muslim that kills a Dhimmī has to be put to death, because for the H.anafī scholar, they have the same rights and duties as the Islamic population. This is a clear juridical and political visio that ‘Abd al-Ghanī clarified as follows. At first he argued that the Islamic faith was revealed to the Prophet Muh.ammad in two complementary parts: one communicated the truth, the other dictated the law. While maintaining that there was no exclusion or contradiction between the two parts, he argued for the autonomy of each part with regard to its function and logic. However, ‘Abd al-Ghanī restricted the science of truth to dealing with the creatures’ relationship to God, the universal process of their manifestation, the realities that shape their existence and the divine revelations that ensure their adherence to God; in other words, the dialogue between religious and spiritual people. He presented it as the science of ‘disclosure and visualization’, whereby one knows the difference between the worshipper and the worshipped, achieves inner purification of one’s heart, seeks knowledge of the unknown and uncovers the divine order in the universe. It is the science of the transcendental divine presence whose sole purpose is to explore and understand the realities of Being, even through the encounter with different religious sensibilities. The science of truth has nothing to do with the prescription of the law, its obligations and convictions as interpretations and injunctions, because the law allows us to know what pious deeds are, the distinction between obedience and

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disobedience, faith and unbelief; with regard to God all humans are ‘on the straight path and right in their states, speeches, and deeds’, because in this respect they are none other than God’s acts and the traces of his most beautiful names.11 Worldly existence, on the contrary, emphasizes that not everyone is on the straight path; some are on the straight path while others are not, some are right while others are wrong, some are faithful while others are infidels. Al-Nābulusī in his ecumenical enlightenment argues that, according to the logic of the truth, God is without religious distinction while, according to the logic of all, God is discriminatory, which is completely in contrast with his perfection. For this reason the Dhimmis who paid the jizya become Muslims according to the laws of the hereafter, but not of this world, in contrast with what might seem logical in appearance. The door of salvation for those who paid the jizya is open to them, even if they did not convert to Islām. ‘Abd al-Ghanī’s reflection on God is particularly liberal and enlightened concerning the salvation of others. For him the chances of the Dhimmis in the hereafter are very bright indeed, and his H.anafite interpretation of Islamic law shows this peculiar attitude.12 Other modern and contemporary authors such as Shāh Walī Allāh Dihlawī (d. 1762/1175)13 and before him Imām Rabbānī al-Sirhindi (d. 1624/1033),14 but also more recent writers like Maulana Muh.ammad ‘Alī (d. 1951/1370), Ismā‘īl al-Fārūqī (d. 1986/1406),15 F. Rah.mān (d. 1988/1408) and Farid Esack (b. 1959/1378), have supported an open-­minded approach to the salvation of others in Islām. However, it would take another book to do them justice. To conclude, it is also important to note, as already done in the Introduction, that there is an inter-­religious Abrahamic continuity to a comprehensive plural salvation in the afterlife. The complexity of the evolution of the annihilation of Hell has clearly emerged in this work, with the difficulties of identifying a more concrete continuity between Christian Apocatastasis, Islamic Fanā’ an-Nār and Judaism Tikkun Olam, which, furthermore, appears much later, probably in the late medieval age. It is too easy to argue that in the Qur’ān the emphasis on the Abrahamic roots of this new monotheistic faith are mentioned to shape a prominent continuity in a geographical area where Christianity and Judaism were historically present. A final reflection is nevertheless relevant and it focuses on Islamic ‘supremacy’, a word that in the contemporary period indicates the growing Islamophobic attitude in the Western world. The Qur’ān, III, 19, states: ‘True Religion, in God’s

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eyes is Islām (devotion to him alone). Those who were given the Scripture disagreed out of rivalry, only after they had been knowledge, if anyone denies God’s revelations, God is swift to take account.’ This is a verse that emphasizes how the True Religion for God is that in which human beings feel devotion to Him. Unfortunately, all Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islām after the Prophet’s death, internally disagreed, dividing each other and amplifying sectarianism. It is for this reason, as reported in Cor. II, 62, V, 48, V, 69, that every human being will be judged at the end of time through their revealed book. This aspect clarified theological and eschatological equality, God’s justice, like the Islamic ability to consider itself part of a universal Umma.

Notes Introduction 1 M. Hassan Khalil, Islam and the Fate of Others, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012; Between Heaven and Hell: Islam, Salvation and the Fate of Others, New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. 2 Christian Lange, Paradise and Hell in Islamic Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016; Locating Hell in Islamic Tradition, Leiden: Brill, 2016. 3 With the term Paradigma, I adopt H. Kung’s religious terminology, widely used in his trilogy on Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The historical paradigma of Islamic eschatology is emphasized through the different contributions which Kalām, mysticism and philosophy made to the evolution of the vision of Islamic afterlife, bringing, step by step, a more solid comprehension of a Hereafter confirmed as not univocally fixed in time. The annihilation of Hell is not just the manifestation of a non-‘definitive’ end of the soul’s life after the physical death of the human body, but mankind’s understanding of a divinity of mercy and justice. The paradigmatic evolution of the Muslim comprehension of both aspects needs relevant passages in the history of Islamic thought that are directly related with the ‘maturation’ of the same, enriched by internal and external factors of cognitive ‘convivencia’. H. Kung, Christianity: Its Essence and History, London: SCM Press, 1995. 4 Farid Esack, Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism: An Islamic Perspective of Interreligious Solidarity against Oppression, Oxford: Oneworld, 1997, p. 82; Marco Demichelis, ‘Islamic Liberation Theology: An Inter-Religious Reflection between Gustavo Gutierrez, Farid Esack and Hamid Dabashi’, Oriente Moderno, Vol. 94 (2014), pp. 125–147. F. Esack (b. 1959) is a South African Muslim citizen who fought against the Apartheid system and to whom we owe a first interpretative interpretation of Islamic Liberation Theology. 5 The Quranic version used throughout the text (English version) is The Qur’an, trans. M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. 6 The ability to interpret Allah’s essence outside the rationalizing theological human outline, revealing the limits of mankind’s speculation on the divinity. The emphasis in this book on a possible conflict between God’s justice and His Mercy, for example, cannot be trivially levelled out into human categories but reconsidered in relation to what the revelation, the Qur’ān, continues to say with the passing of ages. F. Rah.mān, Major Themes of the Qur’an, Minneapolis, MN: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1989.

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7 Al-Ghazālī, Fays.al al-Tafriqa bayna al-Islām wa al-Zandaqa, ed. M. Bījū, Damascus, 1993; trans. Sherman A. Jackson, On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s Fays.al al-Tafriqa bayna al-Islām wa-­l-­Zandaqa, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002; Vasalou Sophia, Ibn Taymiyya’s Theological Ethics, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015; S. Pagani, ‘Ibn ‘Arabi, Ibn Qayyim alJawziyya and the Political Function of Punishment in Islamic Hell’ in Christian Lange (ed.) Locating Hell in Islamic Tradition, Leiden: Brill, 2016, pp. 175–207. 8 Al-Ghazālī, Tahāfut al-Falāsifa, trans. S.A. Kamali, Lahore: Pakistan Philosophical Congress, 1963, p. 229. 9 M. Demichelis, ‘The Apocatastasis Will Save Us All: The Transition Towards a Shared Ethical Approach from Christian Patristic to Early Islamic Theology and Philosophy’, Parole de l’ Orient, Université Saint-­Esprit de Kaslik, no. 1/2014, p. 394. 10 Khalil, Islam and the Fate of Others. 11 Sherman A. Jackson, On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s Fays.al al-Tafriqa bayna al-Islām wa-­l-­Zandaqa, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. 12 Nerina Rustomji, The Garden and the Fire: Heaven and Hell in Islamic Culture, New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. 13 Christian Lange, Paradise and Hell in Islamic Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016; Locating Hell in Islamic Tradition, Leiden: Brill, 2015. 14 Jon Hoover, ‘Islamic Universalism: Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Salafī’s Deliberations on the Duration of the Hell-Fire’, The Muslim World, Vol. 99 (2009), pp. 181–201; ‘A Typology of Responses to the Philosophical Problem of Evil in the Islamic and Christian Traditions’, The Conrad Grebel Review, Vol. 21, no. 3 (2003), pp. 81–96. 15 Binyamin Abrahamov, ‘The Creation and Duration of Paradise and Hell in Islamic Theology’, Der Islam, Vol. 79 (2002), pp. 87–102. 16 John B. Taylor, ‘Some Aspects of Islamic Eschatology’, Religious Studies, Vol. 4, no. 1 (1968), pp. 57–76. 17 Patricia Crone, ‘The Quranic Mushrikūn and the Resurrection’, BSOAS, Vols 75–76, no. 3, no. 1 (2012–2013), pp. 445–472, 1–20. 18 Ignazio de Francesco, Letture Cristiane del Primo Millennio. Efrem il Siro: Inni sul Paradiso, Torino: Edizioni Paoline, 2006, p. 12. 19 Tor Andrae, Les origines de l’Islam et le Christianisme, Paris: Adrien Maisonneuve, 1955, pp. 145, 151. It is important to point out that some of Andrae’s theories on specific aspects were refuted in the following decades. 20 Morris S. Seale, Muslim Theology: A Study of Origins with Reference to the Church Fathers, London: Luzac & Co, 1964; H.A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of Kalam, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976; Repercussions of the Kalam in Jewish Philosophy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979; Alfred Guillame, Sir. Thomas Arnold, The Legacy of Islam, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931.

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21 Fritz Meier, ‘The Ultimate Origin and the Hereafter in Islam’, in Islam and its Cultural Divergence, Studies in Honor of Gustave E. von Grunebaum, ed. Girdhari L. Tikku, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1971, p. 98. 22 Ignazio de Francesco, Letture Cristiane del Primo Millennio, p. 44. 23 Michael Lowy, Redemption and Utopia: Jewish Libertarian Thought in Central Europe: a Study in Elective Affinity, London: Athlone Press, 1992, p. 64; S.P. Raphael, Jewish Views of the Afterlife, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009. 24 Edward Moore, Origen of Alexandria and St. Maximus the Confessor: An Analysis and Critical Evaluation of Their Eschatological Doctrines, Diss., Boca Raton, 2005. 25 Vito Mancuso, L’Anima e il suo Destino, Milano: Raffello Cortina Editore, 2007, p. 232. 26 Ignazio de Francesco, Letture Cristiane del Primo Millennio, p. 66 (notes 149–150). 27 Seale, Muslim Theology, pp. 73–74. 28 P. Jay, ‘Saint Cypriene et la doctrine du purgatoire’, in Recherches de Théologie ancienne et Médiévale, 36 (1969), pp. 17–30. 29 Clemente Alessandrino, Stromati. Note di verità filosofica, ed. Giovanni Pini, Torino: Edizioni Paoline, 1985, p. 788; Ilaria Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis: A Critical Assessment from New Testament to Eriugena, Leiden: Brill, 2013; Ignazio de Francesco, Letture Cristiane del Primo Millennio, p. 68. 30 Caroline Muessig and Ad Putter (eds), Envisaging Heaven in the Middle Ages, London: Routledge, 2006, p. 44. 31 Origene, Omelia sui Numeri, 17, 4; 28, 3 ; I principi, 2,11,7; Omelia sul Levitico, 14, 4. 32 Origene, Omelia su Ezechiele, 3, 7; I principi, 2, 10, 5. 33 Origene, Omelia su Ezechiele, 1, 3; I principi, 2, 10, 6; Omelia su Giosué, 14, 2; H. Crouzel and M. Simonetti, Traité des Principes II, SCh 253, Paris: 1978, p. 222. 34 H. Crouzel, L’Exégèse origénienne de L. Cor 3, 11–15 et la purification eschatologique, in J. Fointaine and C. Kannengiesser (eds), Epektasis, Paris, 1972, pp. 273–283. 35 Muessig and Putter (eds), Envisaging Heaven in the Middle Ages, p. 45. 36 William Fairweather, Origen and Greek Patristic Theology, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1901, p. 184. 37 David Cook, Martyrdom in Islam, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 68–69; Najib George Awad, Orthodoxy in Arabic Terms: A Study on Theodore Abu Qurrah’s Theology in Its Islamic Context, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2015, p. 267ff.; Oddbjorn Leirvik, Images of Jesus Christ in Islam, 2nd end, London: Continuum, 2010, pp. 181ff. 38 E. Prinzivalli, Polemiche escatologiche tra origenisti e anti-­origenisti, in Magister Ecclesiae, il dibattito su Origene nel III e IV secolo, Roma, 2002, p. 122; E.A. Clark, The Origenist Controversy. The Cultural Construction of an Early Christian Debate, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014, pp. 85–193; Ilaria Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis, p. 223.

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39 Origene, I principi, 3, 6, 5; H. Crouzel, A Letter from Origen to Friends in Alexandria, in D. Neiman-M. Schatkin (ed.), The Heritage of the Early Church, Rome: 1973, pp. 135–150; M. Simonetti, ‘L’escatologia di Origene’, in M. Naldini (ed.), La fine dei tempi (Letture patristiche 1), Fiesole: 1994, p. 79. 40 Bishop Diokleia Kallistos, Collected Works: The Inner Kingdom, Vol. 1, Yonkers: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001, pp. 199–200. 41 Richard A. Layton, Didymus the Blind and His Circle in Late-Antique Alexandria, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004, p. 45. 42 Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio Catechetica, ed. E. Muhlenberg, III 4, Leiden: Brill, 1996, p. 67. 43 Gregory of Nyssa, La vie de Moïse, ed. J. Daniélou, II 82, SC, 3 ed. Paris: Cerf, 1968, p. 154. This interpretation is very similar to the one that emerges from the article by Eric Ormsby, ‘The Faith of the Pharaoh: A Disputed Question in Islamic Theology’, Studia Islamica, No. 98/99, 2004, pp. 5–28. At the end of time, the Pharaoh, the symbolic figure of a man who makes himself God, recognizing the superiority of the single God, will be forgiven. 44 Brian E. Daley, ‘Apocatastasis’ in Encyclopedia of Christian Theology, ed. J. Y. Lacoste, Vol. I, 2004, pp. 67–69. 45 Maximus the Confessor, Disputatio cum Pyrrho, Roma: Biblioteca Angelica, cc. 189r–200r, CPG 7698. 46 John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes, New York: Fordham University Press, 1987, p. 222. 47 Ignazio de Francesco, Letture Cristiane del Primo Millennio, p. 77. 48 Waclaw Hryniewicz, The Challenge of our Hope: Christian Faith in Dialogue, Washington, DC: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2007. 49 Sebastian Brock, ‘St. Isaac the Syrian and His Understanding of Universal Salvation and of “the Mystery of Gehenna (Hell)” ’, unpublished paper, 2014, p. 10. 50 Some specialists, however, may disagree, due to a lack of reference to the role and influence played by Zoroastrianism especially in an eschatological context; in fact, especially with regard to Islām as an Iranian matrix, the influence of the main Parthian-Sassanian religions is fundamental. The following works are, on the contrary, some introductory sources on the connection between early Islām and late Iranian ancient religiosity: Alessandro Bausani, La Persia Religiosa, da Zarathustra a Baha’u’llah, Milano: Il Saggiatore, 1959; Michelangelo Guidi, La Lotta tra Islam e Manicheismo: un libro di Ibn al-Muqaffa‘ contro il Corano confutato da Al-Qāsim Ibn Ibrahīm al-Rassī, Roma: Reale Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1927; Marietta Stepaniants, ‘The Encounter of Zoroastrianism with Islam’, Philosophy East and West, Vol. 52, no. 2 (2002), pp. 159–172; L. Erickson, ‘The Problem of Zoroastrian Influence on Judaism and Christianity’, paper presented at the World Congress on Mullā Sadrā, Teheran, 25–27 May 1999; Solomon Alexander Nigosian, The Zoroastrian Faith:

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Tradition and Modern Research, Montreal: McGill University Press, 1993; Richard G. Hovannisian and Georges Sabah, The Persian Presence in the Islamic World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 51 Wael B. Hallaq, A History of Islamic Legal Theories, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 17. 52 Farid Esack, The Qur’ān: A User’s Guide, Oxford: Oneworld, 2005, p. 162. 53 Jane Idleman Smith and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 4. 54 Lange, Paradise and Hell in Islamic Tradition, p. 54. 55 It is relevant to highlight how the Holy Qur’ān English version with parallel Arabic text used in this essay, the M.A.S Abdel Haleem version, published by Oxford University Press, 2004, 2010, probably reflects James Robson’s doubts about Abadan’s meaning and translation; the term is indeed rarely translated by ‘forever’. 56 J. Robson, ‘Is the Muslim Hell Eternal?’, The Muslim World, Vol. 28, no. 4, (1938), pp. 388–389. 57 Ibid., p. 387; Zamakhsharī, Jadullah Mah.mūd Ibn ‘Umar, Tafsīr al-Kashshāf, ed. Mus.t.afā H.usain Ah.mad, 4 vols, 2nd edn, Cairo: 1953; Helmut Gatje, The Qur’an and its Exegesis, Oxford: Oneworld, 2008, p. 181ff. 58 Mah.mūd M. T.aha, Al-Risālah al-­thāniyah min al-Islām, Omdurman: 1967, p. 134, tr. Il secondo messaggio dell’Islam, Bologna: Emi, 2002, p. 143. 59 Nasafī, Tabs.irat al-­adilla fī us.ūl al-­dīn ‘ala al-t.arīqat al-­imām Abī Mans.ūr al-Māturīdī, ed. C. Salamé, 2 vols, Damascus, 1990–1993, II, p. 766. 60 S. Pagani, ‘Vane speranze, false minacce: L’islam e la durata dell’inferno’, in Inferni temporanei:. Visioni dell’aldilà dall’estremo Oriente all’estremo Occidente, Roma: Carocci, 2011, p. 188. 61 Muslim, S.ah.īh., 5 vols, Cairo, 1866, Vol. V, p. 374; Ah.mad Ibn H.anbal, Musnad, 6 vols., Cairo, 1895, Vol. IV, p. 130. 62 Ah.mad Ibn H.anbal, Musnad, Vol. III, p. 5, similar traditions are in Bukhārī, S.ah.īh., 4 vols, Cairo, 1900, Vol. IV, p. 175. 63 S.an‘ānī, Muh.ammad Ibn Ismā‘īl al-Amīr, Raf‘al-­astār li-­ibt.āl adillat al-­qā’ilin bi-­fanā’ al-Nār, ed. M. N. al-Albānī, Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1984, pp. 19–20. 64 Bukhārī, S.ah.īh., Usc-Msa web (English) reference, Vol. 9, book 93, h.adīth 542. 65 Ibid., h.adīth 532s. 66 S.an‘ānī, Raf‘al-­astār, pp. 123–124. 67 Robson, ‘Is the Muslim Hell Eternal?’, pp. 389–390; G.R. Hawting and Abdul Kader A. Shareed, Approaches to the Quran, London: Taylor & Francis, 1993, p. 128; Tafsīr al-Jalālayn, ed. Feras Hamza, Louisville, KY: Royal Aal al-Bayt, Institute for Islamic Thought, 2008, p. 129, 202 note 14. 68 Rah.mān, Major Themes of the Qur’an, Minneapolis, MN: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1989, pp. 74, 85, 104, 112; Farid Esack, The Qur’ān: A User’s Guide, p. 163.

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69 Muh.ammad ‘Alī, The Religion of Islam, Lahore: the Ah.madiyya Anjuman Ishā‘at Islām, 1951, pp. 229–231. 70 Nasafī, Tabs.irat, Vol. II, pp. 774–783; Ibn Fūrak, Mujarrad Maqālāt al-Shaykh Abī l-H.asan al-Ash‘arī, ed. D. Gimaret, Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1987, pp. 164–165. 71 Suyūt.ī, Jalāl ad-Dīn, Durr al-­manthūr, Vol. IV, pp. 476–478 (Qur. XI: 106–108). 72 Ibid., Vol. VIII, pp. 394–396 (Qur. LXXVIII: 21–23); Rāzī, Tafsīr al-Kabīr, Vol. III, p. 131 (Qur. II: 80).

1  Islamic Piety and Annihilation 1 Mah.mūd Moh.ammad T.aha, al-Risālah al-Thāniyah min al-Islām, Omdurman: 1967; trans. Il secondo messaggio dell’Islam, Bologna: Emi, 2002. 2 The first Bedouin raids, then real military campaigns, followed the Ridda wars (632/10–634/12) which redefined the loyalty agreements signed by the majority of the Arab tribes of the Peninsula when the Prophet was still alive, but rapidly declined after his death. Al-Balādhuri, Kitāb Futūh. al-Buldān, trans. Phillip Khuri Hitti, The Origins of the Islamic State, New York: Columbia University Press, 1916, pp. 143ff., 165ff., 269ff.; Leone Caetani, Annali dell’Islam, 10 vols, Milano- Roma, HoepliFondazione Caetani della Reale Accademia dei Lincei, 1905–1926, Vol. II, tomo I-II. 3 Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds, God’s Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986; Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 116ff. 4 L. Massignon, ‘Tas.awwuf ’, in E.I., 1st edn, Leiden: Brill, 1913–1936, Vol. VIII, p. 682; William C. Chittick, Sufism: A Beginner’s Guide, trans. Il Sufismo, Torino: Giulio Einaudi Ed., 2009, p. 49. 5 Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, p. 116ff.; Ibn Sa‘d, Kitāb al-t.abaqāt al-­kabīr, Vol. III, p. 77. 6 G.H. Bousquet, ‘Observations sur la nature et les causes de la conquête Arabe’, Studia Islamica, Vol. 6 (1956), pp. 37–52 ; Leone Caetani, Annali dell’Islam, Vol. II, tomo I-II, pp. 399, 405, 543. 7 W. Pertsch, Die Arabishen Handschriften der Herzoglichen Bibliothek zu Gotha, Gotha, 1877–1892, Vol. II, 255 ff., n. 1001, folio 93. 8 Kh. Blankinship, ‘The Early Creed’ in T. Winter (ed.) The Cambridge Companion of Classical Islamic Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, p. 39. 9 Claudio Lo Jacono, Storia del Mondo Islamico (VII–XVI secolo): Il Vicino Oriente, Torino: Einaudi, 2003, pp. 91ff.; G.R. Hawting, The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate 661–750 A.D., London: Routledge, 2000, p. 72ff.; Jalāl ad-Dīn as-Suyūt.ī, Tārīkh al-Khulafā’, History of the Umayyad Caliphs, trans. in English, T.S. Andersson, London: Taha Publishers, 2015.

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10 Marco Demichelis, ‘Bas.ra, Cradle of Islamic Culture: An Analysis of the Urban Area that was the Early Home of Islamic Studies’ in Le vie del Sapere in ambito siro-­ mesopotamico tra il III e il IX secolo, Roma: Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 2013, pp. 191–220. 11 F. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origin of Islam, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010, pp. 80–81; S. Shoemaker, The Death of the Prophet: The End of Muhammad’s Life and the Beginnings of Islam, Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2012, p. 121; A. Neuwirth, Der Koran, Vol. 1, Berlin: Verlag der Weltreligionen, 2011, p. 438. 12 ‘Abd al-Razzāq al-S.an‘ānī, Al-Mus.annaf fī l-h.adīth, ed. H.abīb al-Rah.mān al-A‘z.amī, 11 vols, Beirut: Al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1970, XI, pp. 407–423. 13 More recent findings have suggested that probably, H.asan al-Bas.rī, was also chosen by the Umayyad Iraqi governor al-H.ajjāj ibn Yūsuf al-Thaqafī (661/40–714/95) as main religious figure to canonize the Islamic revelation within a second Mus.h.af during the Caliphate of ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwān (646/25–705/85). Anyway, this possibility did not exclude the arise of growing conflicts with local political authorities too. Omar Hamdan, ‘The Second Maşāhif Project: A Step Towards The Canonization Of The Qur’Anic Text’, in A. Neuwirth, N. Sinai and M. Marx eds., The Qur’an in Context. Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur’anic milieu, Leiden: Brill, (2011), pp. 795–835. 14 Suleiman Ali Mourad, Early Islam between Myth and History: Hasan al-Basri (d. 110/728) and the Formation of His Legacy in Classical Islamic Scholarship, Leiden: Brill, 2005, p. 33ff. 15 D.B. MacDonald, The Religious Attitude and Life in Islam, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1909, p. 219. 16 M. Schwarz, ‘The Letter of H.asan al-Bas.rī’, Oriens, Vol. 20 (1967), pp. 15–30; Mourad, Early Islam between Myth and History, p. 202ff. 17 Ibid., p. 214. 18 Mourad, Early Islam between Myth and History, p. 296ff. 19 Schwarz, ‘The Letter of H.asan al-Bas.rī’, p. 17. 20 Hūd Ibn Muh.akkam, Tafsīr Kitāb Allah al ‘azīz, ed. Balh.ajj Ibn Sa‘īd Sharīfī, Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī (4 vols), 1990, II, p. 32. 21 Al-Ash‘arī, Al-Ibāna ‘an us.ūl al-­diyāna (The Elucidation of Islām Foundation), trans. Walter C. Klein, New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1940, pp. 10–14. 22 Schwarz, ‘The Letter of H.asan al-Bas.rī’, p. 24. 23 Al-Bāqillānī, Kitāb al-Tamhīd, ed. R.J. McCarthy, Beirut, 1957, p. 476; Al-Ash‘arī, Al-Ibāna ‘an us.ūl al-­diyāna, p. 51; ‘Abd al-Jabbār, al-Mughnī fī abwāb al-‘adl wa’l-­ tawh.īd, ed. Abu ’l-Alā ‘Afīfī, Cairo, 1962, XIII, p. 195; Al-Juwaynī, Al-Irshād, trans. Paul E. Walker, Reading: Garnet Publishing, 2000, p. 141ff., 209ff.

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24 Muqātil Ibn Sulaymān, Tafsīr, ed. Ah.mad Farīd, Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘ilmiyya, 3 vols, 2002, I, p. 101. 25 Schwarz, ‘The Letter of H.asan al-Bas.rī’, p. 26. 26 Mourad, Early Islam between Myth and History, pp. 265ff., 282ff. 27 Ibn al-Mubarāk, Kitāb al-Zuhd, ed. H.abīb al-Rah.mān al-A‘z.amī, Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘ilmiyya, 2004, p. 124, n. 311. 28 Ibid., p. 425, n. 1564. 29 Patricia Crone, Medieval Islamic Political Thought, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004, p. 75ff. 30 M. Watt, The Formative Period of Islamic Thought, Oxford: Oneworld, 1998, p. 29, 82ff.; Albert N. Nader, Le système philosophique des Mu‘tazila – Premiers penseurs de l’Islam, Beirut, Dār al-Mashreq, 1956, p. 3ff.; Gardet L., Dieu et le destinée de l’homme, Paris: L. Philosophique J Vrin, 1967, p. 381ff.; Abū al-H.usayn al-Khayyāt, Kitāb al-Intis.ār, trans. Albert Nader, Beirut: Lettres Orientales, 1957, p. 294ff. 31 Al-Nawawī, Sharh. ‘alā S.ah.īh. Muslim, 19 vols, Cairo, 1890, Vol. V, p. 260. 32 D.B. MacDonald, Fit.ra, 2nd edn. E.I., 1991, Vol. II, pp. 931–932. 33 A.J. Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, New York: Barnes & Noble, 1965, p. 42. 34 Al-Nawawī, Sharh. ‘alā S.ah.īh. Muslim, p. 261ff. 35 Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, p. 43. 36 Nasafī, Tabs.irat al-­adilla fī us.ūl al-­dīn ‘ala al-t.arīqat al-­imām Abī Mans.ūr al-Māturīdī, II, p. 766; S.an‘ānī, Raf‘al-­astār li-­ibt.āl adillat al-­qā’ilin bi-­fanā’ al-Nār, p. 24. 37 Abū Dharr was a Muslim intransigent, a spiritual father of the first Khāridjites, who was exiled by the third Caliph al-Rashidūn ‘Uthmān for his extreme positions. 38 Al-Nawawī, Sharh. ‘alā S.ah.īh. Muslim, Vol. I, p. 147. 39 ‘Allāma Qut.b al-Dīn al-H.anafī, Prayers for Forgiveness: Al-Istighfārāt al-Munqidha min al-Nār, London: White Thread Press, 2004. 40 Ibid., p. 28. 41 Ibid., p. 44. 42 Mourad, Early Islam between Myth and History, p. 203ff. 43 Al-Ghazālī, Fays.al al-Tafriqa bayna al-Islām wa al-Zandaqa, ed. M. Bījū, Damascus, 1993; trans. Sherman A. Jackson, On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s Fays.al al-Tafriqa bayna al-Islām wa-­l-Zandaqa, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. 44 Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, pp. 42–44, 214; Camilla Adang, ‘Islam as the Inborn Religion of Mankind: The Concept of Fit.rah in the Works of Ibn H.azm’, Al-Qantara, 21 (2000), pp. 391–410. 45 Adang, ‘Islam as the Inborn Religion of Mankind’, pp. 405–407. 46 Saleh Said Agha, The Revolution which Toppled the Umayyads, Leiden: Brill, 2003. 47 Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, p. 104.

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48 Ibid., p. 104. 49 The punishment of the grave is an Islamic eschatological theory which identified a stage when, before the Judgement Day, the souls of the unjust are pre-­punished in the grave; however, if ‘every soul will taste death’ (Qur. II, 185) the Prophet’s intercession as that of any Muslim is allowed to help the entombed–unrighteous soul to discharge the debt as they would if the debt were owed by a living person. 50 Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, p. 122. 51 Ibid., p. 124: ‘In summarizing these facts and conclusions regarding the Fiqh Akbar I, we may say that it represents the view of orthodoxy in the middle of the eighth century A.D. on the then prominent dogmatic questions; and that it reflects the dissentions of the Khārijites, Shī‘tes and Qadarites, not those of Murdjites, not those of the Mu‘tazilites.’ 52 Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, p. 113. 53 Ibn H.azm, Kitāb al-Fis.al fī’ l- Milal wa’l-Ahwā’ wa’l-Nih.āl, Vol. V, p. 42ff. 54 Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, pp. 129–130. 55 Art. 25: ‘The intercession of our Prophet Muhammad is a reality for all those who belong to the inhabitants of Paradise, even if they should be guilty for a mortal sin.’ Art. 27: ‘We confess that the inhabitants of Paradise will dwell therein forever, and that the inhabitants of Hell will dwell therein forever, as the scripture says regarding the Faithful: They are the companions of Paradise, they shall dwell there forever (II: 75), and regarding the infidels: they are companions of the Fire, they shall dwell there forever (II: 76, 214s)’ (pp. 130–131). 56 Ibid., p. 166. 57 Ibid., p. 187. 58 Ibid., p. 264. 59 Al-Munāwī, ‘Abd al-Ra’ūf, Al-Kawākib al-­durriyya fī al-­tarādjim al-­sādāt al-­sūfiyya, Cairo, 1938; John Renard, Windows on the House of Islam: Muslim Sources on Spirituality and Religious Life, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998, p. 132; As-Sulamī, Dhikr an-Niswa al-­muta‘abbidāt as-Sufiyyāt, ed. di Giancarlo Rizzo, Torino: Leone Verde Editore, 2011, p. 18ff.; Rābi‘a l-‘Adawiyya, I detti di Rābi‘a, Milano: Adelphi Editore, 1979, p. 45. 60 Margaret Smith, Rabi‘a the mystic and Her Fellow Saints in Islam, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 76ff.; Ibn al-Mubārak, Kitāb al-Zuhd, p. 126, n. 315ff.; Al-Muh.āsibī, al-Was.āya, ed. ‘Abd al-Qādir Ah.mad ‘At.ā, Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘ilmiyya, 1986, p. 26ff. 61 S.an‘ānī, Raf‘ al-­astār li-­ibt.āl adillat al-­qā’ilin bi-­fanā’ al-Nār, p. 38. 62 Smith, Rabi‘a the Mystic and Her Fellow Saints in Islam, p. 80. 63 Al-Sarrāj, Al-Kitāb al-­luma’fī-­l-tasawwuf, ed. R.A. Nicholson, Leiden: Brill, 1914, p. 52. 64 As-Sulamī, Dhikr an-Niswa al-­muta‘abbidāt as-Sufiyyāt, p. 74. 65 Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, p. 120.

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66 Khayyāt., ‘Abd al-Rah.īm, Kitāb al- Intis.ār: Le livre du Triomphe et de la refutation d’Ibn al-Rawāndī l’hérétique, p. 10ff. 67 Baghdādī, ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Al-Farq bayna al-Firāq, Cairo: 1910, Moslem Schisms and Sects, trans. Kate Chambers Seelye, New York: Columbia University Press, 1920, Vol. II, p. 13ff.; Van Ess, Josef, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3, Jahrhundert Hidschra: Eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam, Berlin: De Gruyter, Vol. 6, 1991–1997, Vol. 5, pp. 218–219. 68 Ash‘arī, Abū al-H.asan, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn wa Ikhtilāf al-Mus.allim, ed. H. Ritter, Istanbul, 1929–1930, pp. 148–149, 289; Van Ess, TG, Vol. 5, pp. 218–219. 69 Richard M. Frank, ‘The Neoplatonism of Gahm Ibn Safwān’, Le Museon, no. 78 (1965), p. 402. 70 Ibid., p. 407. 71 Ibid., p. 408. 72 Ash‘arī, Abū al-H.asan, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn, p. 494, 10–12. 73 Frank, ‘The Neoplatonism of Gahm Ibn Safwān’, p. 409. 74 Baghdādī, ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Al-Farq bayna al-Firāq, II, p. 13. 75 Malat.ī, Ibn Ah.mad, Kitāb al-Tanbīh wa-­l-radd ‘alā ahl al-­ahwā’wa-­l-bida‘, ed. S. Dedering. Istanbul: 1936, p. 134. 76 Ibid., p. 96. 77 F. Hamza, To Hell and Back: A Study on the Concepts of Hell and Intercession of Early Islam, PhD Diss., University of Oxford, pp. 58–63. 78 Al-Is.fahānī, Abū l-Faraj ‘Alī b. H.usayn, Kitāb al-Aghānī, Cairo, 1927–74, XIV, p. 270. 79 Ash‘arī, Abū al-H.asan, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn, p. 151, l. 6ff. 80 C. Gilliot, ‘Muqātil, grand exégète, traditioniste et théologien maudit’, Journal Asiatique, 279 (1991), pp. 39–85; Hamza, To Hell and Back, p. 81ff. 81 Muqātil B. Sulaymān, Tafsīr, ed. ‘Abdallāh M. Shih.āta, Cairo, 1979–89, II, pp. 298–299. 82 T.abarī, Jāmi‘ al-­bayān fī Tafsīr al-Qur’ān, Cairo, 1954, XXX, p. 294ff. 83 Ali Hasan Abd al-Qader, The Life, Personal and Writing of al-Junayd, London: Luzac & Co., 1962, pp. 28–29; L. Massignon, Essay on the Origins of the Technical Language of Islamic Mysticism, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997, p. 185.; Toby Mayer, ‘Theology and Sufism’, in T. Winter (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 260–261. 84 Farid Jabre, ‘L’Extase de Plotin et le Fanā’ de Ghazali’, pp. 101–124. 85 Ibid., p. 109ff. 86 ‘Abd al-Razzāq al-S.an‘ānī, al-Mus.annaf, ed. H.R. al-A‘z.amī, Beirut: 1970–72; Hamza, To Hell and Back, pp. 87ff. 87 Ibid., Vol. XI, p. 407. 88 ‘Abd al-Razzāq al-S.an‘ānī, al-Mus.annaf, Vol. XI, p. 407, n. 20856. 89 Ibid., p. 411, n. 20859. 90 Ibid., p. 411, n. 20858.

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91 Lange, Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions, p. 98. 92 Margaret Smith, Al- Muhasibi: An Early Mystic of Baghdad, London: Sheldon Press, 1977, p. 9ff. 93 G. Pickens, Spiritual Purification within Islam: The Life and Works of al-Muh.āsibī, London: Routledge, 2011, pp. 170–171; Al-Muh.āsibī, Sharh. al-Ma‘rifa wa Badl al-Nas.īh.a, ed. S.ālih. Ah.mad al-Shāmī, Damascus: Dār al-Qalam, 1993. p. 34; Al-Muh.āsibī, Al-‘Aql wa-­fahm al-Qur’ān, ed. H.usayn al-Qawwatlī, Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1978, p. 45. 94 Ibid., p. 171. 95 Pickens, Spiritual Purification within Islam, p. 126: ‘Al-Muh.āsibī ‘s identification of Evil is physically connected with human’s eye, the first of the five senses which amplifies the will and desires of physical body in first instance: the term usually used is nafs, as.ābat-­hu nafsun, “He has been affected by an evil eye”.’ 96 Al-Muh.āsibī, Risālat al-Mustarshidīn, ed. Abū Ghudda, Cairo: Dār al-Salām, 1988, p. 79; al-Muh.āsibī, al-Tawahhum, Cairo: Lajnat al-Taʾliif wa-­al-Tarjamah wa-­alNashr, 1937, p. 49. 97 Pickens, Spiritual Purification within Islam, p. 175. 98 Ibid., p. 175. 99 Ibid., p. 125: ‘In Islamic theology it is actually an angel – the Angel of Death (Malak al-Mawt) – who takes the nafs but the command itself comes from God’ (p. 160). 100 William C. Chittick, Sufism: A Beginner’s Guide, trans. Il Sufismo, p. 67. 101 Al-Muh.āsibī, Kitāb Badʾ Man Anāba ilā Allāh, ed. Majdī Fath.ī al-Sayyid, Cairo: Dār al-Salām, 1991, p. 24, 34, 56ff. 102 Al-Muh.āsibī, al-Baʿth wa ’l-Nushūr, ed. Muh.ammad ʿĪsā Rid.wān, Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1986. 103 Al-Muh.āsibī, Kitāb al-Mustarshid, ed. Amīn Nuʿmān Nār, Beirut: Dār wa Maktabat al-Hilāl, 1983, pp. 56, 76, 79–81. 104 Al-Muh.āsibī, al-Riʿāya li H.uqūq Allāh, ed. Margaret Smith, London: Luzac & Co., 1940, p. 85. 105 Pickens, Spiritual Purification within Islam, p. 178. 106 Smith, Al-Muhasibi, p. 47ff. 107 Al-Muh.āsibī, Une Vision Humaine des Fins Dernières – Le Kitāb al-Tawahhum d’al Muh.āsibī, trans. A. Roman, Études Arabes et Islamiques series, Paris: Librairie C. Klincksieck, 1978, pp. 24, 52. 108 Pickens, Spiritual Purification within Islam, pp. 177–179. 109 S. Brock, The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of St. Ephrem, Kalamazoo, Mich: Cistercian Publications, 1992; Efrem il Siro, Inni sul Paradiso, intr. and comm. Ignazio de Francesco, Cinisello Balsamo: Ed. Paoline, 2006, pp. 45–46, 76. 85. 110 Simon of T.aibūtheh, Medical-Mystical work, ed. and trans. A. Mingana, Cambridge: Heffner, 1934, pp. 1–69, 280–320.

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111 Smith, Al-Muhasibi: An Early Mystic of Baghdad, p. 149. 112 Ibid., p. 197. 113 Abū Nu‘aym al-Isfahānī, H.ilyat al-Awliyā, Cairo, 1932, p. 207. 114 Smith, Al-Muhasibi, p. 225. 115 Ibid., pp. 239–240. 116 Ibid., pp. 48–50, 289–291. 117 Al-Sulamī, T.abaqāt al-S.ūfiyya, ed. N. Sharība, Cairo: 1953, pp. 56–60; Al- Is.fahānī, Abū Nu’aym, H.ilyat al-­awliyā’ wa-t.abaqāt al-­asfiyā’, 10 vols, Cairo, 1932–38, X, pp. 73–109; Hujwīrī al- Ghaznawī, The Kashf al-­mahjūb, trans. R. Nicholson, London: J. Gibb Memorial Trust, 2000, pp. 176–183. 118 Ibid., p. 290ff. 119 Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿat al-Fatāwā, edited by Sayyid H.usayn al-ʿAffānī and Khayrī Saʿīd, 35 vols, Cairo: al-Maktabat al-Tawfīqiyya, 2001, Vol. 6, p. 521. 120 Geneviève Gobillot, ‘Corps (badan), ame (nafs) et esprit (rūh.) selon Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya à travers son Kitāb al-Rūh.. Entre Théologie rationelle et Pensée mystique’, Oriente Moderno, nuova seria, 90, no. 1 (2010), p. 244ff. 121 Geneviève Gobillot, ‘Quelques stéréotypes cosmologiques d’origine pythagoricienne chez les penseurs musulmans au Moyen Âge’, Revue de l’histoire des religions, Vol. 219, no. 2 (2002), pp. 161–192. 122 Ibid., pp. 171–172. 123 A. Badawī, Histoire de la philosophie en Islam, Vol. 2, Paris: Vrin, 1972, Vol. 1, p. 39; Al-Baghdādī, Al-Farq bayna al-Firaq, pp. 117–120. 124 Geneviève Gobillot, Les livres de la profondeur des Choses, Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaire du Septentrion, 1996, p. 193; Al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb al-­amtāl, ed. ‘Alī Muh.ammad al-Bijāwī, Cairo, 1975, p. 89. 125 Al-Sulamī, T.abaqāt al-S.ūfiyya, pp. 217–220; Al- Is.fahānī, Abū Nu’aym, H.ilyat al-­awliyā’ wa-t.abaqāt al-­asfiyā’, X, pp. 233–235; ’Attār F., Le Mémorial des Saints, trans. Pavet de Courteille, ed. Seuil: Paris, 1976, pp. 282–285. 126 Al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb al-­amtāl, chapter‘On the Life of People of Hell’, p. 297; Al-Tirmidhī, Kitāb al-Furūq wa-­man’ al-­tarāduf, trans. G. Gobillot, Paris: Geuthner, 2006, pp. 147–153. 127 Ibid., p. 246, n. 75; Genviève Gobillot, ‘Patience (S.abr) et retribution des mérites: Gratitude (Shukhr) et aptitude au bonheur selon al-H.akīm al-Tirmidhī (d. 930)’, Studia Islamica, Vol. 79, no. 4 (1994), pp. 51–78. 128 Ibid., pp. 60–62. 129 J. Hoover, ‘Fit.ra’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, II, 3rd edn, Leiden: Brill, 2007, pp. 104–106. 130 Al-Sulamī, T.abaqāt al-S.ūfiyya, pp. 206–211; Al-Is.fahānī, Abū Nu’aym, H.ilyat al-­awliyā’ wa-t.abaqāt al-­asfiyā’, X, pp. 189–212; Hujwīrī al- Ghaznawī, The Kashf al-­mahjūb, pp. 139–140, 195–202; ’Attār, Le Mémorial des Saints, pp. 233–236.

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131 A.J. Arberry, ‘Al-Djunayd’, Vol. 13, E.I. 2nd edn, Leiden: Brill, 1991, Vol. 2, p. 600; Al-Sulamī, T.abaqāt al-S.ūfiyya, pp. 155–163; Al-Is.fahānī, Abū Nu’aym, H.ilyat al-­awliyā’ wa-t.abaqāt al-­asfiyā’, X, pp. 255–287; Hujwīrī al- Ghaznawī, The Kashf al-­mahjūb, pp. 128–130, 185–189; ’Attār, Le Mémorial des Saints, pp. 264–268. 132 Al-Qushayrī, Al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya fī ‘ilm al-­tasawwuf, trans. Alexander D. Knysh, Epistle on Sufism, Reading: Garnet Publishing, 2007, p. 43ff. 133 Ibid., p. 307. 134 H. Abdel Kader, The Life, Personality and Writings of Al-Junayd, London: Luzac & Co., 1962, pp. 70–71; Al-Qushayrī, Al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya fī ‘ilm al-­tasawwuf, p. 307ff. 135 Kader, The Life, Personality and Writings of al-Junayd, p. 73. 136 Hassan Khalil, Mohammad: Islam and the Fate of Others: The Salvation Question, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 26s; Sherman A. Jackson, On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s Faysal al-Tafriqa, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. 137 Kader, The Life, Personality and Writings of al-Junayd, p. 75. 138 Al-Qushayrī, Al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya fī ‘ilm al-­tasawwuf, p. 43, 89; Kader, The Life, Personality and Writings of al-Junayd, p. 77. Al-Sulamī, T.abaqāt al-S.ūfiyya, p. 160; Al- Is.fahānī, Abū Nu’aym, H.ilyat al-­awliyā’ wa-t.abaqāt al-­asfiyā’, X, p. 271. 139 Plotinus, Enneads, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988, Vol. 1, pp. 4, 14. 140 Kader, The Life, Personality and Writings of al-Junayd, p. 79. 141 Ibid., pp. 79–80. 142 Al-Qushayrī, Al-Risāla al-Qushayriyya fī ‘ilm al-­tasawwuf, p. 90; al-Kalābādhī, Kitāb al-­ta‘arruf li-­madhhab ahl al-Tas.awwuf, trans. Roger Deladrière, Traité de Soufisme, les maitres et les étapes, Paris: Babel, 2005, pp. 134–146. 143 Kader, The Life, Personality and Writings of al-Junayd, p. 81. 144 Al-Sarrāj, Al-Kitāb al-­luma’fī-­l-tasawwuf, pp. 426, 432. 145 C. Melcher, ‘The Transition of Asceticism to Mysticism at the Middle of the Ninth Century C.E.’, Studia Islamica, Vol. 83 (1996), p. 60; Al-Sulamī, T.abaqāt al-S.ūfīyah, ed. J. Pedersen, Leiden: Brill, 1960, p. 223. 146 Hoover, ‘Fit.ra’, pp. 105–106.

2  Kalām and the Eschatological Interpretation of the Material and the Empyrean 1 Eric Linn Ormsby, Theodicy in Islamic Thought: The Dispute over al-Ghazali’s Best of All Possible Worlds, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984, p. 217ff. 2 W. Madelung, ‘Imamism and Mu‘tazilite Theology’ in Religious Schools and Sects, London: Variorum Collected Studies, 1985; W. Madelung, Studies in Medieval

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Muslim Thought and History, London: Variorum Collected Studies, 2013; W. Madelung and S. Schmidtke, Rational Theology in Interfaith Communication: Abū H.usayn al-Bas.rī’s Mu‘tazilī Theology among the Karaites in the Fāt.imid Age, Leiden: Brill, 2006; Margaretha T. Heemskerk, Suffering in the Mu‘tazilite Theology: ‘Abd al-Jabbār’s Teaching on Pain and Divine Justice, Leiden: Brill, 2000; J.R.T.M. Peters, God’s Created Speech, Leiden: Brill, 1976; Richard C. Martin, Mark Woodward and Dwi S. Atmaja, Defenders of Reason in Islam: Mu‘tazilism from Medieval School to Modern Symbol, Oxford: Oneworld, 1997. 3 Al-Shaharastānī, ‘Abd al-Karīm, Kitāb al-Milal wa-­l-Nih.al, ed. W. Cureton, London, 1842, p. 48. 4 Madelung, ‘Imamism and Mu‘tazilite Theology’, p. 8. 5 Al-Shaharastānī, ‘Abd al-Karīm, Kitāb al-Milal wa-­l-Nih.al, p. 57. 6 In this chapter the debate on when and where the ‘Mu’tazilite school’ were to form, if in the IX century or in the following ones, it is not the subject of the debate for eschatological purposes, the author is perfectly aware of the different positions in progress; however, the present study takes into consideration what emerges from known dossographic sources without examining whether these sources go to create an artificial narrative or not. The main goal of the analysis here focus on a specific topic of Islamic Eschatology and in which way the same has been treated within Islamic sources. 7 George F. Hourani, ‘Islamic and Non-Islamic Origins of Mu‘Tazilite Ethical Rationalism’, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 7, no. 1 (1976), pp. 59–87. 8 Ibid., p. 66. 9 Ibid., p. 67. 10 Taftazānī, Sharh. ‘alā al-‘Aqā’id al-Nasafiyya, Cairo: 1939, p. 99; trans. E.E. Elder, A Commentary on the Creed of Islam, New York: Columbia University Press, 1950, p. 83ff. 11 Gregor Von Nyssa: Die Grosse Katechetische Rede, 9 vols, trans. J. Barbel, Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1971. 12 Hourani, ‘Islamic and Non-Islamic Origins of Mu‘Tazilite Ethical Rationalism’, p. 77. 13 Josef Van Ess, ‘Lecture à Rebours de l’Histoire du Mu‘tazilisme’, Revue des études Islamiques (Paris), 47 (1979). p. 25ff.; Josef Van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra: Eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam, 6 vols, Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991–1997, Vol. 5, p. 229ff. 14 Christian Lange, Paradise and Hell in Islamic Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, p. 171ff. 15 Ibid., p. 114ff. 16 William Chittick, ‘The Myth of Adam’s Fall in Ah.mad Sam‘ānī’s Rawh. al-­arwāh.’, in The Heritage of Sufism, Vol. 1: Classical Persian Sufism from its origin to Rumi (700–1300), ed. Leonard Lewisjohn. Oxford: Oneworld, 1999, pp. 337–359.

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17 J. Van Ess, ‘d.irār ibn ‘Amr’, in E.I., 2nd edn, Vol. 12 Suppl., Leiden: Brill, 2004, p. 226; Binyamin Abrahamov, ‘The Creation and Duration of Paradise and Hell in Islamic Theology’, Der Islam, Vol. 79 (2002), p. 88ff.; Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, H.ādī al-­arwāh. ilā bilād al-­afrāh., ed. T.aha ‘Abd al-Ra’ūf Sa‘d, Cairo: Dār Ih.ya al-Kutub al-‘Arabiyya, 1962, p. 24, 33–35; J. Van Ess’s opinion about d.irār ibn ‘Amr, in particular concerning the absence of information within primary and doxographic sources, is pointed out in Gabriel Said Reynolds, A Muslim Theologian in the Sectarian Milieu: ‘Abd al-Jabbār and the Critique of Christian Origins, Brill: Leiden 2004, p. 30, n. 46; Van Ess, TG, Vol. 3, pp. 35–36. 18 Ash‘arī, Abū al-H.asan, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn, Vol. 1, p. 127, Vol. 2, p. 430, p. 472; Van Ess, TG, Vol. 4, pp. 560–561. 19 Ibid., Vol. 1, p. 156–158. 20 Ibid., p. 226. 21 Ormsby, Theodicy in Islamic Thought, p. 22: ‘It is not obligatory for God to do the best of things for man; indeed, this is absurd because there is no end and no term to the beneficence which God can perform. He is obliged to do for men only what is best for them in their religion.’ Ash‘arī, Abū al-H.asan, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn, I, p. 246; Khayyāt., ‘Abd al-Rah.īm, Kitāb al-Intis.ār, p. 53. 22 Khayyāt., ‘Abd al-Rah.īm, Kitāb al-Intis.ār, p. 14. 23 Frank, M. Richard, The Metaphysics of Created Beings in Abū l-Hudhayl al-‘Allāf, Istanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaelogisch Institut, 1966, pp. 23–24. 24 Richard M. Frank, ‘The Divine Attributes According to the Teaching of Abū l-Hudhayl al-‘Allāf ’, Le Museon, Vol. 82, nos 3–4 (1969), p. 473ff. 25 Ibid., p. 476. 26 Morris S. Seale, Muslim Theology: A Study of Origin with Reference to the Church Fathers, p. 69ff. 27 Van Ess, ‘Lecture à Rebours de l’Histoire du Mu‘tazilisme’, p. 34. 28 Ibid., p. 35;Van Ess, TG, Vol. 5, p. 367ff.; Ash‘arī, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn, Vol. 1. p. 164, Vol. 2, p. 485; Ibn H.anbal, al-Radd ‘alā l-­zanādiqa wa-­l-jahamiyya, ed. Daghash al-‘Ajamī, Kuwait: Gharās, 2005, p. 325; Pazdawī, Abū l-Yusr Muh.ammad Ibn Muh.ammad, Us.ūl ad-Dīn, ed. Hans P. Lins, Cairo: Dār Ih.yā’ al-Kutub al-‘Arabiyyah, 1963, p. 171; Layth al-Samarqandī, Sharh. al-­fiqh al-­absat. li Abī H.anīfa, ed. and commentary by H. Daiber, The Islamic Concept of Belief in the 4th/10th century, Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī’s Commentary on Abū H.anīfa, Tokyo, 1995, pp. 184–185. 29 Baghdādī, ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Al-Farq bayna al-Firaq, Vol. 1, pp. 125–126. 30 Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-Fihrist, ed. and trans. Bayard Dodge, New York: Columbia University Press, 1970, Vol. II, pp. 388–389; Baghdādī, ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Al-Farq bayna al-Firaq, p. 127, p. 135. 31 Baghdādī, ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Al-Farq bayna al-Firaq, pp. 127–129; Al-Shaharastānī, ‘Abd al-Karīm, Kitāb al-Milal wa-­l-Nih.al, pp. 193–194.

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32 Josef Van Ess, ‘Das Begrentze Paradies’, Mélanges d’Islamologie: Volume dédié à la mémoire de Armand Abel, Leiden: Brill, 1974, p. 122. 33 Abrahamov, ‘The Creation and Duration of Paradise and Hell in Islamic Theology’, p. 91ff.; Van Ess, ‘Das Begrentze Paradies’, p. 115; Al-Maqdisī, al-Bad’ wa’l-­ta’rīkh, ed. Cl.Huart, Baghdād, 1962, pp. 188–189. 34 Abrahamov, ‘The Creation and Duration of Paradise and Hell in Islamic Theology’, pp. 90–91; Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī, Sharh. al-­fiqh al-­absat. li Abī H.anīfa, p. 186. 35 Ibid., pp. 91; Frank, The Metaphysics of the Created Being According to Abū l-Hudhayl al-‘Allāf, p. 25ff. 36 Ibid., p. 26. 37 Ibid., pp. 37–38. 38 Khayyāt., ‘Abd al-Rah.īm, Kitāb al-­Intis.ār, p. 16. 39 Ibid., p. 34. ‘Ce que dit Ibrāhīm (Al-Naz.z.ām) à ce sujet est bien la thèse commune à tous les musulmans, à savoir que Dieu inflige aux habitants de l’enfer autant des souffrances que leur constitution peut endurer, qu’il ne leur ôte ni la raison, ni la sensibilité; car autrement, ils ne rassentiraient plus l’acuité de la souffrance, ni la force du châtiment.’ 40 Ibid., p. 35. 41 Abū al-H.asan Ash‘arī, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn, I, p. 149; Lange, Paradise and Hell in Islamic Tradition, pp. 139, 169, 180. 42 Van Ess, ‘Lecture à Rebours de l’Histoire du Mu‘tazilisme’, p. 217 ; Van Ess, TG, Vol. 6, pp. 10–11. 43 G. Anwar Chejne, ‘Mu‘ammar Ibn ‘Abbad al-Sulami, a Leading Mu‘Tazilite of the Eighth–Ninth Centuries’, The Muslim World (Hartford), Vol. 51, no. 4 (1961), p. 319. 44 Ash‘arī, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn, Vol. II, p. 348. 45 Ibid., II, 548; Khayyāt., ‘Abd al-Rah.īm, Kitāb al- Intis.ār, p. 17ff.; Baghdādī, ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Al-Farq bayna al-Firaq, p. 116ff. 46 Chejne, ‘Mu‘ammar Ibn ‘Abbad al-Sulami’, p. 315. 47 Ash‘arī, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn, II, p. 331; Al-Shaharastānī, ‘Abd al-Karīm, Kitāb al-Milal wa-­l-Nih.al. Le livre des Religions et des Sectes, Vol. 1, p. 234–235; Van Ess, TG, Vol. 5, p. 254ff. 48 Khayyāt., Kitāb al- Intis.ār, p. 17. 49 Ibid., p. 18. 50 Ibid., pp. 83–84; Baghdādī, Al-Farq bayna al-Firaq, p. 180ff. 51 Baghdādī, Al-Farq bayna al-Firaq, p. 181. 52 Al-Shaharastānī, ‘Abd al-Karīm, Kitāb al-Milal wa-­l-Nih.al, p. 257. 53 Georges Vajda, ‘La Connaissance Naturelle de Dieu selon al-Jāh.iz. critiqué par le Mu‘tazilite’, Studia Islamica, Vol. 24 (1966), p. 26ff. 54 Baghdādī, ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Us.ūl al-Dīn, p. 239. 55 Al- Jāh.iz, Kitāb al-H.ayawān, ed. M. H.arūn, 8 vols, Cairo, 1938–1943, Vol. I, pp. 204–206.

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56 Baghdādī, ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Al-Farq bayna al-Firaq, pp. 115–116; Us.ūl ad-Dīn, p. 239; Al-Shaharastānī, ‘Abd al-Karīm, Kitāb al-Milal wa-­l-Nih.al, p. 78. 57 Al-Shaharastānī, ‘Abd al-Karīm, Kitāb al-Milal wa-­l-Nih.al, p. 78; Ormsby, Theodicy in Islamic Thought, pp. 221–223. 58 Ormsby, Theodicy in Islamic Thought, pp. 223–225. 59 Al-Shaharastānī, ‘Abd al-Karīm, Kitāb al-Milal wa-­l-Nih.al, pp. 265–266. 60 Baghdādī, ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Al-Farq bayna al-Firaq, pp. 204–205. 61 Al-Shaharastānī, ‘Abd al-Karīm, Kitāb al-Milal wa-­l-Nih.al, pp. 266–267. 62 Van Ess, TG, Vol. 6, pp. 432–433. 63 L. Gardet, Dieu et la Destinée de l’Homme, Paris: Vrin, 1967, p. 262ff. 64 Jurjānī, Sharh. al-­mawāqif fī ‘ilm al-Kalām, Cairo: Mat.ba‘at al-Sa‘īda, 1907, Vol. VIII, p. 297. 65 An Islamic sect of Iranian origin which flourished between the ninth and thirteenth centuries; founded by Ibn Karrām (d. 896 ce) they believe that God has a finite body which places him in a precise geographical location and in a specific time. They were ascetics and emphasized a communal way of life. Margaret Malamud, ‘The Politics of Heresy in Medieval Khurasan: The Karramiyya in Nishapur,’ Iranian Studies, Vol. 27, nos 1–4 (1994), pp. 37–51. 66 R. Frank, ‘The Autonomy of Human Agent in the Teaching of ‘Abd al-Jabbār’, Le Muséon, Vol. 95, nos 3–4 (1982), pp. 322–354. 67 Jurjānī, Sharh. al-­mawāqif fī ‘ilm al-Kalām, Vol. VIII, p. 309. 68 Ibid., pp. 308–309. 69 Abrahamov, ‘The Creation and Duration of Paradise and Hell in Islamic Theology’, p. 88ff. 70 Jurjānī, Sharh. al-­mawāqif fī ‘ilm al-Kalām, Vol. VIII, p. 302; Ibrāhīm al-Bājūrī, H.āshiya ‘alā, Cairo: Maktaba wa l-Mat.ba‘a Muh.ammad ‘Abī S.abīh. wa Awlādihi, 1966, p. 96. 71 Al-Tawh.īdī, Abū H.ayyān, Al-Muqābasāt, MS Leiden 1443, fol. 38 b. quoted in Lange, Paradise and Hell in Islamic Tradition, p. 180, n. 106. 72 Al-Zamakhsharī, Kashshāf, ed. Muh.ammad ‘Abd al-Salām Shāhīn, Vol. 4, Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 2009, III, p. 497. 73 Lange, Paradise and Hell in Islamic Tradition, p. 181ff. 74 Gutas Dimitri, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ‘Abbasid Society (2–4th/8–10th c.), New York: Routledge, 1998, trans. Pensiero Greco e Cultura Araba, ed. and comm. Cristina D’Ancona, Torino: Einaudi, p. 194ff; Storia della Filosofia nell’Islam medievale, ed. and comm. Cristina D’Ancona, Torino: Einaudi, 2005, pp. 131ff. 75 W. Madelung, ‘The Shī’ite and Khārijite Contribution to pre-Ash‘arite Kalām’, in Islamic Philosophical Theology, ed. P. Morewedge, New York: The Persian Heritage Foundation, 1979, p. 128.

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76 Binyamin Abrahamov, ‘A Re-­examination of al-Ash‘arī Theory of Kasb According to Kitāb al-Luma’, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, no. 2, 1989, p. 210. 77 Yah.yā ad-Dīn Al-Nawawī, Une Herméneutique de la Tradition Islamique: le commentaire des Arba‘ūn al-Nawawīya, ed. Louis Pouzet, Beirut: Dar al-Machreq, 1982, p. 74ff.; ‘Le prince des Croyants Abū H.afs. ‘Umar b. al-Khat.t.āb rapporte cette parole: “J’ai entendu l’Envoyé de Dieu dire ce qui suit: C’est l’intention qui donne sa valeur à un acte.”’ 78 Abrahamov, ‘A Re-­examination of al-Ash‘arī’s Theory of Kasb According to Kitāb al-Luma’, p. 212. 79 Peter Antes, ‘The First As‘arites Conception of Evil and the Devil’, in Mélanges offerts à Henry Corbin, ed. S. Hossein Nasr, McGill University and Teheran University, Teheran, 1977, p. 178. 80 Baghdādī, ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Us.ūl al-Dīn, p. 268ff. 81 Al-Bāqillānī, Kitāb al-Tamhīd, ed. McCarthy, Beirut, 1956, p. 156. 82 Zafar Ishaq Ansari, ‘Taftāzānī’s View on Taklīf, Jabr and Qadar: A Note on Development of Islamic Theological Doctrine’, Arabica, Vol. 16, no. 1 (1969), p. 71. 83 Antes, ‘The First As‘arites’ Conception of Evil and the Devil’, p. 185. 84 Baghdādī, ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Us.ūl al-Dīn, p. 145ff. 85 Al-Juwaynī, Al-Irshād, pp. 88–89, 97. 86 Jon Hoover, ‘A Typology of Responses to the Philosophical Problem of Evil in the Islamic and Christian Tradition’, The Conrad Grebel Review, Vol. 21, no. 3 (2003), p. 83. 87 Al-Bāqillānī, al-Ins.āf fī mā yagīb al-I‘tiqād, ed. M.Z. Al-Kawtharī, Cairo, 1952, p. 40ff. 88 Ibid., p. 41. 89 Al-Taftāzānī, Sharh. al-­maqās.id, ed. ‘Abd al-Rah.mān ‘Umayra, 5 vols, Beirut: ‘Ālam al-Kutub, 1989, II, p. 245; al-Sharh. ‘alā l-‘Aqā’id al-­nasafiyya, Cairo: Dār Ih.ya’ al-Kutub al-‘arabiyya, n.d., p. 96ff. 90 Ibrāhīm al-Bājūrī, H.āshiya, p. 95. 91 Gardet, Dieu et la Destinée de l’Homme, pp. 264–265. 92 About whom in the Maqālāt (p. 165), al-Ash‘arī cites also Abū al-Hudayl. 93 Al-Ash‘arī, al-Ibānah ‘An Us.ūl ad-Diyānah, trans. Walter C. Klein, New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1940, pp. 88–89. 94 Ibid., p. 89. 95 Ibid., p. 90. 96 Ibid., p. 91. 97 Al-Ash‘arī, The Theology of Al-Ash‘arī, ed. Richard J. McCarthy, Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1953, p. 251. 98 Ibid., p. 244.

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99 Al-Ash‘arī, al-Ibānah ‘An Us.ūl ad-Diyānah, pp. 130–131. 100 Ibid., p. 131. 101 Ibid. 102 E.E. Elder, ‘Abū Ja’fār al-T.ah.āwī’s Bayān al-Sunna wa l-Jamā‘ah’, in The MacDonald Presentation Volume: A Tribute to Duncan Black MacDonald, Freeport, NY: Princeton University Press, 1933, pp. 129–145. 103 Elder, ‘Abū Ja’fār al-T.ah.āwī’s Bayān al-Sunna wa l-Jamā‘ah’, pp. 139–140. 104 Al- Ash‘arī, The Theology of Al-Ash‘arī, p. 107, note 1. 105 Ibid., p. 109. 106 Ibid., p. 110. 107 Abū Ya‘lā, Kitāb al-­muʿtamad fī us.ūl al-­dīn, ed. Wadi Z. Haddad, Beirut: Dār al-Mashreq, 1974, p. 115. 108 Ah.mad Subh.ī, Fī ‘ilm al-­kalām, Iskandariyya: 1967, p. 554. The Kitāb ah.wāl al-­qiyāma describes this role of children as servants in paradise (p. 47). Stating that the children of Muslims will be ‘in the crops of green birds of the Garden by a mountain of musk’ (idiomatic expression) until the day of resurrection, it then says that the children of the mushrikūn will go around in the Garden but without a place of rest until the resurrection. While they are guaranteed this degree of felicity, however, they must nonetheless be in a position of servitude to those whose faith is proven (thumma yakhdimūna al-­mu’minīn). Tritton, Muslim Theology, p. 94. The discussion of this belief is supported by al-Naz.z.ām of the Bas.ra school of the Mu‘tazila who argued: ‘The children of Muslims and unbelievers will go to heaven and so will animals for no distinction is made between animals, children and lunatics’; Al-Ash‘arī, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn, I, pp. 253–254. 109 ‘Abd al-Jabbār ibn Ah.mad, Sharh. al-Us.ūl al-­khamsa, Cairo: 1965, pp. 477–481. 110 Ah.mad Subh.ī, Fī ‘ilm al-­kalām, p. 176. The contemporary Egyptian writer Ah.mad Subh.ī agrees with al-Jabbār in saying that all the Mu‘tazila believed that God will not punish children or make them suffer on the day of resurrection. This, he says, is in harmony with their position on taklīf (responsibility): where there is no taklīf, there is no judgement and no punishment. He cites Naz.z.ām as saying that God would not punish children because that would by definition make Him an oppressor, which He is not, and Bishr as indicating that God has the capacity to punish him but would not unless the children were mature and responsible. 111 Baghdādī, ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Al-Farq bayna al-Firaq, pp. 115–116; Al-Shaharastānī, ‘Abd al-Karīm, Kitāb al-Milal wa-­l-Nih.al, p. 78; Richard M. Frank, Al-Ghazālī and the Ash‘arite School, London: Duke University Press, 1994. 112 Baghdādī, ‘Abd al-Qāhir, Al-Farq bayna al-Firaq, pp. 115–116. 113 Al-Ash‘arī, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn, pp. 290–297, II, 474; Jurjānī, Sharh. al-­mawāqif fī ‘ilm al-Kalām, VIII, p. 341.

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114 Mustafa Ceric, Roots of Synthetic Theology in Islam. A Study on the Theology of Abū Mans.ūr al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944), Kuala Lumpur: International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization, 1995; Ulrich Rudolph, Al-Maturidi und die sunnitiche Theologie in Samarkand, Leiden: Brill, 1996; Philip C. Dorrol, Modern by Tradition: Abū Mans.ūr al-Māturīdī and the New Turkish Theology (Diss.), Emory University, 2013; Salim Daccache, Le problème de la context du monde et son context rationnel et historique dans la docrine d’Abū Mans.ūr al-Māturīdī, Beirut: Dar al-Machreq, 2008; G. Vadja, ‘Le témoignage d’al-Māturīdī sur la doctrine des Manichéens, des Days.ānites et des Marcionite’, Arabica, Vol. 13, no. 1, (1966), pp. 1–38; J. Meric Pessagno, ‘The Uses of Evil in the Maturidian Thought’, Studia Islamica, Vol. 60 (1984), pp. 59–84; J. Meric Pessagno, ‘Intellect and Religious Assent: The View of Abū Mans.ūr al-Māturīdī’, The Muslim World, Vol. 69 (1979), pp. 18–27; A.S. Tritton, ‘An Early Work from the School of al-Māturīdī’, The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Vols 3/4 (1966), pp. 96–99. 115 M. Watt, Free Will and Predestination in Early Islam, London: Luzac & Co., 1943, p. 154ff.; Zafar Ishaq Ansari, ‘Taftāzānī’s View on Taklīf, Jabr and Qadar: A Note on Development of Islamic Theological Doctrine’, p. 73. 116 Ibid., p. 157. 117 R.N. Frye, ‘The Sāmānids’, in The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 4: From the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975, pp. 136–161. 118 Racha Moujir el-Omari, The Theology of Abū Qāsim al-Balkhī: A Study of its Sources and Reception, Leiden: Brill, 2016. 119 D. Urvoy, Les Penseurs Libres dans l’Islam Classique, Paris: Albin Michel, 1996, pp. 117ff. 120 Al-Māturīdī, Kitāb al-Tawh.īd, ed. Fathalla Kholeif, Beirut: Dar al-Mashreq, 1970, pp. 34–37, 152–153, 172–175; Ta’wilāt al-Qur’ān, ed. M.M. Rahman, Dhaka, 1982, pp. 25–27. 121 Ceric, Roots of Synthetic Theology in Islam, pp. 107–141; Salim Daccache, Le problème de la création du monde et son contexte rationnel et historique dans la doctrine d’ Abū Mans.ūr al-Māturīdī, pp. 181–334. 122 Ulrich Rudolph, Al-Maturidi und die sunnitiche Theologie in Samarkand, trans. Rodrigo Adam, al-Māturīdī and the Development of Sunnī Theology in Samarqand, Brill: Leiden, 2015, pp. 233–238. 123 Ibid., p. 239ff. 124 Taftazānī, Sharh. ‘alā al-‘Aqā’id al-Nasafiyya, p. 29. 125 Al-Māturīdī, Kitāb al-Tawh.īd, pp. 38–59; Taftazānī, Sharh. ‘alā al-‘Aqā’id alNasafiyya, pp. 49–57; Rudolph, al-Māturīdī and the Development of Sunnī Theology in Samarqand, p. 278ff.; Ceric, Roots of Synthetic Theology in Islam, p. 149ff.

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126 Al-Māturīdī, Kitāb al-Tawh.īd, pp. 10–20. 127 Ibid., p. 10, 201, 218, 221, 223, 224. 128 Ibid., p. 43. 129 Rudolph, al-Māturīdī and the Development of Sunnī Theology in Samarqand, pp. 302–303. 130 Taftazānī, Sharh. ‘alā al-‘Aqā’id al-Nasafiyya, pp. 80ff., 88ff.; Rudolph, al-Māturīdī and the Development of Sunnī Theology in Samarqand, pp. 304ff.; Jerome M. Pessagno, ‘The Uses of Evil in the Maturidian Thought’, Studia Islamica, 60, 1984, pp. 77ff.; Daniel Gimaret, Théories de l’acte humain en théologie musulmane, Paris–Leuven: L. Vrin–Peeters, 1980, p. 407. 131 Abū l-Mu‘īn al-Nasafī, Tabs.irat al-­adilla, ed. C. Salamé, 2 vols, Damascus, 1990–1993, II, p. 541. 132 Taftazānī, Sharh. ‘alā al-‘Aqā’id al-Nasafiyya, p. 88s.; Najm ad-Dīn Nasafī, al-‘Aqā’id, ed. William Cureton, as The Pillar of the Creed of the Sunnite, London: Society for the Publication of Oriental Texts, 1843; trans. into German by J. Schacht in Der Islam mit Auschluss des Qor’ans, Tubingen, 1931, pp. 81–87. 133 Pessagno, ‘The Uses of Evil in the Maturidian Thought’, pp. 76–77; Ansari, ‘Taftāzānī’s View on Taklīf, Jabr and Qadar’, p. 73ff. 134 Al-Māturīdī, Kitāb a-Tawh.īd, pp. 329–331, 336; Ta’wilāt al-Qur’ān, pp. 120–121. 135 Ibid., pp. 110–111. 136 Al-Māturīdī, Kitāb al-Tawh.īd, pp. 334, 339, 360; Ta’wilāt al-Qur’ān, pp. 156–158; Taftazānī, Sharh. ‘alā al-‘Aqā’id al-Nasafiyya, pp. 114–115; Marie Bernard, ‘Le Kitāb al-Radd ‘alā l-­bida‘ d’Abū Mut.ī‘ Makhūl al-Nasafī’, Annales Islamologiques, Vol. 16 (1980), pp. 108–109, 114–115. 137 Taftazānī, Sharh. ‘alā al-‘Aqā’id al-Nasafiyya, p. 115. 138 Louis Gardet and Bernard Carra De Vaux, ‘Basmala’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn, Vol. 1, p. 1085 139 Jerome M. Pessagno, ‘The Reconstruction of the Thought of Muh.ammad Ibn Shabīb’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 104, no. 3 (1984), p. 447; Wilfred Madelung, ‘The Early Murji’a in Khurāsān and Transoxania and the Spread of H.anafism’, Der Islam, Vol. 59 (1982), pp. 32–39. 140 Ibid., p. 446ff. 141 Al-Māturīdī, Kitāb al-Tawh.īd, p. 383; Ta’wilāt al-Qur’ān, pp. 176–179. 142 Ibid., p. 383. 143 Ibid., p. 274. 144 Eric Ormsby, ‘The Faith of the Pharaoh: A Disputed Question in Islamic Theology’, p. 8ff.; Roberto Tottoli, ‘Il Faraone nelle tradizioni islamiche: alcune note in margine sulla questione della sua conversione’, Quaderni di Studi Arabi, Vol. 14 (1996), p. 21ff. 145 Ibid., p. 9.

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146 Muqātil Ibn Sulaymān, Tafsīr, ed. A.M. Shah.āt.a, Cairo, 1979–1980, Vol. 2, p. 247, ‘ fa akhadha Jibrīl kaffan min h.as.ba’ al-­bah.r fa-­ja‘alahā fī fīhi’; al-Samarqandī, Tafsīr, Beirut, 1993, Vol. 2, p. 110; al-Mas‘ūdī, Akhbār al-Zamān, Cairo, 1938, p. 251; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qur’ān al-‘azīm, Beirut, Vol. 2, p. 667. 147 Roberto Tottoli, ‘Il Faraone nelle tradizioni islamiche: alcune note in margine sulla questione della sua conversione’, p. 21ff. 148 Al-Māturīdī, Kitāb al-Tawh.īd, p. 11ff.; Ta’wilāt al-Qur’ān, pp. 179–180; Salim Daccache, Le problème du creation du monde et son contexte rationnel et historique dans la docrine d’ Abū Mans.ūr al-Māturīdī, p. 299ff; Ceric, Roots of Synthetic Theology in Islam, p. 107ff. 149 Pessagno, ‘The Reconstruction of the Thought of Muh.ammad Ibn Shabīb’, pp. 448–449. 150 Pessagno, ‘The Uses of Evil in the Maturidian Thought’, p. 73ff. 151 Rudolph, al-Māturīdī and the Development of Sunnī Theology in Samarqand, p. 115.

3  Islamic Philosophy (Falsafa) and the Annihilation of the Non-Body Rationally Explained 1 Peter Adamson, Al-Kindi, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 23ff., 211 no. 3. On the relationship between al-Kindī and the Mu‘tazila, see the same text, from p. 21, and also from p. 102 on the Mih.na; Majid Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy, New York: Columbia University Press, 2004, p. 69; Richard Walzer, Greek into Arabic. Essays on Islamic Philosophy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962, p. 176ff. 2 Ibid., p. 32. 3 Abū Rīda, Rasā’il al-Kindī al-Falsafiyah, Cairo: Dār al-Fiqr al-‘Arabī, 1950, I, p. 97ff. 4 Hossein Ziai, ‘Islamic Philosophy’, in T. Winter (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Classical Islamic Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 61–62; William Lane Craig, The Kalām Cosmological Argument, New York: Macmillan, 1979, p. 19ff. 5 Herbert Davidson, ‘John Philoponus as a Source of Medieval Islamic and Jewish Proofs of Creation’, Journal of American Oriental Studies, Vol. 89 (1969), pp. 357–391. 6 Ian Richard Netton, Muslim Neoplatonists: An Introduction to the Thought of Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-S.afā’), London: Routledge, 2002, p. 9ff. 7 Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 94. 8 Majid Fakhry, Islamic Occasionalism: And Its Critique by Averroes and Aquinas, London: Routledge, 2007, p. 56ff. 9 Abū Rīda, Rasā’il al-Kindī al-Falsafiyah, I, p. 219. 10 Majid Fakhry, Histoire de la Philosophie Islamique, Paris: Cerf, 1989, p. 105.

Notes

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11 Al- Kindī, Rasā’il al-Kindī al-Falsafiyya, I, p. 273. 12 Ibid., p. 274. 13 Adamson, Al-Kindī, p. 158. 14 Al-Kindī, Rasā’il al-Kindī al-Falsafiyya, I, p. 265ff., 277–278; Histoire de la Philosophie Islamique, p. 107. 15 Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 86. 16 Adamson, Al-Kindī, p. 95. 17 Ibid., 108–109; Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 82ff. 18 Ibid., p. 115. 19 T.A. Druart, ‘Al-Kindī’s Ethics’, The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 47, no. 2, 1993, p. 336–339. 20 Fazzo S., Wiesner H., ‘Alexander of Aphrodisias in the Kindī circle and in al-Kindī’s cosmology.’ in Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, Vol. 3 (1993), pp. 119–153. 21 Al-Rāzī, Opera philosophica fragmentaque quae supersunt, ed. Paul Kraus, Cairo, 1939, pp. 281ff. 22 Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 102. 23 Ibn Khallikān, Kitāb Wafayāt al-‘ayān, ed. Muhyi ad-Dīn ‘Abd al-H.amīd, Cairo: 1948, pp. 242–247; Ibn ‘Alī Yūsuf al-Qift.ī, Tarīkh al-H.ukamā’, ed. J. Lippert, Leipzig: 1903, pp. 27–170; Al-‘Umarī and Shihāb ad-Dīn, Masālik al-­abs.ār fī mamālik al-­ams.ār, Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Mis.riyyah, 1986, V, pp. 301–303. 24 M. Guidi, La lotta tra l’Islam e il Manicheismo, Roma: Reale Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Roma, 1927, p. IIIff. 25 Al-Rāzī, Opera philosophica fragmentaque quae supersunt, p. 290ff. 26 Majid Fakhry, Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Mysticism: A Short Introduction, Oxford: Oneworld, 1997, p. 39. 27 D. Urvoy, Les Penseurs libres de l’Islam classique, Paris: Albin Michel, 1996, p. 151. 28 It is therefore important not to transform al-Rāzī into a secular free-­thinker who fully rejected Islamic prophecy and the Qur’ān; see Charles F. Butterworth, ‘Ethical and Political Philosophy’, in The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, ed. Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 272ff.; M. Rustom, The Triumph of Mercy. Philosophy and Scripture in Mullā S.adrā, New York: Suny Press, 2012, p. 164, n. 13. 29 Walzer, Greek into Arabic, p. 207; Al- Fārābī, Mabādi’ ārā’ ahl al-­madīnat al-­fād.ilah, ed. and trans. Richard Walzer, On the Perfect State, London: Kazi Publications, 1998, ed. and trans. into Italian (Massimo Campanini), La città virtuosa, Milano: Bur-Rizzoli, p. 91ff.; Majid Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy, pp. 121–122; Walzer, Greek into Arabic, p. 207. 30 Ibid., p. 91ff. 31 Ibid., p. 153ff; Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy, pp. 123–124. 32 Ibid., p. 177. 33 Ibid.

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34 Ibid., p. 181; Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 125. 35 Ibid., p. 183ff. 36 Al- Fārābī, Epistola sull’Intelletto, trans. Francesca Lucchetta, Padova: Antenore, 1974, pp. 104–105. 37 Herbert A. Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes on Intellect: Their Cosmologies, Theories of Active Intellect and Theories of Human Intellect, New York: Oxford University Press, 1992, p. 16. 38 Al- Fārābī, Mabādi’ ārā’ ahl al-­madīnat al-­fād.ilah, p. 205ff. 39 Term used to emphasize the understanding as a unifying social human factor directly connected not with the nation, but with a common religion or cultural background. The term millah, adopted as religion by al-Fārābī, is used in a more omnicomprehensive way with ummah. Mabādi’ ārā’ ahl al-­madīnat al-­fād.ilah, p. 313, n. 2. 40 Muhsin S. Mahdi, Alfarabi and the Foundation of Islamic Political Philosophy, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2001, p. 125ff. 41 Fakhry, Al-Fārābī, Founder of Islamic Neo-Platonism, p. 148. 42 Ibid., p. 149. 43 Ibid., pp. 153–154. 44 Al- Fārābī, Mabādi’ ārā’ ahl al-­madīnat al-­fād.ilah, p. 227ff. 45 Majid Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 129–130. 46 Al-Fārābī, Mabādi’ ārā’ ahl al-­madīnat al-­fād.ilah, p. 233. 47 Ibid., p. 233. 48 Ibid., p. 235–237. 49 Al- Fārābī, Mabādi’ ārā’ ahl al-­madīnat al-­fād.ilah, p. 245–247. 50 Majid Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 131. 51 Al- Fārābī, Mabādi’ ārā’ ahl al-­madīnat al-­fād.ilah, p. 243ff. 52 Ibid., p. 247. 53 Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy, pp. 130–131; Fakhry, Al-Fārābī, Founder of Islamic Neo-Platonism, p. 171. 54 R. Walzer, Al-Farabi on the Perfect State, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985, p. 466. 55 Al- Fārābī, Mabādi’ ārā’ ahl al-­madīnat al-­fād.ilah, pp. 251–253. 56 I. Alon, ‘Fārābī’s funny flora. An-Nawābit as Opposition’, Arabica, Vol. 37, no. 1 (1990), pp. 56–90. 57 Ibn Sīnā, The Metaphysics of the Healing, trans. Michael E. Marmura, Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2004; Dimitri Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition: Introduction to Reading Avicenna’s Philosophical Works, Leiden: Brill, 1988; Jean R. Michot, La destinée de l’homme selon Avicenne, Louvain: Aedibus Peeters, 1986, pp. 190ff.; Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy, pp. 132ff.; Jon McGinnis, Avicenna, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 178ff.; F. Rahman, Prophecy in Islam, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1958, p. 14ff.

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58 Ibn Sīnā, Kitāb al-Najāt (The Book of Deliverance or Salvation), trans. F. Rahman, Avicenna’s Psychology: An English Translation of Kitab al-Najat, Book II, Chapter VI with Historical-Philosophical Notes and Textual Improvements on the Cairo Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952, p. 167. 59 F. Rahman, Avicenna’s De Anima, Being the Psychological Part of the Kitab al-Shifa’, London: Oxford University Press, 1959, I, 5, 47.8–47.18. 60 Ibn Sīnā, al-Shifā: al-Ilāhiyyāt, ed. G.C. Anawati and Said Zayed, Cairo: Organisation Général des Imprimeries Gouvernementales, Vol. II, 1960, II, 7, 354.7–354, 16–17. 61 Ibid., 354, 16–17. 62 Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy, p. 150. 63 Ibn Sīnā, The Metaphysics of the Healing, ch. II, p. 100. 64 Ibid., p. 100–101. 65 Ibid., ch. III, p. 103. 66 Ibn Sīnā, Risāla al-­ad.h.awiyya fī al-­ma ‘ād, (Epistola sulla vita futura), ed. Francesca Lucchetta, Padova: Ed. Antenore, 1969, p. 16. 67 Ash‘arī, Abū al-H.asan, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn, p. 294. 68 Ibid., pp. 86, 110, 124, 274; ‘Abd al-Jabbār ibn Ah.mad, Sharh. al-Us.ūl al-­khamsa, pp. 611–734; L. Gardet and G. Anawati, Introduction à la Théologie Musulmane, Paris: J. Vrin, 1948, p. 49–50; Nader, Le système philosophique de la Mu‘tazila, pp. 3–5, 15, 294–309; L. Gardet, Dieu et la Destinée de l’Homme, Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1967, pp. 293–297, 302–303, 356–358. 69 Gardet and Anawati, Introduction à la Théologie Musulmane, pp. 60–61; Gardet, Dieu et la Destinée de l’Homme, pp. 303–304. 70 The information regarding the supporters of this position in Islamic Kalām was probably quite clear to Avicenna even though there are no primary sources that argued that; the only information referring to it is attributed to the famous article of G. Vajda, ‘A propos de la perpétuité de la rétribution d’outre tombe en théologie musulmane’, Studia Islamica, Vol. 11 (1959), pp. 33–34, which in turn does not provide extensive bibliographical references. However, if Avicenna has inserted this third group, it is clear that during his age there were some mutakallimūn who maintained the opinion described above. By analogy, and as clearly expressed by Francesca Lucchetta and by myself in this text, the Maturidian’s idea concerning the non-­eternity of Hell is evidently also supported by Ibn Sīnā. 71 The position of Jahm Ibn Safwān. Ash‘arī, Abū al-H.asan, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn, p. 148–149, 279; Al-Malat.ī, Kitāb al-Tanbīh, pp. 95–96, 134–137; Al-Baghdādī, Farq bayna al-Firaq, p. 210; Al-Sharastānī, Kitāb al-Milal, pp. 136–137; H. Laoust, Les Shismes de l’Islam, Paris: Payot, 1983; trans. Italian, Gli Scismi nell’Islam, Genova: Ecig, 2002, pp. 49–52. 72 Vajda, ‘A propos de la perpétuité de la rétribution d’outre tombe en théologie musulmane’, p. 38.

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73 Shlomo Pines, ‘La Philosophie Orientale d’Avicenne et sa polémique contre le Bagdadiens’, in Archives d’Histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge, Paris: J. Vrin, 1952, pp. 5–37. 74 Michelangelo Guidi, La Lotta tra Islam e Manicheismo, pp. III–XXVIII; F. Gabrieli, La Zandaqa au 1er siécle abbasside, in L’Elaboration de l’Islam, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1961, pp. 23–38. 75 Ash‘arī, Abū al-H.asan, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn, p. 46; Al-Malat.ī, Kitāb al-Tanbīh, pp. 27–29; Ibn H.azm, Kitāb al-Fis.al, Vol. I, p. 90; Al-Sharastānī, Kitāb al-Milal, pp. 785–786. 76 Ibn Sīnā, Risāla al-­ad.h.awiyya fī al-­ma ‘ād, p. 40ff. 77 Ibid., p. 50ff. 78 Ibid., pp. 60–61. 79 Ibid., pp. 62–63. 80 Ibid., p. 66ff. 81 Ibid., pp. 140ff. In this passage, Avicenna uses his medical knowledge to prove that it is impossible for the body to be the anniyya of human beings. 82 Ibid., p. 148; interpreted in a plural way. 83 Ibid., p. 144ff. 84 Ibid., p. 190ff. 85 Ibid., p. 204. 86 Ibid. This is also one of Avicena’s figurative interpretations of metempsychosis. G. Vajda, ‘Les notes d’Avicenne sur la Théologie d’Aristote’, Revue Thomiste, Vol. 51 (1951), pp. 346–406. 87 L. Gardet, La Pensée religieuse d’Avicenne (Ibn Sīnā), Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1951, p. 177. 88 The religious understanding of it is explained in R. Eklund, Life between Death and Resurrection According to Islam, Uppsala, 1941; Salman H. Bashier, Ibn al-‘Arabī’s Barzakh: The Concept of the Limit and the Relationship between God and the World, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2004. 89 Michot, La destinée de l’homme selon Avicenne, p. 200ff. 90 Ibn Sīnā, al-Shifā: al-Ilāhiyyāt, pp. 339.1–40.17; Catarina Belo, Chance and Determinism in Avicenna and Averroes, Leiden: Brill, 2007, pp. 38–51; Jon McGinnis, Avicenna, pp. 221–226. 91 Ibn Sīnā, al-Shifā: al-Ilāhiyyāt, pp. 341.17–342.3.

4  The Islamic Definitive Understanding of the Fanā’ al-Nār 1 Christian Lange, Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, p. 183.

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2 Gregorio di Nissa, La Grande Catechesi, ed. M. Naldini, Roma: Città Nuova, 1990, pp. 164–166. 3 Majid Fakhry, Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Mysticism: A Short Introduction, Oxford: Oneworld, 1997, p. 72. 4 Richard M. Frank, Al-Ghazālī and the Ash‘arite School, London: Duke University Press, 1994, pp. 71–72. 5 Ibid., pp. 72–73. 6 Al-Ghazālī, al-Iqtis.ād fī l-I‘tiqād, ed. I.S. Cubukcu and H. Atay, Ankara, 1962, p. 246ff.; Frank, Al-Ghazālī and the Ash‘arite School, p. 73. 7 Al-Nawawī and Yah.yā ad-Dīn, Une Herméneutique de la Tradition Islamique: le commentaire des Arba‘ūn al-Nawawīya, ed. Louis Pouzet, Beirut: Dar al-Machreq, 1982, p. 211; Muh.ammad Ibn Ismā‘īl al-Amīr S.an‘ānī, Raf‘ al-­astār li-­ibt.āl adillat al-­qā’ilin bi-­fanā’ al-Nār, ed. M.N. al-Albānī, Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1984, p. 134. 8 Al-Nasā‘ī, Al-Sunan al-S.ughrā, Vol. 4, book 35, H. 3882, Tabs.irat al-­adilla fī us.ūl al-­dīn ‘ala al-t.arīqat al-­imām Abī Mans.ūr al-Māturīdī, ed. C. Salamé, 2 vols, Damascus, 1990–1993. 9 Muslim, S.ah.īh. Muslim, ed. Abū Khalil, 7 vols, book 30, H. 5838, Riyadh, Maktaba dar as-Salam, 2007. 10 M. Rustom, The Triumph of Mercy: Philosophy and Scripture in Mullā S.adrā, New York: SUNY Press, 2012, p. 85ff (on Ibn ‘Arabī’s position on Hell’s pleasures). 11 George F. Hourani, ‘The Chronology of al-Ghazālī’s Writings’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 79, no. 4 (1959), pp. 225–233; ‘A Revised Chronology of Ghazālī’s Writings’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 104 (1989), pp. 289–302. 12 Nabil Nofal, ‘Al-Ghazali’, Prospect: The Quarterly Review of Comparative Education, Vol. 23, nos 3–4 (1993), pp. 519–542; Hourani, ‘A Revised Chronology of Ghazālī’s Writings’, p. 291. 13 F. Griffel, Al-Ghazālī’s Philosophical Theology, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 31ff. 14 Al-Ghazālī, Al-Munqidh min al-d.alāl, ed. Ah.mad al-Bābī al-H.alabī, Cairo: al-Mat.ba‘a al-Maymaniyya, 1891, pp. 38, 21–22, trans. Richard J. McCarthy, Deliverance from Error, Boston, 1980. 15 Al-Subkī, T.abaqāt al-Shāfi‘iyyah al-­kubrā, Cairo: al-Mat.ba‘ah al-H.usaynīyyah, 1906, vol. 6, p. 207, nos 2–3. 16 M. Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy, New York: Columbia University Press, 2004, p. 230. 17 Al-Ghazālī, Tahāfut al-Falāsifah, ed. M. Bouyges, Beirut, 1927, p. 354ff; ed. and trans. M. Marmura, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, 2nd edn, Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2002.

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18 Qur’ān XXIV: 35: ‘God is the light of heavens and earth. His light is like this: there is a niche and in it a lamp, the lamp inside a glass, a glass like a glittering star, fuelled from a blessed olive tree from neither east nor west, whose oil almost gives light even when no fire touches it, light upon light, God guides whoever He will to his light; God draws such comparisons for people; God has full knowledge of everything.’ 19 Ibn Sīnā, K. al-Ishārāt wal-Tanbīhāt, ed. J. Forget, Leiden: Brill, 1892, p. 126; trans. into French A. Goichon, Livre des directives et remarques, Beirut: 1951. 20 Al-Ghazālī, Mishkāt al-Anwār, trans. D. Buchman, The Niche of Lights, Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1998, p. 50ff.; H. Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, & Averroes on Intellect, New York: Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 130ff; W.H.T. Gairdner, ‘Al-Ghazālī’s Mishkāt al-Anwār and al-Ghazālī’s Problem’, Der Islam, no. 5 (1914), pp. 121–153. 21 Al-Ghazālī, Mishkāt al-Anwār, p. 52. 22 Christian Lange, Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, pp. 98, 226. 23 Ibid., p. 52. 24 A. Treiger, ‘Monism and Monotheism in al-Ghazālī’s Mishkāt al-Anwār’, Journal of Qur’anic Studies, no. 9, 2007, p. 1 25 Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, & Averroes on Intellect, p. 133. 26 Al-Ghazālī, Mishkāt al-Anwār, p. 52. 27 Al-Ghazālī, Tahāfut al-Falāsifah, pp. 3, 17, 28. 28 Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, & Averroes on Intellect, p. 142. 29 Al-Ghazālī, Mishkāt al-Anwār, p. 45. 30 Ibid., pp. 45–47. 31 Ibid., p. 47. 32 Gairdner, ‘Al-Ghazālī’s Mishkāt al-Anwār and al-Ghazālī’s Problem’, pp. 129–130; Al-Ghazālī, Mishkāt al-Anwār, pp. 48–50, 66–67. 33 Ibid., pp. 129–130; Al-Ghazālī, Iqtis.ād fī l-I‘tiqād, Cairo: Maktabāt al-Munīriyyah, 1933, pp. 101–102. 34 Al-Ghazālī, Fī Iljām al-‘Awāmm ‘an ‘Ilm al-Kalām, ed. M. al-Baghdādī, Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-‘Arabī, 1985. 35 Al-Ghazālī, Fays.al al-Tafriqa bayna al-Islām wa al-Zandaqa, ed. M. Bījū, Damascus, 1993; trans. Sherman A. Jackson, On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abu Hamid al-Ghazali’s Fays.al al-Tafriqa bayna al-Islām wa-­l-­Zandaqa, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. 36 Al-Baghdādī, Us.ūl ad-Dīn, Istanbul: Dār al-Funūn al-Turkiyya, 1928, pp. 234, 267, 335; F. Griffel, Apostasie und Toleranz im Islam, Leiden: Brill, 2000, pp. 187–199. 37 Jackson, On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam, pp. 43–44. 38 Ibid., p. 50. 39 Ibid., pp. 53–54.

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40 Ibid., p. 61. 41 Ibid., p. 117. 42 Ibid., pp. 116–120. 43 Ibid., p. 126; M. Hassan Khalil, Islam and the Fate of Others: New York: Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 33. 44 Al-Ghazālī, Iqtis.ād fī l-I‘tiqād, p. 172ff. 45 Al-Ghazālī, Ih.yā’ ‘ulūm ad-Dīn, 5 vols, Cairo: Dār al-Bayān al-‘Arabī, 1990, I, pp. 88–90. 46 Jackson, On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam, p. 128. 47 Al-Ghazālī, Al-Mustas.fā min ‘ilm al-Us.ūl, ed. M.S. al-Ashqar, 2 vols, Beirut: Mu‘assasat al-Risāla, 1997, II, p. 401ff.; Khalil, Islam and the Fate of Others, p. 36ff. 48 Al-Ghazālī, Ih.yā’ ‘ulūm ad-Dīn, IV, p. 73. 49 Jackson, On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam, p. 141, no. 70: ‘In other words, it is through the same mercy, by virtue of which most people enjoy health and relative prosperity in this world that most people, speaking again in relative terms, will enter Paradise in the Hereafter.’ 50 Ibid., p. 129. 51 Al-Ghazālī, Ih.yā’ ‘ulūm ad-Dīn, I, p. 108; IV, pp. 29–30. 52 Qur., VII: 46–49: ‘A barrier divides the two groups with men on heights recognising each grouped by their marks: they will call out to the people of the Garden, Peace be upon you! They will not have entered, but they will be hoping, and when their glance falls upon the People of the Fire, they will say, Our Lord do not let us join the evildoers, and the people of the heights will call out to certain men they recognised by their marks. What use were your great numbers and your false pride? And are these people you swore God would never bless? Now these people are being told, Enter the garden! No fear for you, nor shall you grieve.’ 53 Ibn H.anbal, Musnad, IV, p. 407; the comment in this note emphasizes that already al-Baghdādī, the famous Ash‘arite doxographer, in Us.ūl ad-Dīn, pp. 262–264, taught that the non-Muslims who have not been exposed to Islām before, but also after, the advent of it are candidates for Salvation, if their belief in the unity and justice of God is confirmed. This note is partially questioned and doubted by al-Ghazālī himself and its high level of criticism against early Ash‘arite’s ease of judgement and condemnation as already reported in Iqtis.ād, but also in Fays.al; see p. 96 of this text. 54 Al-Ghazālī, Ih.yā’ ‘ulūm ad-Dīn, ed. T. Winter, Vol. IV, Book XL, Cambridge: The Islamic Text Society, 1989, p. 255. 55 Al-Ghazālī, Al-Dourra al-Fākhira, La Perle Préciuse, trans. L. Gauthier, Lyon: Alif, 1995; trans. Pierre dalla Vigna, Tiziana Villani, La Perla Preziosa. La vita dopo la morte, Milano: Mimesis, 2005, p. 77ff. 56 Ibid., p. 80.

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57 Qur. VII: 6: ‘So we shall certainly question those to whom messengers were sent, and we shall question the messengers themselves.’ 58 Al-Ghazālī, La Perla Preziosa. La vita dopo la morte, p. 87ff. 59 Ibid., p. 107. 60 Ibid., pp. 107–108. 61 Al-Ghazālī, Ih.yā’ ‘ulūm ad-Dīn, Vol. IV, book XL, pp. 257–258. 62 Al-Ghazālī, Al-Maqs.ad al-­asnā fī sharh. ma‘ānī asmā’ Allāh al-h.usnā, ed. F. Shehadi, Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1971, p. 69; trans. D.B. Burrell and N. Daher, The Ninety-Nine Beautiful Names of God, Cambridge: Islamic Text Society, 1995, p. 57. 63 Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, & Averroes on Intellect, p. 132ff.; Eric Linn Ormsby, Theodicy in Islamic Thought: The Dispute over al-Ghazali’s Best of All Possible Worlds, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984, p. 131ff.; Frank, Al-Ghazālī and the Ash‘arite School, p. 28ff. 64 B. Abrahamov, ‘Al-Ghazālī’s Supreme Way to Know God’, Studia Islamica, no. 77, 1993, pp. 141–168. 65 Yahya M. Michot, ‘An Important Reader of al-Ghazālī: Ibn Taymiyya’, The Muslim World, Vol. 103 (2013), pp. 131–132; B. Abrahamov, ‘Ibn Taymiyya on the Agreement of Reason and Tradition’, The Muslim World, Vol. 82 (1993), pp. 256–273; Khalil, Islam and the Fate of Others, p. 74ff.; Jon Hoover, Ibn Taymiyya’s Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism, Leiden: Brill, 2007, pp. 156ff, 177ff, 224ff. 66 Hoover, Ibn Taymiyya’s Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism, p. 185. 67 Ibid., p. 192. 68 Ibid., p. 193; Ibn Taymiyya, Al-H.asana wa al-­sayyi’a, Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘ilmiyya, MF. 14: 318–319. 69 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Shifā’ al-‘alīl masā’il al-­qadā’ wa al-­qadar wa al-h.ikma wa al-­ta‘līl, ed. M. al-Sayyid and Sa‘īd Mah.mūd, Cairo: Dār al-H.adīth, 1994, p. 486. 70 Ormsby, Theodicy in Islamic Thought, p. 219ff. 71 Mustafa Ceric, Roots of Synthetic Theology in Islam, p. 107ff. 72 Ibn Taymiyya, Al-H.asana wa al-­sayyi’a, MF, 14: 234–239; Hoover, Ibn Taymiyya’s Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism, p. 197. 73 Ibid., MF, 14: 259. 74 Hoover, Ibn Taymiyya’s Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism, p. 200. 75 Ibn Taymiyya, Al-Jawāb al-s.ah.īh. li-­man baddala dīn al-Masīh., ed. M.H. Ismā‘īl, 2 vols, Beirut: Dār al-‘Ilmiyya, 2003, I, pp. 272–275, trans. and ed. T.F. Michel as A Muslim Theologian’s Response to Christianity: Ibn Taymiyya’s al-Jawab al-Sahih, Delmar, NY: Caravan Books, 1984; Iqtid.ā’ al-s.irāt. al-­mustaqīm mukhālafat as.h.āb al-­jah.īm, ed. M.H. al-Fiqī, Cairo: al-Mat.ba‘ah al-Sunnah al-Muh.ammadiyya, 1950, p. 36ff. 76 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Shifā’, II, p. 245; Khalil, Islam and the Fate of Others, p. 80. 77 Khalil, Islam and the Fate of Others, p. 80ff.

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78 Ibn Taymiyya, Al-Radd ‘alā man qāla bi-­fanā’al-­janna wa l-­nār, ed. M.A. al-Samharī, Riyadh: Dār al-Balansiyya, 1995, pp. 40–52; Jon Hoover, ‘Islamic Universalism: Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Salafī Deliberation on the Duration of Hell-Fire’, The Muslim World, Vol. 99 (2009), pp. 181–201; Muh.ammad Ibn Ismā‘īl al-Amīr al-S.an‘ānī, Raf‘ al-­astār li-­ibt.āl adillat al-­qā’ilin bi-­fanā’ al-Nār, ed. M.N. al-Albānī, Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1984, p. 21ff.; Caterina Bori, Ibn Taymiyya: una vita esemplare, analisi delle fonti classiche della sua biografia, Supplemento, N. 1, Rivista degli Studi Orientali, Vol. 76, Pisa/Roma: Istituti Editoriali e Poligrafici Internazionali, 2003, p. 167. 79 J. Van Ess, ‘Das Begrentze Paradies’, Mélanges d’Islamologie: Volume dédié à la mémoire de Armand Abel, Leiden: Brill, 1974, p. 121. 80 Ibn Taymiyya, Al-Radd ‘alā man qāla bi-­fanā’al-­janna wa l-­nār, pp. 42–44. 81 Ibid., pp. 51–55. 82 Ibid., pp. 53–56. 83 Hoover, Ibn Taymiyya’s Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism, p. 207. 84 Ibn Taymiyya, Al-Radd ‘alā man qāla bi-­fanā’al-­janna wa l-­nār, pp. 81–83. 85 Al-Māturīdī, Kitāb al-Tawh.īd, ed. F. Kholeif, Beirut, 1970, p. 97; Shahrastānī, Kitāb al-Milal wa l-­nih.al, pp. 36–37; J.M. Pessagno, ‘The Uses of Evil in the Maturidian Thought’, Studia Islamica, Vol. 60 (1984), pp. 68–69. 86 Hoover, Ibn Taymiyya’s Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism, p. 221. 87 Ibid., p. 224ff. 88 Ibn Taymiyya, Kitāb iqtidā’ al-S.irāt. al-­mustaqīm mukhālafat as.h.āb al-­jah.īm, pp. 439–468. 89 On Ibn ‘Arabī’s Fanā’ the literature is particularly abundant: Ibn ‘Arabī, Fus.ūs. al-h.ikam, ed. A. al-‘Afīfī, Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Arabī, 1946, pp. 94–95; al-Futūh.āt al-Makkiyya, Vol. 4, Beirut: Dār S.ādir, 1968; Khalil, Islam and the Fate of Others, pp. 54ff.; William C. Chittick, Imaginary Worlds: Ibn al-‘Arabī and the Problem of Religious Diversity, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994, p. 25ff.; ‘Ibn ‘Arabī’s Hermeneutics of Mercy’ in Mysticism and Sacred Scripture, ed. S. Katz, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 153–168; Rustom, The Triumph of Mercy, p. 21ff.; Abdul Haq Ansari, ‘Ibn ‘Arabī: the doctrine of Wah.dat al-Wujūd’, Islamic Studies, Vol. 38, no. 2 (1999), pp. 149–192; Samuela Pagani, ‘Vane speranze, false minacce: L’islam e la durata dell’inferno’, in Inferni temporanei.Visioni dell’aldilà dall’estremo Oriente all’estremo Occidente, Roma: Carocci, 2011, pp. 179–222. 90 According to Ibn ‘Arabī and in antithesis with Ibn Taymiyya, the S.ūfī’s master wanted to preserve Tawh.īd. The doctrine was based on two assumptions: one, there is an Absolute Being (al-­wujūd al-­mut.laq), identified as the Real (al-Haqq: God), which is both one and indivisible as the ground of everything in existence; two, before they are granted actual existence in the eternal world, all things of the phenomenal world subsist as potentialities in the Divine Mind.

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91 Ansari, ‘Ibn ‘Arabī’, p. 185; M. ‘Umar Memon, Ibn Taymiyya’s Struggle Against Popular Religion, The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1976, p. 35ff. 92 Ibid., p. 185. 93 Memon, Ibn Taymiyya’s Struggle Against Popular Religion, p. 44. 94 Taymiyya, Al-Radd ‘alā man qāla bi-­fanā’al-­janna wa l-­nār, p. 87; al-Bukhārī, S.ah.īh., Vol. 8, Book 76, no. 421; al-S.an‘ānī, Raf‘ al-­astār, p. 20. 95 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, H.ādī al-Arwāh. ilā bilād al-­afrāh., ed. M.I. al-Zaghlī, Damman (Saudi Arabia): Ramādī li-­l-Nashr, 1997, pp. 307–340; Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Shifā’ al-‘alīl masā’il al-­qadā’ wa al-­qadar wa al-h.ikma wa al-­ta‘līl, pp. 540–565; al-S.an‘ānī, Raf‘ al-­astār, pp. 21ff, 62ff. 96 al-Jawziyya, H.ādī al-Arwāh., pp. 318–322; B. Abrahamov, Islamic Theology: Traditionalism and Rationalism, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1988, pp. 12, 54; ‘The Creation and Duration of Paradise and Hell in Islamic Theology’, p. 96; Jon Hoover, ‘Islamic Universalism. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Salafī Deliberation on the Duration of the Hell-Fire’, p. 184. 97 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Miftāh. dār al-­sa‘ādah, Cairo: Dār al-h.adīth, 1994, pp. 12–17; Jon Hoover, ‘God’s Wise Purposes in Creating Iblīs: Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah’s Theodicy of God’s Names and Attributes’, Oriente Moderno, Nuova Seria, Vol. 90, no. 1 (2010), p. 114; another text in which Ibn Qayyim deeply criticized the Ash‘arite doctrine accusing it of having tried to explicitly disregard the Scripture in favour of rational arguments is al-S.awā‘iq al-­mursalah; at the same time, this text could also be considered that of Ibn Qayyim’s maturity in which Ibn Taimiyya’s mentorship is definitely abandoned to shape an independent awareness, Yasir Qadhi, “‘The Unleashed Thunderbolts” of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah: An Introductory Essay’, Oriente Moderno, nuova serie, vol. 90, no. 1; A Scholar in the Shadow: Essays in the Legal and Theological Thought of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, 2010, pp. 148–149. 98 Jon Hoover, ‘God’s Wise Purposes in Creating Iblīs’, p. 117ff. 99 Margaretha T. Heemskers, Suffering within the Mu‘tazilite Theology: ‘Abd al-Jabbār’s Teaching on Pain and Divine Justice, Leiden: Brill, 2000, pp. 150–55. 100 al-Jawziyyah, Shifā’ al-‘alīl masā’il, pp. 1146–1147. 101 al-Jawziyya, H.ādī al-Arwāh. ilā bilād al-­afrāh., pp. 324–326. 102 Ibid., p. 332; Moshe Perlmann, ‘Ibn Qayyim and the Devil’, in Studi Orientalistici in Onore di Giorgio Levi Della Vida, Vol. 2, Roma: Istituto per l’Oriente, 1956, pp. 330–337; al-S.an‘ānī, Raf‘ al-­astār, p. 25. 103 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Al-Rūh. fī l-­kalām ‘alā arwāh. al-­amwāt wa-­l ah.yā’ bi- l- dalā’il min al-­kitāb wa-­l-sunnah wa-­l-at.ār wa-­aqwāl al-‘ulamā’, ed. Khālid al-‘At.t.ār, Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, 1998; G. Gobillot, ‘Corps (Badan) Ame (Nafs) et Esprit (Rūh.) selon Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah à travers son Kitāb al-Rūh.: Entre théologie rationelle et Pensée Mystique’, Oriente Moderno, nuova serie, 90, no. 1 (1990), pp. 229–259.

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104 al-Jawziyyah, Kitāb al-Rūh., pp. 193–194; Gobillot, ‘Corps (Badan), Ame (Nafs) et Esprit (Rūh.)’, pp. 236–237. 105 ‘When your lord took out the offspring from the loins of the children of Adam and made them bear witness about themselves, He said: Am I not your Lord?, and they, Yes, we bear witness. So, you cannot say on the day of resurrection, we were not aware of this, or, it was our forefathers who, before us, ascribed partners to God, and we are only the descendants who come after them: will you destroy us because of the deeds of those who invented falsehood? In this day we explain the messages, so that they may turn to the right path’ (Qur’ān VII: 172–174). 106 al-Jawziyyah, Kitāb al-Rūh., pp. 214–215; Gobillot, ‘Corps (Badan), Ame (Nafs) et Esprit (Rūh.)’, pp. 243–244. 107 Gobillot, ‘Corps (Badan), Ame (Nafs) et Esprit (Rūh.)’, p. 244ff.; Le livre de la profondeur des choses d’al-H.akīm al-Tirmidhī, Lille: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 1996, pp. 223–226. 108 Gobillot, ‘Corps (Badan), Ame (Nafs) et Esprit (Rūh.)’, p. 246, n. 75; G. Gobillot, ‘Fat.ara et Fit.ra, quelques acceptions oubliées’, in En hommage au père Jacques Jomier, ed. Marie Thérèse Urvoy, Paris: Le Cerf, 2002, pp. 101–120. 109 Gobillot, ‘Corps (Badan), Ame (Nafs) et Esprit (Rūh.)’, pp. 252, 255–256. 110 al-Jawziyyah, Shifā’ al-‘alīl masā’il, p. 1195. 111 Ormsby, Theodicy in Islamic Thought, p. 217ff. 112 Abdul ‘Azīz al-H.arbī (b. 1965) is a Saudi Arabian Islamic scholar of Umm al-Qurā University who in 1990 tried to refute Ibn Taymiyya’s and Ibn Qayyim alJawziyyah’s arguments on the non-­eternity of Hell-Fire arguing that finally both continued to support the eternity of damnation. However, as Jon Hoover supports in an important article, the Saudi scholar failed, ‘Against Islamic Universalism: ‘Alī ibn al-H.arbī’s 1990 attempt to prove that Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah affirm the eternity of Hell-Fire’ in Birgit Krawietz and Georges Tamer (eds) Islamic Theology, Philosophy and Law: Debating Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2013, pp. 378ff., 390. 113 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Mukhtas.ar al-S.awā‘iq al-­mursala ‘alā al-Jahmiyya wa al-­mu‘at.t.ila, ed. al-H.asan ibn ‘Abd al-Rah.mān al-‘Alawī, Riyadh: Maktabat ad.wā’ al-­salaf, 2004, pp. 642–671. 114 Hoover, ‘Against Islamic Universalism’, p. 391ff. 115 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Zād al-Ma‘ād fī hady khayr al-‘ibād, ed. S.A. al-Arna’ūt. and A. al-Arna’ ūt., 6 vols, Beirut: Mu‘assasat al-Risāla, 1994, I, p. 68. 116 Ibid., I, p. 68. 117 Hoover, ‘Against Islamic Universalism’, p. 392ff. 118 Khalil, Islam and the Fate of Others, pp. 99. 119 Hoover, ‘Against Islamic Universalism’, p. 394ff. 120 Jon Hoover, ‘Withholding Judgement on Islamic Universalism: Ibn al-Wazir’s Ecumenical Agnosticism on the Duration and Purposes of the Hell-Fire’ (27 March

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2014). I really have to thank Prof. Jon Hoover for allowing me a preview of his article on this scholar of the ninth/fifteenth century. I would also like to mention here the website where Prof. Hoover’s full paper, presented at the Symposium of 28–29 April 2012 at the University of Leiden, entitled ‘Locating Hell in Islamic Tradition’, can be found (https://vimeo.com/45033581). 121 Hoover, ‘Withholding Judgement on Islamic Universalism’, p. 6. 122 Ibn al- Wazir, Īthār al-H.aqq ‘alā al-Khalq: Fī radd al-­khilāfāt ila al-Madhhab al-H.aqq min al-Us.ūl al-Tawh.īd, Cairo: Sharikat T.ab‘ al-Kutub al-‘Arabiyya, 1900, p. 194. 123 Ibid., pp. 284–285. 124 Hoover, ‘Withholding Judgement on Islamic Universalism’, p. 17. 125 al-Jawziyyah, Zād al-Ma‘ād fī hady khayr al-‘ibād, I, p. 488ff; this is also one of the main reasons why al-H.arbī’s intention to refute Ibn al-Qayyim’s non-­eternity of Hell is not particularly effective: the whole of the first volume of the Zād al-Ma‘ād is an eschatological provision of the behaviour and the events during Muh.ammad’s prophetic phase in which polytheism is historically detached from the same meaning assumed two, three or nine centuries later, during Ibn al-Qayyim’s historical period or even later, in the contemporary age of the Saudi scholar. The use of a text by Ibn Qayyim that referred to the Prophet’s age to argue about the non-­eternity of the Fire in a historical period in which this topic was far removed from theological development is methodologically pointless. The lack of historical critical interpretation is completely in disagreement with one of the main goals of this book.

Conclusion 1 Christian Lange, Paradise and Hell in Islamic Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, Leiden: Brill, 2016, p. 39ff. 2 Muh.ammad Ibn Ismā‘īl al-Amīr al-S.an‘ānī, Raf‘ al-­astār li-­ibt.āl adillat al-­qā’ilin bi-­fanā’ al-Nār, ed. M.N. al-Albānī, Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī, 1984, pp. 32ff, 65ff., Al-Ghazālī, Ih.yā’ ‘ulūm ad-Dīn, Vol. IV, book XL, p. 252ff.; Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Mukhtas.ar al-S.awā‘iq al-­mursala ‘alā al-Jahmiyya wa al-­mu‘at.t.ila, ed. al-H.asan ibn ‘Abd al-Rah.mān al- ‘Alawī, Riyadh: Maktabat ad.wā’ al-­salaf, 2004, pp. 642–671. 3 Tor Andrae, Mohammed: The Man and His Faith, New York: Dover Publications, 1936, p. 31ff.; Giorgio Levi Della Vida, Arabi ed Ebrei nella Storia, Napoli: Guida Editore, 2005, pp. 135ff., 147ff., 307ff.; Giancarlo Finazzo, I Musulmani e Il Cristianesimo: Alle origini del pensiero islamico (sec. VII–X), Roma: Ed. Studium, 2005.

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4 Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008; Ignazio De Francesco, Letture Cristiane del Primo Millennio: Efrem il Siro. Inni sul Paradiso, Torino: Edizioni Paoline, 2006; Geneviève Gobillot, ‘Corps (badan), âme (nafs) et esprit (rūh.) selon Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya à travers son Kitāb al-Rūh.. Entre Theologie rationelle et Pensée mystique’, Oriente Moderno, nuova seria, 90, no. 1 (2010), pp. 229–258; ‘Quelques stéréotypes cosmologiques d’origine pythagoricienne chez les penseurs musulmans au Moyen Âge’, Revue de l’histoire des religions, Vol. 219, no. 2 (2002), pp. 161–192; ‘Patience (S.abr) et rétribution des mérites: Gratitude (Shukhr) et aptitude au bonheur selon al-H.akīm al-Tirmidhī (d. 930)’, Studia Islamica, Vol. 79, no. 4 (1994), pp. 51–78. 5 Vasalou, Sophia, Moral Agents and their Deserts: The Character of Mu‘tazilite Ethics, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008, pp. 35ff.; Abd al-Jabbār, Kitāb fad.l al-­i’tizāl wa’l t.abaqāt al-­mu‘tazilah, pp. 156ff. 6 Taftazānī, Sharh. ‘alā al- ‘Aqā’id al-Nasafiyya, trans. E.E. Elder, A Commentary on the Creed of Islam, pp. 80, 88; Ulrich Rudolph, al-Māturīdī and the Development of Sunnī Theology in Samarqand, p. 304; Jerome M. Pessagno, ‘The Uses of Evil in the Maturidian Thought’, Studia Islamica, 60, 1984, p. 77; Daniel Gimaret, Théories de l’acte humain en théologie musulmane, Paris–Leuven: L. Vrin–Peeters, 1980, p. 407. 7 M. Rustom, The Triumph of Mercy: Philosophy and Scripture in Mullā S.adrā, New York: SUNY Press, 2012, p. 93. 8 Ibid., p. 100. 9 Ibid., p. 99ff. 10 Michael Winter, ‘A Polemical Treatise by ‘Abd al-Ganī al-Nābulusī against a Turkish Scholar on the Religious Status of the Dhimmīs’, p. 98; Samer Akkach, Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi: Islam and the Enlightenment, Oxford: Oneworld, 2007, p. 111ff. 11 Samer Akkach, Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi: Islam and the Enlightement, p. 114. 12 Winter, “A Polemical Treatise’, p. 103. 13 Saiyid Athar and Abbas Rizvi, Shāh Walī Allāh and His Times, Canberra: Ma’rifat Publishing House, 1980; M. Hassan Khali, Islam and the Fate of Others, p. 48ff. 14 Abdul Haq Ansari, “Shaykh Ah.mad al-Sirhidi’s Doctrine of Wah.dat al-Shuhūd”, Islamic Studies, Vol. 37, no. 3 (1998), pp. 281–313. 15 John L. Esposito and John O. Voll, Makers of Contemporary Islam, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 23ff.

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Main sources Encyclopaedia of Islam, 13 Vols, 2nd edn, Leiden: Brill, 1986–2004. The Qur’an, English translation by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Il Corano, Italian translation by Alessandro Bausani, Milano: Bur–Rcs, 1997. Le Coran, French translation by R. Blanchère, Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, 1999.

Index Abadan 20, 21, 134, 151 ‘Abd al-Malik, ibn Marwān (Caliph) 30 ‘Abd al-Razzāq al-S.a  n‘ānī (d. 827/212) 45 al-Mus.annaf 45 Abdullāh Yusūf ‘Alī 20, 21 Abrahamov, B. 1, 6, 67, 75, 155 Abū H.  anīfa, (Jurist) 38, 39 Abū Hāshim, al-Jubbā’i (d. 933/321) 72, 74 Abū Hurayrah 24 Abū Sa‘id al-Khudrī 24 Abū Ya‘lā, (d. 1066/458) 83 Adam, (Prophet) 8, 12, 23, 34, 45, 53, 63, 76, 79, 130, 144, 156, 157, 158, 163 Adamson, P. 98 ‘Adl 2, 19, 61, 90, 109, 116 Ahl al-Dhimma 24 Ahl al-Kitāb 69, 97, 131, 168 Ākhirah 1, 5, 19, 43, al-­amr b’il-­ma‘rūf wa al-­nahy ‘an al-As.amm, Abū Bakr (d. 816–817/200–201) 63 al-Ash‘arī 41, 61, 72, 75–84, 85, 86, 94, 95 al-Ibānah ‘An Us.ūl ad-Diyānah 79, 80 Ash‘arite (School) 22, 35, 39, 67, 76, 77, 78, 83, 84, 87, 89, 94, 97, 98, 100, 119, 121, 129, 136, 137, 148, 156, 157, 163, 166, 199 n.53, 202 n.97 Kitāb al-Luma‘ 81, 86, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn 41, 80 al-­munkar 61 al-Baghdādī, Abū Mans.ūr 41, 66, 70, 71, 76, 77, 137 al-Farq bayna al-Firāq 41, 66, 137 Us.ūl al-Dīn 70, 137 al-Baid. āwī 21 al-Balkhī, Abū Qāsim (d. 931/318) 85, al-Bāqillānī, (d. 1013/403) 76, 78 al-Bas.rī, ‘Abd Allah 30 al-Bas.rī, Abū H.  usayn (d. 1044/435) 67, 73 al-Bas.rī, H.  asan 29–36, 61, 63, 144, 145, 151 The Letters (Epistle) of H.  asan al-Bas.  rī’ 30

Al-Istighfārāt al-Munqidha min al-Nār 35, 36 al-Bist. āmī, Abū Yazīd 51 al-Fārābī 2, 53, 106–14, 115, 117 Al-­madīnat al-­fād. ilah 108–14 al-Fārūqī, Ismā‘īl (d. 1986/1406) 169 al-Fuwat. ī, Hishām (d. 845/230) 63, 74 al-Ghazālī 1, 2, 3, 5, 36, 45, 46, 52, 56, 61, 71–3, 78, 83, 84, 94, 97, 123, 129, 130–47, 148, 149, 157, 159, 161–166 Ad-Dourra al-Fākhira (attr.) 144 al-Iqtis.  ād fī l-I‘tiqād 129, 136, 141 al-Munqidh min al-d. alāl 132 al-Mustas.  fā min ‘ilm al-Us.  ūl 141 Fays.  al al-Tafriqa 6, 133, 136–146, 149, 163 Fī Iljām al-‘Awāmm ‘an ‘Ilm al-Kalām 136 Ih. yā’ ‘ulūm ad-Dīn 131, 133, 141, 143, 146, 163 Kitāb dhikr al-­mawt wa-­mā ba‘dahu 97, 133 Kitāb al-Arba‘īn fī us.  ūl ad-Dīn 83 Maqs.  ad al-Asnā fī sharh.  83, 146 Mishkāt al-Anwār 133–137, 143, 146, 163 Tahāfut al-Falāsifa 4, 132, 133, 135 al-H.  allāj, Mans.ūr 13, 49 al-H.  arbī, ‘Alī 159, 160, 161 al-­hawā 48, 49 al-H.  illī, Ibn al-Mut. ahhar (d. 1325/725) 156 al-Hudhayl, Abū 12, 63–7, 69, 70, 72, 73, 97, 151 al-‘Illiyyūn 118 al-Iskāfī (d. 853/238) 86 al-Jabbār, al-Qād. ī ‘Abd 30, 73, 74, 83, 84 Sharh.  al-­us.  ūl al-­khamsa 83 al-Jāh.iz. 48, 50, 70, 71, 72, 73, 95, 97, 141, 152 Kitāb al-H.  ayawān 71 al-Jubbā’i, Abū Hāshim (d. 915/302) 63, 67, 72, 74 al-Junayd 3, 45, 55–9, 134, 153, 157, 165

224

Index

al-Jurjānī, Abū Bakr 73, 74 Sharh.  al-­mawāqif 73 al-Jushamī, Hākim 30 al-Kharrāz, Abū Sa‘īd (d. 890/276) 58 al-Khayyāt.  41, 65, 69, 70, 72, 86 Kitāb al-Intis.  ār 41, 69, 70, 72 al-­kā’in 121 al-Kindī (d. 873/259) 53, 74, 86, 98–106, 114, 117 On First Philosophy 98, 99, 104 al-Malat. ī, Abū al-Husayn 42 Kitāb al-Tanbīh 42 al-Marīsī, Bishr Ibn (d. 833/217) 63, 64, 69 al-Māturīdī 3, 15, 77, 84–95, 97, 115, 127, 148, 152, 166 Kitāb al-Tawh. īd 84, 92, Rad. d.  Kitāb wa’īd al-­fussaq lī-­al-Ka‘bī 94 Maturidite (School) 35, 39 al-­manzila bayna al-­manzilatayn 61 al-Muh.āsibī, H.  ārith 40, 45–52, 54, 57, 59, 97, 127, 134, 153 tazkiya al-­nafs 46, 47, 48, 153, al-Baʿth wa’ l-Nushūr 49 Kitāb Badʾ Man Anāba ilā Allāh 49 Kitāb al-Mustarshid 49, Kitāb al-Tawahhum 49, 50 al-­muqarrabūn 163 al-Muqātil, Ibn Sulaymān (d. 767/150) 44 Kitāb al-‘ālim wa’l-­muta‘allim (attr.) 44 al-Murdār (d. 841/226) 48 al-Murrī, Sālih 40 al-Muta‘abbida, Lubāba (female mystic) 40 al-Mu‘tas.im, (Caliph, d. 842/227) 99 al-Nābulusī, ‘Abd al-Ghanī (d. 1731/1143) 168, 169 al-Najjār, (d. 815/199) 75 al-Nasafī, Abū l-Mu‘īn (d. 1114/507) 88 al-Nasafī, Abū H.  afs. ‘Umar (d. 1142/536) 78, 87, 88, 94 al-Nawawī, Muh.yī al-Dīn Yah.yā 34, 130 al-Naz. z. ām 69, 71, 72, 74, 86, 95 al-Qushayrī, ‘Abd al-Karīm (d. 1072/464 or 1073/465) 55 al-Rāzī, Muh.ammad Ibn Zakariyā (d. 925/312) 104, 105, 106, 117 al-Rewandī, Ibn (d. 911/298) 61, 72, 85, 119 al-­sābiqūn 163 al-Samarqandī (d. 983/373) 67, 94 Kitāb al-Sawād al-­a‘z. ām 94

al-S.  an‘ānī, ‘Abd al-Razzāq (d. 827/212) 45 al-S.  an’ānī, Muh.ammad Ibn Ismā‘īl al-Amīr 6, 39 Raf ’al-­astār li-­ibt.āl adillat al-­qā’ilin bi-­fanā’ al-Nār 6 al-Shahawāt 47, 50 al-Shahrastānī, ‘Abd al-Karīm 30, 70 al-Sijjīn 118 al-Sirhindi, Rabbānī (d. 1624/1033) 169 al-Subkī, Taqī al-Dīn ‘Alī 6, 160 Al-Rasā’il al-Subkiyya 6 al-Sulamī, Mu‘ammar Ibn ‘Abbād 17, 69, 70 al-T. abarī, Abū Jaʿfar Muh.ammad 44 al-Taftāzānī (d. 1390/792) 78, 84, 87 al-T. ah.āwī, Abū Ja’fār (d. 933/321) 81 Bayān al-Sunna wa l-Jamā‘ah 81 al-Tirmidhī, al-H.  ākim 3, 12, 37, 45, 52–4, 55, 57, 58, 59, 71, 97, 130, 157, 158 Kitāb al-­amthāl 54, 158 al-T. ūfī, Najm ad-Dīn 30 al-­wa‘d wa’l-­wa‘īd 61, 63, 127 al-Wazir, Ibn (d. 1436/839) 160, 161 al-‘Awās.  im wa al-­qawās.  im 160 Īthār al-H.  aqq ‘alā al-Khalq 160–1 al-Zamakhsharī 21, 74 Tafsīr al-Kashshāf 74 al-Zubayr Ibn al-‘Awwān 28 Christians 10, 19, 50, 54, 79, 118, 119, 136, 141, 150, 161, 167 ālam uns.  urī 119 Alexander of Aphrodisia 103 On providence 103 ‘Alī, Ibn Abū T. ālib 43–4 Ali Mourad, S. 30 Ambrose of Milan 16 ’Anas bin Mālik 24 Andrae, T. 7 annīya 65, 102, 121, 122 Aphraates the Monk 50 Apocatastasis 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 53, 54, 55, 62, 65, 158, 164, 165, 169 Apocastasis (Reintegration) 11–15 ‘Aql 48, 122, 127 ‘aql fa’āl 123 ‘aql mustafād 109, 115 ‘aql Qudsī 123 Aristotle 86, 99, 108, 111, 116, 142 Nicomachean Ethics 116 Atheists 135, 141

Index Clement of Alexandria 11 Stromata 11 Chrysippus 11, 13 Creatio ex nihilo 11, 99, Crone, P. 6 Cyprian 10 Dajjāl 98 Dante 126, 140, 142 Davidson, H. 146 De Francesco, I 7 Dhikr 30, 45, 97, 132, 133 Dhimmī 168, 169 Didymus the Blind 14 Dualists 119, 136, 142 Dunyā 19 Epharim, the Syrian 7, 50 Hymn of Paradise 7 Esack, F. 169 Eschatological Optimum 71, 126, 159 Evagrius Ponticus 14, 53 Eve 163 Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī 73 Fakhri, Majid 98, 100 Falsafa 2, 3, 4, 11, 49, 69, 72, 73, 74, 87, 94, 95, 97, 98, 106, 114, 127, 147, 165 Fanā’ al-Nār 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 17, 43, 51, 54, 58, 65, 68, 85, 97, 101, 127, 146, 147, 151, 160 Fanā’ – Baqā’ 45, 49, 58, 59, 66, 67, 68, 72, Fanā’ (Big Fanā’) 73, 78, 94, 95, 151 Fāsiq 21, 35 (munāfiq, munāfiqūn) 35, 36, 53 Faz. lur Rah.mām, M 6, 169 Major Themes of the Qur’an 6 Fiqh 37 Fiqh Akbar I, II, III, Was.  īyat Abī H.  anīfa 37–9, 40, 43, 178 n.50, Fitna 21, 29, Fit.ra 3, 34, 36, 52, 53, 54, 58, 149, 150, 157 Frank, Richard M. 41, 57, 65, 146 Galen 142 Gardet, L. 73, 123 Dieu et la Destinée de l’Homme 73 Gobillot, G. 1, 52 Greek Cosmology (Palligenesia) 9, 16, 165

225

Greek Philosophy 11, 100, 106, 108, 165 Gregory of Nazianzus 15 Gregory of Nyssa 10, 14, 15, 62, 128 Oratio Catechetica Magna 62 Guillame, A. 7 Haddad, Y. 6, 18 h. āl dhawqī 133 Hamza, F. 1, H.  anafite (School) 37 Hassan Khalil, M 1, 5, 150 Between Heaven and Hell 1, 5, 150 Islam and the Fate of Others 1, 5, 150 Hebrews (Jews) 54, 118, 136, 141, 142, 150, 161, 167 Heemskers, M. T. 156 Heraclius of Ephesus 11 H.  ikma 87 Hilary of Poitiers 16 Hoover, John 1, 6, 54, 160 Hourani, George F. 61, 62, 131 ‘Ibādat 123 Ibn ‘Abbās, Abd Allāh (d. 689/69) 48 Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, (d. 1070/463) 36 Ibn ‘Amr, D.irār (d. 815/199) 63, 64, 65 Ibn ‘Arabī 5, 6, 153, 154, 158, 164, 167 al-Futūh. āt al-Makkiyya 167 Fus.  ūs.   al-h. ikma 167 Ibn H.  anafiyya, M. 34 Ibn H.  anbal, Ah.mad 39, 75, 138 Ibn Mubarāk, (d. 797/180) 33 Kitāb al-Zuhd 34 Ibn Murtad. ā 6 Ibn Nadīm, al- (d. 995/384) 66, 75 Kitāb al-Fihrist 75 Ibn Qayyim (al-Jawziyya) 1, 5, 6, 52, 72, 147, 148, 150, 154–61, 165, 167 H.  ādī al-­arwāh.  ilā bilād al-­afrāh.  6, 154–60 Kitāb al-Rūh.  157, 159 Mukhtas.  ar al-S. awā‘iq 159, 160 Shifā’ al-‘alīl masā’il al-­qadā’ wa al-­qadar 150–9, 160, Zād al-Ma‘ād 159–61 Ibn Sab‘īn (d. 1270/668) 152 Ibn S.  afwān, Jahm 10, 12, 40–3, 52, 57, 62, 63–8, 72, 77, 97, 128, 134, 151, 152, 155

226

Index

Ibn Sīnā or (Avicenna) 2, 6, 14, 103, 114–26, 127, 131, 133, 135, 146 Al-Shifā: al-Ilāhiyyāt 116, Risāla al-­ad. h. awiyya fī al-­ma‘ād, 6, 118–24 Ibn Taymiyya 1, 2, 3, 5, 19, 24, 52, 72, 147–61, 164, 165 al-Radd ‘alā man qāla bi-­fanā’ al-­janna wa-­l-nār 1, 6, 150–4 Majmūʿat al-Fatāwā 52 Ibn ‘Ubayd, ‘Amr 62 Idleman Smith, Y. 6, 18 ikhtirā‘āt 69 ikhtiyār 41, 88, 92, 93, 103, 166 Ikhwān al-S. afā 99, 119 ‘ilm 45, 131, 133, 136 imām-­islām 21, 44 irāda 41, 103, 148 ‘irfān ‘ilmī 133 Isaac of Nineveh 16, 17, 50, 165 Isaiah, (Prophet) 9 ‘Īsā ibn Maryam (Jesus Christ) 4, 9, 10, 13, 16, 124, 144, 150, 157 isti‘ārāt 120 istighfār 130 isti‘māl 103 ‘istithnā’ 161 ittih. ād 134 Jabr 40, 63, 87 Jabre, Farid 45 L’Extase de Plotin et le Fanā’ de Ghazālī 45 Jahannam 5, 18, 33, 44, 52 Jahannamiyyin 22 Jahmite (Sect) 38, 39, 41, 42 Jannah 18, 63, 68 Jinn 20, 33, 54, 90 jizya 168, 169 Job, (Prophet) 7, 32 John of Damascus 17, 62 Kalām 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 24, 37, 39, 40, 46, 66, 73, 75, 93, 97, 116, 127, 131, 136, 159, 165 (Mutakallimūn) 1, 6, 55, 72, 97, 118, 136, 137 Karrāmiya 136 Kasb (Iktisāb) 75, 78

Khārijites (Sect) 28, 29, 33, 34, 37, 38, 43, 84, 89, 118, 178 n.50 khāt.ir 103 khidhlān 64, 88 Khuld-Khalada 20, 22, 25 Kufr (Kāfir, Kuffār, Kafirūn) 1, 21, 24, 53, 73, 83, 94, 119, 129 Shirk (Mushrikūn) 6, 24, 81, 83 Lange, Christian 1, 6, 74 Locating Hell in Islamic Tradition 1, 6 Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions 1, 6 Limbo (al-­a‘rāf) 126, 143 Logos 11, 13, 16 Luke (Evangelist) 10 Lumen Gentium (Enc.) 164 Ma‘ād 6, 14, 49, 73, 114, 115, 118, 121, 122, 123, 159, 161 ma‘ād al-­badanī 73 māhīya 65 Mah.mūd M. T. aha 21 majāz 120 Malachi, (Prophet) 8 Mālik Ibn Dīnār, (d. 745/127) 40 Mancuso, Vito 10 Manicheans 119, 142 Mark (Evangelist) 10 Matthew (Evangelist) 10 Maximus the Confessor 10, 14, 15 Disputatio cum Phyrro 16 Meier, F. 8 The Ultimate Origin and the Hereafter in Islam 8 Melcher, C. 58 Michot, J. 124 mithāq 8, 56, 57, 157, 158, Morris, S. Seale 7, 65 Muslim Theology: A Study of Origin with Reference to the Church Fathers 65 Moses 15, 92, 124, 144, 156 Muh.ammad ‘Alī, M. (d. 1951) 6, 169 The Religion of Islām 6 Muh.ammad, Ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib (Prophet) 73, 124, 136, 140 Muh.ammad, Ibn Shabīb al-Bas.rī 85, 90, 93 Mujassima 136

Index mumkin al-­kawn 121 mumkin al-­wujūd 122 Munkar/Nakīr (Angels) 38 muqaddar 149 Murjī’a (sect) 35, 37, 43, 44, 63, 89, 90 (irjā’) 91 Mushrikūn 6, 24, 83, 189 n.107 Mustad‘afūn 2 Mu‘tazilite (School) 5, 6, 12, 30, 36, 38, 39, 47, 48, 50, 52, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66–74, 75, 77, 79, 82–87, 89, 95, 97, 98, 103, 104, 118, 124, 125, 136, 152, 154, 159, 163, 165, 179 n.50 Muwah. h. idūn 44, 45, 46, 53, 56, 147, Nafs 46, 47, 48, 49, 64, 69, 71, 122, 134, 148, 153, 181 n.94, 181 n.98 nafs nāt.iqa 122 Nār (Hell) 18, 44 Ahl an-Nār 22, 24, 44, 151 New Testament Acts (3: 20–21) 9, 11, 164 1 L. Corinthians (15: 22–28) 11–12, 17 L. Colossians (1: 19–20) 12 L. Ephesians (1: 10) 12 L. Romans (5: 18, 11: 32) 12 L. Titus (3: 5) 9 Luke (12: 10) 10 Mark (3: 29) 10 Matthew (12: 31–32) 10 Niyya 31, 36, 75 Niz. ām al-Mulk 131 Nous 41, 45 Old Testament Isaiah (11: 11–12) 9 Job (19: 25–27) 7 2 Maccabeans (7: 9–14) 8; (12: 44–45) 8 Malachi (3: 6) 8 Sapientia (2: 21–23) 8; (3: 1–7) 8 Origen 10, 11–15, 17, 53, 65, 164 De Principiis 12 Origenism 11–17 Ormsby, Linn E 92, 146 Pagani, S. 1, 6 Paradigma (paradigmatic) 1, 3, 38, 42, 52, 62, 78, 87, 88, 95, 108, 113, 115, 131, 132, 136, 140, 148, 158, 171 n.3

227

Paradise/Hell eternal Hell 1–6, 18, 19, 20, 22, 29, 34, 38, 44, 63, 66, 94, 118, 155, 160 eternal Paradise 19, 20, 22, 29, 34, 38, 43, 44, 66, 85, 94, 118, 143, 155 eternal Paradise, not eternal Hell 1, 2, 3,10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 35, 45, 46, 49, 50, 51–2, 102, 154, 155, non-­eternity of Paradise and Hell 20, 23, 51, 52, 68, 74, 94, 154, 155, 165, Paradise and Hell (created before Day of Judgement) 42, 51, 63–7, 98, 155, 163 Paradise different from the Garden 1, 8, 33, 44, 63, 76, 79, 81, 87, 90, 154, 155, 156, 163 Purgative Hell (physical, place of soul’s attraction) 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 35, 45, 46, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 59, 69, 70–1, 81, 82, 83, 85, 89, 91, 94, 95, 97–8, 102, 128, 131, 144, 145, 146, 150–2, 155, 158, 161, 164, 166, 167, 168 the Garden (physical geography) 4, 8, 28, 33, 38, 42, 63, 64, 67, 74, 76, 79, 81, 87, 127, 156, 163 Paul (St.) 11, 12 Pharaoh (general figure, in Hell) 15, 33, 91, 92, 93, 94, 97, 142, 148, 156, 157 wa-­anā min al-­muslimīn 92 Plato 72, 100, 102, 103, 105, 106, 108, 109, 112, 127, 138, 142 Republic 102, 108 Theaetetus 103 Plotinus 14, 15, 41, 53, 56, 58 Purgatory 15, 51, 52, 62 Pythagoras 100, 142 qalab 53 Qatāda ibn Di‘āma 29 qismah 64 qist 2 Qur’ān, the II: 45 19 II: 62 154 II: 75–81 20 II: 117 19 II: 255–256 19 II: 282 27

228 III: 19 170 III: 178–182 31 IV: 13–14 20 IV: 31 91 IV: 78–79 148 IV: 99–100 141 IV: 123–124 19 IV: 171 157 V: 18–19 19 VI: 35 32 VI: 125 32 VI: 128 20 VII: 46–49 143 VII: 50 18 VII: 53 19 VII: 156 90, 167 VII: 172–173 157 VII: 178–179 33 VIII: 67 27 IX: 113–114 19 X: 27 18 X: 88 92 X: 90–92 91 XI: 34 32 XI: 106–108 18, 20, 44, 91,164 XI: 119 90 XIV: 14, 16–17 18 XIV: 28–29 31, 32 XVI: 29 89 XVI: 125 141 XVII: 85 158 XVIII: 49 31 XX: 50 89 XX: 120 20 XXI: 99 20 XXIV: 35 133 XXV: 15–16 20 XXVI: 100 19 XXVIII: 88 134 XXX: 40 164 XXXIII: 21 30, 37 XXXVIII: 75 79 XXXIX: 42 157 XXXIX: 53–54 82, 155 XL: 7 19 XLI: 28 20 XLIII:55–56 148 XLIII: 74 20 XLIX: 13 27

Index LII: 47 37 LV: 44 18 LV: 26 42 LVI: 42–43 18 LVII: 3 42 LVII: 13 18 LXIV: 9 20 LXVII: 8–9 82 LXXII: 23 20 LXXIV: 36–56 33 LXXVIII: 21–23 151 LXXVIII: 23 20, 25 LXXXIX: 27–28 118 XCIV: 14–18 82 XCI: 7–10 31 XCII: 15–1 89 XCVIII: 6–8 20 XCIX: 7–8 84, 91 Quwwa 75, 122 Rābi‘a l-‘Adawiyya 39, 40 Rah. mah, (God’s rah. ma) 3, 5, 46, 81, 84, 90, 130, 143, Rayhāna al-Wālihat, (female mystic) 40 Rid. ā, Rashīd 5 Robson, J 6, 20, 33, 151 Is the Muslim Hell eternal? 20, Roman, André 50 rūh.  48, 64, 158 Rustomji, N 6 Sabians 150, 167 Salvation of Children 19, 34–6, 54, 83–4, 91, 95, 124, 125, 143, 161, 168, 188 n.107, 189 n.109 sānih.  103 Schwarz, M 30 Seale, Morris S 7, 65 Shafā‘ah 80, 81,84, 144 Shāh Walī Allāh Dihlawī (d. 1762/1175) 169 Shahādah 49, 92, 93, 94 Shīrāzī, Mulla S 2, 167 Shī‘te (sect) 34, 178 n.50 Simon of T. aibūtheh 50 Smith, Margaret 50 Sunna (H.  adīth) 3, 18, 22, 25, 45, 46, 75, 81, 86, 118, 120, 130, 131, 139, 144, 145, 151, 160

Index tabdīr al-­juz’ī/tabdīr al-­kullī 103 takhwīf/ targhīb 66 taklīf 77, 157 takwīn 87 T. alh.a ibn ‘Ubayd Allāh 28 Taqwā 27 Tas.  awwuf 2, 57, tashtahī nafsuhu 49 Tawakkul 30, 40, Tawba 84, 91 Tawfīq 88 Tawh. īd (Tawh. īd ‘Allah) 2, 40, 44, 45, 47, 55, 56, 58, 61, 134, 152, 153, ta’wīl 137, 138 Taylor, John B 6 Tertullian 10 Adversus Marcionem 8 Theodore of Mopsuestia 10 Tikkun Olam (Repariment of the World) 7, 9, 169 Tomb’s chastisement 37, 38, 42 Treiger, A 134

229

‘Ubayda bint Abī Kilāb 40 Umma 21, 28, 29, 36, 43, 80, 108, 133, 170 Umm‘Alī Fātima (female mystic) 40 Us.  ūl al-Khamsa 61 ‘Uthmān, Ibn ‘Affān (Caliph) 43–4 Van Ess, J 151 Visio Beatifica (The Face of God) 12, 31, 45, 49, 52, 58, 66, 74, 94, 101, 104, 126, 128 Wah. dat al-Wujūd 152, 153, 164 wah. y 106 wājib al-­wujūd 122 Walzer, R 98 Wolfson, Austryn H 7 yahwā qalbuhu 49 Yawm al-Dīn 4, 98 Zindīq/Zanādiqa 137 Zoroastrian/Zoroastrianism 61, 62, 85, 165, 174 n.50