Bahshamiyya
Bahshamiyya (
Borne from Mu'tazila
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The
Two Schools
By the end of the 9th century Mu'tazila had split into two schools:
- 1. the Baghdad school Ikhshīdiyya - followed modifications by Abu Yaqub Yusuf al-Shahham, who adopted the idea of "acquisition" (kasb, iktisab), applied it only to involuntary human actions, God-being, in their view, in no way the "cause" of free human actions; for al-Jubbai, on the contrary, God retains Supreme Power even over the actions which man performs freely. But, unlike the later Al-Ashariand his teacher into conflict on the subject of the fate of the "three brothers"-one pious, one impious and one who died infans. In this issue was posed the problem of the rational justification of the divine Decree. Al-Jubbai was unable to reply with a coherent answer and al-Ashari left him to start his own school.
- 2. the Basra School Bahshamiyya - see below
Bahshamiyya ascendance
The Basra school was led by Abū 'Alī al-Jubbā'ī and his son Abū Hāshim. Students and followers of Abû Hâshim formed a sub-school known as the Bahshamiyya. The most noteworthy practitioners were:
1. Abū 'Alī ibn Khallād
2. Abū 'Abd Allāh al-Basrī
3. Abū Ishāq ibn 'Ayyāsh
Bahshamiyya Mu'tazila and Judaism
In Judaism (Rabbanite and Karaite) Bahshamiyya Mu'tazila was adopted in Sura and Pumbeditha Academies of Babylon, in varying degrees, from the 9th century onwards. Jewish Gaonim composed works which reflected Mu'tazila influence as well as translated many of the Arabic Mu'tazila texts into Hebrew (i.e. Yûsuf al-Basîr's al-Kitâb al-Muhtawî and Kitâb al-Tamyîz). The influence of Bahshamiyya Mu'tazila quickly became central to Jewish religious and intellectual life in the East - slowly migrating across North Africa with the Fatmimids and making it way to al-Andalus. Gaonim who embraced Bahshamiyya Mu'tazila included Samuel ben Hofni Gaon who was familiar with the works of Ibn Khallâd and Abû 'Abd Allâh al-Basrî as well as Saadiah Gaon.
Mu'tazilî doctrines and terminology provided a basis for discussion and polemical exchanges between Jewish and Shi'a scholars. Virtually banned from Sunnî Islam, Mu'tazila doctrine remains an integral part of Islamic intellectual history. The rationalistic approach of Mu'tazila towards reasoned theological issues led to the classification of Mu'tazilîs as freethinkers within Islam who had been deeply influenced by Greek philosophical thought and thus practiced apostasy and heresy. A similar attitude was assumed by Tosafists and Kabbalists towards "Jewish Kalam"
Discovery in Yemen
In the 1950s a number of manuscripts were discovered in the library of the Great Mosque in Sana'a, Yemen. These contained texts by Abû Hâshim al-Jubbâ'î, the Bahshamiyya; they also included 14 of 20 volumes of the encyclopedic Kitâb al-Mughnî fî abwâb al-tawhîd wa-l-'adl of
In the Yemen discovery, the Bahshamiyya School was erroneously believed to have constituted the last innovative and dynamic school within Mu'tazilism; Wilferd Madelung and Martin MacDermott discovered fragments of
Opponents of Bahshamiyya Mu'tazila
Dhammiyya
The
1. Ali was God, and,
2. Muhammad was his Messenger and Prophet, and,
3. Muhammad was to be blamed because he was sent by Ali to call the people to Ali, but called them to himself instead.
Dhammiyya Shia was one of the sects that was considered derived from the Saba'iyya followers of Abdullah Ibn Saba. The sect was also known as the Ulyaniyya or Alya'iyya, named after Ulyan or Alya ibn Dhira al-Asdi, and appear to have been active around 800 CE.
Ikhshîdiyya
Baghdadi Mu'tazili who fled Sunni Arabia to Egypt for safety under umbra of Shi'a Fatimid protection.
Kafuriyya
Indigenous North African Fatimids who were good enough to be recruited and die as soldiers yet excluded from Arab culture and society due to their skin-color.
Ka'biyya
Ka'biyya trace their name and origin to Abu'l-Qasim al-Ka'bi, a native of Baghdad. He refused to accept that Allah is all-hearing, all-seeing, and denied that Allah imposes his will upon man. According to his teaching, the will of Allah, in relation to the action of His servants, is the commandment to perform the act; therefore Allah's will in relation to Allah's own action is Allah's knowledge and the absence of constraint.
Abu'l-Qasim al-Ka'bi also maintained that the entire universe is a composite whole; that anything that moves is no more than the first layer of the physical bodies; that the human being, even if he were greased with oil and seemed to gliding on a sheet of oil, would not be what was actually in motion, since it would only be the oil that was moving.
He used to profess the doctrine that the Qur'an is muhdath [produced, originated—and therefore not existing from all eternity], but he did not refer to it as makhluq [created] - that would be apostasy and heresy.
See also
- Ash'ari
- Jewish Kalam
- Jahm bin Safwan
- Kalam
- Mihna
- Punishment of the Grave
- Islamic schools and branches
A systematic comparison of the doctrines of the Bahshamiyyites (and Abu l-Husayn), was written between 1141 CE and 1276 CE by Taqî al-Dîn al-Bahrânî. This text illustrates the influence of Abû l-Husayn had on theological reasoning of Imâmî Shî'a from the 12th century forward. The study of Jewish Mu'tazilism (Jewish Kalam) began within the last 150 years with the works of Schreiner and Munk. Schreiner and Munk, however, were not aware of the primary sources to be found among the various Genizah materials. Recent studies of Jewish Mu'tazilism were written by Harry Austryn Wolfson in Repercussions of the Kalam in Jewish Philosophy, and
References
- ISBN 978-90-04-07259-6
- ^ Frank, Richard M. "The Autonomy of the Human Agent in the Teaching of 'Abd al-Gabbar." Le Muséon 95(1982): 323–355
- ^ Heemskerk, M. T. "Suffering in the Mu'tazilite Theology: Abdal-Jabbar's Teaching on Pain and Divine Justice"
- ^ Hourani, George F. "Islamic Rationalism: The Ethics of Abd al-Jabbar". Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1971