Ash'ari

OthersOthersAshʿarism or Ashʿari theology (/æʃəˈriː/; Arabic: الأشعرية‎ al-ʾAšʿarīyya or الأشاعرة al-ʾAšāʿira) is the foremost theological school of Sunni Islam which established an orthodox dogmatic guideline based on clerical authority, founded by the Arab theologian Abu al-Hasan al-Ashʿari (d. 936 / AH 324). The disciples of the school are known as Ashʿarites, and the school is also referred to as the Ashʿarite school, which became the dominant theological school within Sunni Islam. It is considered one of the orthodox schools of theology in Sunni Islam, alongside the Maturidi school of theology.A section of the people (i.e., the Zahirites and others) made capital out of their own ignorance; discussions and rational thinking about matters of faith became a heavy burden for them, and, therefore, they became inclined to blind faith and blind following (taqlid). They condemned those who tried to rationalize the principles of religion as 'innovators.' They considered discussion about motion, rest, body, accident, colour, space, atom, the leaping of atoms, and Attributes of God, to be an innovation and a sin. They said that had such discussions been the right thing, the Prophet and his Companions would have definitely done so; they further pointed out that the Prophet, before his death, discussed and fully explained all those matters which were necessary from the religious point of view, leaving none of them to be discussed by his followers; and since he did not discuss the problems mentioned above, it was evident that to discuss them must be regarded as an innovation.Sunni theological traditionsTheology of Twelvers3 Ashʿarism or Ashʿari theology (/æʃəˈriː/; Arabic: الأشعرية‎ al-ʾAšʿarīyya or الأشاعرة al-ʾAšāʿira) is the foremost theological school of Sunni Islam which established an orthodox dogmatic guideline based on clerical authority, founded by the Arab theologian Abu al-Hasan al-Ashʿari (d. 936 / AH 324). The disciples of the school are known as Ashʿarites, and the school is also referred to as the Ashʿarite school, which became the dominant theological school within Sunni Islam. It is considered one of the orthodox schools of theology in Sunni Islam, alongside the Maturidi school of theology. Amongst the most famous Ashʿarites are Al-Ghazali, Izz al-Din ibn 'Abd al-Salam, Al-Suyuti, Ibn 'Asakir, and Al-Subki. Abu al-Hasan al-Ashʿari was noted for his teachings on atomism, among the earliest Islamic philosophies, and for al-Ashʿari this was the basis for propagating the view that God created every moment in time and every particle of matter. He nonetheless believed in free will, elaborating the thoughts of Dirar ibn 'Amr and Abu Hanifa into a 'dual agent' or 'acquisition' (iktisab) account of free will. While al-Ashʿari opposed the views of the Mu'tazili school for its over-emphasis on reason, he was also opposed to the view which rejected all debate, held by certain schools such as the Zahiri ('literalist'), Mujassimite ('anthropotheist') and Muhaddithin ('traditionalist') schools for their over-emphasis on taqlid (imitation) in his Istihsan al‑Khaud: Ashʿarism became the main school of early Islamic philosophy whereby it was originally based on the foundations laid down by Abu al-Hasan al-Ashʿari who founded the school in the 10th century based on the methodology taught to him by his teacher Abdullah ibn Sa'eed ibn Kullaab. However, the school underwent many changes throughout history resulting in the term Ashʿari, in modern usage, being extremely broad, e.g. differences between Ibn Fawrak (d. AH 406) and al-Bayhaqi (d. AH 384). For example, the Asharite view was that comprehension of the unique nature and characteristics of God were beyond human capability. The solution proposed by Abu al-Hasan al-Ashʿari to solve the problems of tashbih and ta'til concedes that the Divine Being possesses in a real sense the attributes and Names mentioned in the Quran. Insofar as these names and attributes have a positive reality, they are distinct from the essence, but nevertheless they do not have either existence or reality apart from it. The inspiration of al-Ashʿari in this matter was on the one hand to distinguish essence and attribute as concepts, and on the other hand to see that the duality between essence and attribute should be situated not on the quantitative but on the qualitative level — something which Mu'tazili thinking had failed to grasp.