Ibn Khaldun: Some Muslim Historians Invented Lies
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The outstanding Muslim historians made exhaustive collections of historical events and wrote them down in book form. But, then, persons who had no right to occupy themselves with history introduced into those books untrue gossip which they had thought up or freely invented, as well as false, discredited reports which they had made up or embellished. Many of their successors followed in their steps and passed that information on to us as they had heard it. They did not look for, or pay any attention to, the causes of events and conditions, nor did they eliminate or reject nonsensical stories.
- Ibn Khaldun, Foreword page of Al Muqaddimah
Ibn Khaldun, as most Muslims during his time took Al Quran and Hadiths as religious guidance. However, the difference between medieval Muslims and today's Muslims is that in the past, as Ibn Khaldun explained in his book Al Muqaddimah, apart from Al Quran and Hadiths Muslims also believed in something called 'Consensus'. So unlike today's Muslims the more enlightened Muslims in the past always investigated everything together using their common sense and knowledge. For example, if they encountered nonsensical stories like Muhammad dipped a fly into his drink and ate it, they would probably brushed the story aside as fabricated rubbish instead of thinking that it had to be followed because it is sahih Hadith so that is what Muhammad probably did.
Peace,
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I have read bits of the 'mutazilite' scholars and arnold posted some info on one of them a few days ago.....I think some of these scholars/philosophers were excellent and deserve to be studied,at least their reasoning is backed up by empirical proofs/evidences and in this respect they used the 'scientific' method which is so successful in the modern age.....we could learn much off their 'philosophical methods, which is maybe a part which is deficient in some modern scientists methodology......
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Greetings,
I have been thinking about the Mutazilites lately, although I don't know much of their philosophy, I find what I know of it to be very interesting. The first question I have in mind, is who came first the Mutazilites or the 'Sunnis'? I understood it at first to be the Mutazilites - which makes logical sense --but then in scanning some Sunni sites today I saw they they have written that the Mutazilites came after Sunni doctrine had been established and which they supposedly refused to accept. Which is true?
And if it were that the earliest Muslims had an understanding of Islam that is similar to Qur'an alone advocates of today, wouldn't that add strength to the viability and veracity of that understanding today among the general population of muslims? Or would a comparison just make things worse??
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http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu'tazila
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Thanks Jankaran - yes, that was the general idea I got....
and Arnold Yasin - I had already gone the wiki route, then looked up some general 'sunni' sites, but was left confused and wondered what people here had to offer on the subject.
Do either of you know more? What is the sunni opinion of the Mu'tazilites? I'm wondering if I can use a comparison of my understanding of Islam to that of the Mu'tazilites to calm the concerns of the sunnis around me and to give me a bit more 'breathing space' from tensions I have been facing...or will it just make matters worse??
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The Mutazilities were great heretics in the eyes of the Sunnists, just like us. However, ironically modern Sunnists will use them whenever its convenient to support their argument about 'Islamic Golden Age' even though according to their traditional Islam almost all of the enlightened Muslims of that era were basically heretics.
So in my opinion bringing up the Mutazilites might not help in a Muslim vs Muslim debate. Its like bringing up the more progressive Protestants when debating about Christianity with Catholics.
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Peace,
Mutazillies were great thinkers for their times and their "leader" Abu Muslim Asfahani was ahead of his time. Dr.Shabbir calls him the Parwez of that age.
They were condemned by the Sunnis as they upheld rational thinking above blind following, as did interupted the power of the Sunni schools, they did everything to undermine their authority. They were quickly pushed into the "philosopher" corner while they were closer to being Qadi's/judges.
Sunni's still condemn them as most view them as they view philosophers as Al-Kindi, but the Mutazilli thinking is gaining ground again with many Muslim intellectuals as their arguments for Adl/Justice and using reason to understand the mutashahbit/deeper meaning and mukham/straight forward verses and the balance between is so good, it cannot be refuted by any thinking mind.
Mufti Muhammed Abduh and Allama Muhammed Asad and most other modern thinkers were condemned as neo-mutazilli. To be labeled as Mutazilli is a way to make people not listen to you without condemning you as Kafir/unbeliever.
It is a bit of an escapegoat to undermine one's authority with the people without going so far as saying you are a kafir.
But I would not mind to be condemned as a neo-mutazilli, I see it as an honour. Plus it shows also that our way of thinking is as old as Islam itself.
Being rational is not new, but it makes you free which is disliked of course.
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Greetings,
Thanks Jankaran....
...And Arnold Yasin -
To be labeled as Mutazilli is a way to make people not listen to you without condemning you as Kafir/unbeliever.
It is a bit of an escapegoat to undermine one's authority with the people without going so far as saying you are a kafir.Thanks to you as well, for this is pretty much what I was hoping to read. I'm in a situation in life where I need to be understood to be any sort of a 'believer', for otherwise being perceived as a 'kafir' who has left her religion is not helping my day to day existence with people I need to deal with - and the entire subject of how and what I now understand and believe is not one I can really go into with the average folk on the street and in the family. But now I think I can more easily explain it (for the time being) by comparing my thoughts to those of the Mu'tazilites. Wouldn't you think? hmm
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Peace,
Yes, I do this too. Also most orientalists have a deep respect for the Mu'tazili scholars as they are seen as the most righteous of judges and philosophers and had a beautiful balance between reason and Scripture.
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peace all,
Re Mu'tazili
From my brief studies on this topic, it seems the Mu'tazili thinking/views had the dominant view in the very early days. This is supported by what I've read. See this thread
http//free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=7165.0827 = the authority of the state supports the theological teaching of the Mu'tazila, especially the dogma of the 'createdness' of the Koran. The traditionalist Ahmad ibn Hanbal (780-855) is persecuted as the representative of the opposition (ahl al-hadith) to rationalist theology.
813-33 ?cultural and scientific heyday? ?Suppression of the traditionalist piety of the ahl al-hadith in favour of the rationalistic dogmatics of the Mu'tazila.?Even if we say their view/thinking was not the dominant one of the time, it was certainly very significant at the time.
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Greetings Wakas,
Thank you for the link and sharing your research. It's interesting; however I noticed a discrepancy in the postings that bothered me a bit -- 'Sha' cut and pasted a text that said that al-Kindi (d. 866) was considered the founder of the 'school' -- but if that were so, it would throw off the other timelines. Do you know what's going on with this bit of 'info'?
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I think I see what you mean, al kindi was said to be the founder, but that's not true according to these
http//www.mutazila.com/ba/bio/mutazila/mutazila.htm
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-KindiEarlier experts had suggested that he was influenced by the Mutazilite school of theology, because of the mutual concern both he and they demonstrated for maintaining the pure unity (tawhid) of God. However, such agreements are now considered incidental, as further study has shown that they disagreed on a number of equally important topics.
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Selam!
Some new findings (the great Khutba of Wasil ibn Ata, translated in german), show that the story of "withdrawing from Hasan al Basri" was a sunni invention in order to
- Rehabilitate Hasan al Basri who was a Qadarite
- Demonstrate that the "mutazilites" were sectarians who left the sunni majority believe, which in fact did not exist at that time.
The Mutazilites of the first generations called themselves "Ahlu Tawhid vel Adl". The sunni name "Ahlu Sunna vel jema" was an answer to the first one. Most of the philosophers have shared some views with the mutazilites. Some of them (Al-Kindi) are supposed to be mutazilites (despite the fact that Al-Kindi didn't agree with them in every topic)
Literature
(i) Catalogues and Handbooks
Gregor Schwarb ?Un projet international le manuel des oeuvres et manuscrits mu?tazilites.?
Chronique du manuscrit au Y?men 2 (Juni 2006)Handbook of Mu?tazilite Works and Manuscripts. General Editors Sabine Schmidtke, Gregor
Schwarb, David Sklare. Leiden Brill (Handbuch der Orientalistik) (forthcoming).Sabine Schmidtke ?Catalogue of the Mu?tazili Manuscripts in the Abraham Firkovitch Collection
(Arabski-Arabski), St. Petersburg.? A Common Rationality. Mu?tazilism in Islam and Judaism. Eds.
Camilla Adang, Sabine Schmidtke & David Sklare. W?rzburg Ergon (forthcoming).(ii) Editions
Abu l-Qasim al-Busti Kitab al-Bahth ?an adillat al-takfir wa l-tafsiq (Investigation of the evidence for
charging with kufr and fisq). Edited with an Introduction by Wilferd Madelung & Sabine
Schmidtke. Tehran Iran University Press, 1382/2004.Sabine Schmidtke ?Re-Edition of al-Minhaj fi usul al-din by Jar Allah al-Zamakhshari.?
Ma?arif 20 iii (1382/2004), pp. 107-148Yusuf al-Basir Das Buch der Unterscheidung. Jud?o-arabisch ? Deutsch. ?bersetzt und eingeleitet
von Wolfgang von Abel. Freiburg Herder, 2005.Abu l-Husayn al-Basri Tasaffuh al-adilla. The extant parts introduced and edited by Wilferd
Madelung & Sabine Schmidtke. Wiesbaden Harrassowitz, 2006.An Anonymous Commentary on Kitab al-Tadhkira by Ibn Mattawayh. Facsimile Edition of Mahdavi Codex
514 (6th/12th Century). Introduction and Indices by Sabine Schmidtke. Tehran Iranian Institute
of Philosophy & Institute of Islamic Studies, Free University of Berlin, 2006. (Series on
Islamic Philosophy and Theology. Texts and Studies; 1)Khulasat al-nazar. An Anonymous Imami-Mu?tazili Treatise (late 6th/12th or early 7th/13th century). Edited
with an Introduction by Sabine Schmidtke and Hasan Ansari. Tehran Iranian Institute of
Philosophy & Institute of Islamic Studies, Free University of Berlin, 2006. (Series on Islamic
Philosophy and Theology. Texts and Studies; 2)Omar Hamdan & Sabine Schmidtke ?Qadi ?Abd al-Jabbar al-Hamadhani (d. 415/1025) on the
Promise and Threat. An Edition of a Fragment of his Kitab al-Mughni fi abwab al-tawhid wa l-?adl
preserved in the Firkovitch-Collection, St. Petersburg (II Firk. Arab. 105, ff. 14-92).? M?langes
de l?Institut dominicain d?Etudes orientales 27 (2006) (in press).Rukn al-Din Ibn al-Malahimi al-Khwarazmi Kitab al-Fa?iq fi usul al-din. Edited with an
Introduction by Wilferd Madelung and Martin McDermott Tehran Iranian Institute of
Philosophy & Institute of Islamic Studies, Free University of Berlin (in press)Rukn al-Din Ibn al-Malahimi al-Khwarazmi Tuhfat al-mutakallimin fi l-radd ala l-falasifa. Edited
with an Introduction by Wilferd Madelung, Hasan Ansari and Sabine Schmidtke. Tehran
Iranian Institute of Philosophy & Institute of Islamic Studies, Free University of Berlin
(forthcoming)Rukn al-Din Ibn al-Malahimi al-Khwarazmi Kitab al-Mu?tamad fi usul al-din. Revised and enlarged
edition by Wilferd Madelung. Tehran Iranian Institute of Philosophy & Institute of Islamic
Studies, Free University of Berlin (forthcoming)(iii) Studies
Sabine Schmidtke ?II Firk. Arab. 111 ? A copy of al-Sharif al-Murtada?s Kitab al-Dhakhira
completed in 472/1079-80 in the Firkovitch-Collection, St. Petersburg.? Ma?arif 20
ii (1382/2003), pp. 68-84.Margaretha T. Heemskerk ?A Mu?tazilite Refutation of Christianity and Judaism. Two
Fragments from ?Abd al-Jabbar?s al-Mughni fi abwab al-tawhid wa-l-?adl.? In The Three Rings.
Textual Studies in the Historical Trialogue of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Eds. B. Roggema, M.
Poorthuis and P. Valkenberg. Leuven 2005, pp. 183-201.Wilferd Madelung ?Abu l-Husayn al-Basri?s proof of the existence of God.? Arabic Theology,
Arabic Philosophy, from the Many to the One. Essays in Celebration of Richard M. Frank. Ed. James
Montgomery. Leuven 2006, pp. 273-80.Wilferd Madelung & Sabine Schmidtke Rational Theology in Interfaith Communication. Abu l-Husayn
al-Basri's Mu?tazili Theology among the Karaites in the Fatimid Age. Leiden Brill, 2006.Sabine Schmidtke ?The Karaites? Encounter with the Thought of Abu l-Husayn al-Basri (d.
436/1044). A Survey of the Relevant Materials in the Firkovitch-Collection, St. Petersburg.?
Arabica 53 (2006), pp. 108-42.A Common Rationality. Mu?tazilism in Islam and Judaism. Eds. Camilla Adang, Sabine Schmidtke &
David Sklare. W?rzburg Ergon (Istanbuler Texte und Studien) (forthcoming)Gregor Schwarb ?D?couverte d?un nouveau fragment du Kitab al-mughni fi abwab al-tawhid
wa-l-adl du Qadi Abd al-Jabbar al-Hamadani dans une collection kara?te de la British Library.?
M?langes de l?Institut d?Etudes Orientales 27 (2006) (forthcoming)Gregor Schwarb ?Sahl b. al-Fadl al-Tustari?s K. al-ima.? Ginzei Qedem 2 (2006) (forthcoming)
Thomas Hildebrandt Neo-Mu?tazilismus? Intention und Kontext im modernen arabischen Umgang mit dem
wiederentdeckten rationalistisch-theologischen Erbe des Islam. Leiden Brill (forthcoming)Futher readings
http//www.muslimphilosophy.com/
amazone!
