The Islam religion is primarily known for their belief in the Quran as their primary material of reference as it guides them in their daily conduct. The religion further believes in their first prophet Muhammad who creates an understandable link between God and His people. The Quran, the Islamic holiest book, presents a wide range of theological topics. This topic is tied to Muhammad’s biography, which created a great debate between the believers, leading to the division of the believers and intense rivalry. However, other scholars have established some theological teaching linked to Muhammad’s life experience in the Islamic era. These thoughts, such as fatalism, fire up the debate regarding God’s preexistence, plans, and human free will. With the differences in the theological teachings, the earlier Islam divided into Kharijites Sunnis and Shi’as.
The central division of these groups was based on the political and religious succession on how the Muslim community could be guided after the death of the chief prophet Muhammad. Kharijites, also known as al-Shurat, separated themselves from the Sunnis and Shi’as based on their solid political position, where they adopted a radical approach to communication. They further declared the Sunnis and Shias infidels and false Muslims, which further widened the gap during the first Islamic civil war. The Kharijites expressed their extreme hate and division by expressing that the rival group deserved to die.
The Islamic religion has different approaches and teachings with the division in faith. Among the earliest approaches discovered in early Islam is the Mutazila, the Ashari school, and Maturudi. The Mutazila were the first division that appeared in the early Muslim civil war after the death of the third caliph Uthman (Huda, 2001). This was the era when other Muslims were opposing Ali’s leadership, but the Matazila did not seem to condemn or sanction his leadership or his opponent; they took a neutral stand. The Mutazilas believed that reason and rational thought even to the use and existence of the Quran. They believed in God’s creation of the Quran, which raised a heated debate in Islamic theology, especially in the belief in Gods’ Omnipresence.
The Ashari school was later developed in the 10th century to counter the Mutazilas teachings. Their orthodox dogmatic approach agreed with the Mutazilas on reasoning to understand and interpret the Quran. However, they differed on reasoning in discovering the moral truth but revelation. Their stand was refuted by the third school of Maturidi, who believed that moral truth could be found through reasoning and not necessarily by revelation.
Ashʿarism as the most important and Influential tradition of systematic theology in Sunni Islam
Comparing the three schools, the Ashari school tends to have a firm reliance on God thus was adopted by most Sunnis. The Sunnis are the largest Islamic denomination, commonly known as Ahl as-Sunnah wa’l-Jamā’h or Ahl as-Sunnah (Frank, 1991). By adopting the Ashari school by the Sunnis, Ashʿarism became the central systematic theology by Muslims as its consideration followed the solid tie for God as an Omnipresent.
Comparatively, throughout history, human beings have had a strong belief in a Supreme being hence bestowing their faith in that Supreme being. Its central ideology has been based on the divine revelation from the unquestionable Supreme creator. However, faced with daily life experiences, humans have had questions about undertaking their activities. Some based their reason as the best approach, and others opted for revelation from the divine powers. Their claims contradict each other, prompting a disagreement in ideology and even physical fights. With people stuck in between revelation by the divine power and societal morals, it escalated a colossal debate which those firm believers of religion consider reason in some areas, but a strong belief in the revelation.
Most debaters agree that the main difference between the early Islamic theological schools has been ideological differences. Sunni Islam has been the leading adopter of the Kalam, a systematic theology considered to be the true tradition of Islam (Frank, 1992). However, they are faced with opposition from the Athari, who considered themselves the Islamic remnants. This raises more intuition to affirm if Ashʿarism still is the essential systematic theology in Sunni Islam.
With the sudden death of the prophet Muhammad, it can be depicted that the Muslims were not prepared to live without Him. The Muslims had a strong dependence on him for the prophetic translations, teaching, revelation, and Hadith in which the Islam based their faith in (Frank and Gutas, 2005). Prophet Muhammad is regarded as the writer of the Quran under God’s guidance; some hadith and teaching were not readily interpreted before His death. As such, his death left the Muslim in darkness, unable to translate all his teaching. To try to understand the Quran and apply it in daily life as a believer and good Muslim, the Kalam was introduced, which was based on speech.
The Kalam was often based on rational argument and debated the make conclusions. The Kalam followers and scholars falsified the Falsafa on their emphasis on the Greek text. They preferred using the Quran and Hadith only to fill any gaps that might have been realized in the Quran regarding daily life and decision-making. Frank explains that the gaps realized in the Quran are the attributes of God, the differences like the Quran. The revelation, the human free will of living and determination, and the nature of sin and faith.
The difference was on how to address the gap left by the created differences, which others regarded as orthodox. However, this cannot be true because the remaining Muslims were not anticipating the change or reverse of Prophet Muhammad’s teachings. Instead, an explosion of ideas created a misunderstanding between the religion. The first Misunderstanding was the idea of free will, where many Muslims had a deterministic belief that humans did not have the free will of living. They believed that God was in control of all human activities and had control of how men should think, believe and act. This belief upholds God’s power expressed in the Quran by Prophet Muhammad that God was in control of everything happening in the world.
However, the same freewill teaching is contradicted in the same Quran teachings that humans had a sure way to act so as not to suffer any consequences of their disbelief. Among those who considered this approach are the Qataris, who argued that if humans had no control over free will, then the Quran should not be dictating people to do specific actions to justify their beliefs. Their stand was also supported by the Kharijites and Ibadis, who linked free will to sin and belief (Namazi, 2017). In that man had free will in making their decisions. If these decisions were terrible, he could have sinned and was subjected to the consequences of sin. Consequently, sin and belief gave man freedom to choose whether to follow the Quran teachings or he is a Khaffir.
The Kharijites believed in the intimate connection between man, faith, and sin, where a man was responsible for his actions determining his faith and sin if he fell for any. This made the Kharijites believe that they were justified to kill Ali and those that supported or took no stand on this subject. Among those who took that stand were the Sunnis who had adopted Ashʿarism. The Asharis belief that it could have been wrong for the followers to prosecute their leader and sentence him to death because he disobeyed the sacred religious laws. As they were the true believers of revelation, they were to let God’s will be done as he could judge that leader and punish him accordingly.
The free will stand off the Asharis is further withheld by Ahmad ibn Hanbal who considered the orthodox approach as the best approach to Islam teaching. Ahmad argues that if people had the free will and autonomy to interpret the Quran texts based on their intellect was unjustified. He championed the traditional understanding of the scriptures in the Quran and Hadith. He believed in the traditional prophetic interpretation, unlike the Kalam, who followed other logical evaluations of the text and interpretation (Walzer et al., 1972). However, due to daily life experiences where one was required to make decisions, some of the Quran interpretations by Asharis and scholars like Ahmad failed to stand as it was not easily related in all events. Thus, it necessitated logic and evaluation to make some of the daily decisions.
The Asharism adopted by the Sunnis seemed not to address human curiosity in free will in decision making and other teachings even from the Christianity that upheld the Trinity. In an attempt to explain curiosity, they adopted a more approach meant to improve the human intellect (Griffel, 2018). In the third century, more scholars attempted the adoption of dialectic theology, although not directly in an attempt to lower and cure human curiosity. However, this approach seems to contradict the traditional Sunnis teaching, which purely believed in the literal translation of the Quran in daily lives. In defense of their ideas, these Scholars explained that they attempted to close the gap increasing between free will. They acknowledge both the supremacy of revelation and the rational approach where one can use their intellectuality to address their challenges and experiences.
Further, the idea of revelation in Ashʿarī by some Muslims was ignited when Ashari sided with Ahmad. Ashari was born and raised by a staunch Mutazilite stepfather. It was expected that he would continue defending the Mutazilite ideology as it had attracted many scholars of higher intellect though and gave people free will. Many believe that his sudden change of stand might have been due to the revelation of the idea which he strongly defended. Other scholars consider that through his behavior and actions, the idea of revelation might have been due to vivid dreams where he encountered Prophet Muhammad. With this change, he supported the traditional ideas associated with Ahmad but enforced it with the Kalam doctrines.
The enforcement and adoption of Kalam doctrines made more Sunnis consider his approach as they thought Ashʿarī, a strong defender of Mutazilite teaching, aimed to address the differences within the believers. Despite Ahmad getting more supports from other Muslims due to his prosecution by the state to accept the Mu’tazila school of laws, Ashʿarī considered the traditional approach too extreme hence taking a neutral ground (Thiele, 2021). The Mutazilite, with the aid of the government, consider the reliance of Hadith to fill the gap in the Quran as an unjustified approach. They saw that Ahmad and his followers could have fabricated some of the tales to suit their interests. This consideration justified Ashari taking the neutral ground. His approach could later be the most accepted teaching in the Sunni world.
In Asharis’s teaching, he explains that he has attributes that are neither Himself nor other than Himself. Ashari further explains that one should accept the Quran teaching as they are and realize that there are gaps in the Quran that require more reasoning to understand them. Additionally, he explains that the creation of the Quran might not be justified as, in essence, the Quran is eternal. So far, there was no contradiction between the two rival groups, Mu’tazila and Hanbals, led by Ahmad on the Quran is the literal translation of God’s direct word. The difference was in the period in which they came into existence.
Since Ahmad considered the Quran eternal as God was everlasting too who had no begging or end life, the Quran was everlasting and was his idea. On the other hand, Mu’tazila viewed the Quran as created as it was revealed to humans by Muhammad’s writings under God’s guidance. Finally, Ashʿarī closed the gap by stating that the Quran was uncreated, insisting that it existed as God’s knowledge to uphold God’s attributes, but through the words and sounds, the Quran becomes created.
Concerning the free will division, Ashari argues that humans had control through his neutral stand approach, but it was limited. The autonomy showed that God entrusted humans to make their decisions but gave them options from which they could choose. The theory favors Mutazila, who insisted that humans had the power to make their own choices, but it is also limited by Ahmad’s belief that God is in control of all options in human life. Thus, humans had the freedom to live, but their choices were limited to options controlled by God, and each choice had its counter actions.
Although not directly, the Asharims is supported by the later school of theology known as Maturidi. The Maturidi took influence from Murijia, although they are closer to Mu’tazila than the Asharis are. They insist that the human faith and action were not unconnected and only God knew one true belief of a person. Therefore, one should not judge the other based on their actions as only God knew his people spiritually since the faith does not increase or decrease based on action. The Maturidi explain that humans had a free will to decide what was good or bad without the aid of revelation or strict considerations of the Quran teachings and Hadiths, which Hanbalis widely accepted. The Maturidi approach can be equated to other philosophers like Frank argued that Ashʿarī did not denounce his early teaching of Mutazila. Ashʿarī was adopting the Alhaddith idea a general allegiance to traditional position cut not an affirmation that he adopted the Hanbalite traditionalism.
Initially, Asharism was considered less influential as it lacked enough scholars and followers to further champion Ashʿarī’s idea after his death. However, more scholars and followers from vastly different regions later emerged, showing that his teaching had spread widely. These scholars were discovered to have been disciples of one of Ashari followers, Abu’ l-Hasan al-Bahilī. These students are credited for laying the foundation for future Asharism. Although not directly, they are also credited for creating foundations that saw the eradication of Kalam in Andalusia, which served as a facilitator of the spread of the Asharism in that region. By eliminating another primary competitor, Kalam, it created more room and more influence on how Asharism could have been the best approach than other teachings, hence attracting more followers.
The Asharism were later faced with controversies and prosecution from some rulers; however, it was eased by the rise of Nizam al-Mulk rose into the leadership of Nishapur. Just like the early prosecution of Ahmad by Mutazila affiliated leaders, Ashari’s followers received massive political support for standing by their faith. Nizam, one of the followers of Asharis teachings, advocated the building of the first establishment of Islamic (Makdisi, 1981). Being an Ashirite, Nizam appointed more scholars in the highest school leadership positions, ensuring that students received the Asharism teaching, thus spreading this religion and gaining influence.
Makdsi could further discuss the approach as a strategy to infiltrate the traditional school of law established by Ahmad. Under the conditions in which the Asharis had been placed previously and even facing persecution but stood by their faith, by approaching the traditionalist, they received legitimacy hence highly welcomed and their ideas further overshadowing those of the Ahmad traditionalists. The dominance led to the opening of more Islamic institutions led by Ghazali, who moved beyond the bounds of traditional Asharism (Makdisi, 1990). Ghazali contributed mainly to the rise of neoAsharism, which withheld the traditional Ashari mode of Kalam adopted by most of his disciples. Since his teachings did not fully reflect Asharism doctrines, Ghazali doctrines did not represent Asharism in its typical approach.
Despite Makdisi attempting to prove that Ghazali approved the traditional theology of traditional Hanbalites, Ghazali’s actions were opposing. However, as per the teaching of Ashari where he insists that the public should not judge the leader on his action; only God knows his faith. Considering this thought, Ghazali was still regarded as supporting Asharism by faith (Ghazali.org, 2021). Moreover, with his more affiliates in his neoAsharism teachings and more students, his teaching was further accepted by those Muslims who supported Murjid as it was closer to their teachings.
With the growth of the Madrassa system, which has been in place up to this era, the Ashirsm gained popularity and other faith beliefs that believers must endure. The Asharis believers mostly depict the endurance they faced through many prosecutions and persecutions. Furthermore, the teaching on choosing the neutral ground to unite believers, unlike the extremist, further attracted the followers. As for today, Islam is asked to choose peace which is the teaching resulting from Asharism.
The Ashari theology is among the early primary theologies establishing itself as the most important, dominant, and influential tradition of systematic theology in the Sunni Muslim. The Sunnis being the majority in the Islamic religion shows that the Asharis was the dominant teaching in the central Islamic teachings (Paret and Carthy, 1954). As the theology influenced the extinction of other teachings like Murjid, Asharism established itself as the dominant religion. It was considered that it accurately translated Prophet Muhammad’s teaching and guided the Muslims on better living methods without being extremists or compromising others’ free will of life. The dominance was further increased by establishing better schools and Islamic institutions with mandatory Madrassa classes.
The main principle held by the Asharis is that God had attributes that were neither Himself nor other than Himself. This theory was set to solve the dispute between the Traditionalists, Kharijites, and Mutazila. They had a division whether God was like a human because the scriptures kept stating body parts like the hand of God. Ideologically they differed where traditionalists insisted on revelation and literal understanding while Mutazila and Kharijites instead that humans needed intellect evaluations to interpret the Quran teaching.
Further, the Asharis considered both antagonizing group ideas and insisted that the Quran was eternally depicting that it preexisted and not created. However, through words and sounds and its time, it was written by Prophet Muhammad was thus becoming created. Lastly, the Asharis supported free will but under restriction from God. They believe God has given people free will, but he has limited them on the options, and each has its consequences. The free will teaching has attracted more followers, with each Muslim allowed to pursue their intuition and strive to satisfy their curiosity but under restrictions of free will. Thus Asharism is considered by many Muslims as the best theology.
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