Jahmiyya

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Jahmiyya is a term used by Islamic scholars to refer to the followers of the doctrines of Jahm bin Safwan (d. 128/746).[1] The Jahmiyya particularly came to be remembered for advocating for the denial or negation of God's divine attributes (known as the doctrine of taʿṭīl)[2] as a product of their extreme beliefs regarding affirming God's transcendentness from limits, potentially following late antique Neoplatonist currents.[3]

Jahm and those associated with his theological creed appear as prominent heretics in Sunni heresiography, and to be called a Jahmi became an insult or polemic,[4] especially with respect to proponents of Ash'arism, who were called Jahmiyya on account of the accusation of fatalism and denial of God's attributes by Ibn Taymiyya and his followers, positions they say originated with Jahm.[5][6][7] The term has also been used to pejoratively label Mu'tazilites.[3]

The views of Jahm and his followers are rejected by the four schools of thought in Sunni Islam[8] and are not accepted across the spectrum of views in medieval Muslim theology, from the Ahl al-Hadith to the Mutazilites.[9]

  1. ^ Hoover, J. (1 September 2004). "Perpetual Creativity in the Perfection of God: Ibn Taymiyya's Hadith Commentary on God's Creation of this World". Journal of Islamic Studies. 15 (3): 287–329. doi:10.1093/jis/15.3.287.
  2. ^ Bunzel 2023, p. 100.
  3. ^ a b Suleiman 2024, p. 40–41.
  4. ^ Bunzel 2023, p. 95.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Holtzman 2016, p. 566n27.
  7. ^ Bunzel 2023, p. 299.
  8. ^ Crone 2016, p. 196–197.
  9. ^ Schock 2016, p. 56.