List of Ash'aris

Ash'aris are those who adhere to Imam Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari in his school of theology. Ashʿarism or Ashʿarī theology[1] (/æʃəˈriː/;[2] Arabic: الأشعرية: al-ʾAshʿarīyah)[3] is one of the main Sunnī schools of Islamic theology, founded by the Arab Muslim scholar, Shāfiʿī jurist, and scholastic theologian Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī in the 9th–10th century.[1][3][4] It established an orthodox guideline[5][6] based on scriptural authority,[7] rationality.[8][9][10]

Al-Ashʿarī established a middle way between the doctrines of the Atharī and Muʿtazila schools of Islamic theology, based both on reliance on the sacred scriptures of Islam and theological rationalism concerning the agency and attributes of God.[1][4][7] Ashʿarism eventually became the predominant school of theological thought within Sunnī Islam,[3][4][11] and is regarded as the single most important school of Islamic theology in the history of Islam.[3]

Two popular sources for Asharism creeds are Maqalat al-Islamiyyin and Ibana'an Usul al-Diyana.[12] Asharism adheres to Theological voluntarism (Divine command theory), thus right and wrong can not be determined intuitively or naturally, since they are not objective realities, but God commands – as revealed in the Quran and the ḥadīth — what is right and wrong.[13] Good is what God commands and is by definition just; evil is what God forbids and is likewise unjust.[14]

  1. ^ a b c Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (2006). "Part 3: Islamic Philosophy in History – Dimensions of the Islamic Intellectual Tradition: Kalām, Philosophy, and Spirituality". Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy. New York: SUNY Press. pp. 124–126. ISBN 978-0-7914-6800-5. LCCN 2005023943.
  2. ^ "al-Ashʿari". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
  3. ^ a b c d Javad Anvari, Mohammad (2015). "al-Ashʿarī". In Madelung, Wilferd; Daftary, Farhad (eds.). Encyclopaedia Islamica. Translated by Melvin-Koushki, Matthew. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. doi:10.1163/1875-9831_isla_COM_0300. ISSN 1875-9823.
  4. ^ a b c Thiele, Jan (2016) [2014]. "Part I: Islamic Theologies during the Formative and the Early Middle period – Between Cordoba and Nīsābūr: The Emergence and Consolidation of Ashʿarism (Fourth–Fifth/Tenth–Eleventh Century)". In Schmidtke, Sabine (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 225–241. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199696703.013.45. ISBN 978-0-19-969670-3. LCCN 2016935488.
  5. ^ Frank, Richard M. (January–March 1989). "Knowledge and Taqlîd: The Foundations of Religious Belief in Classical Ashʿarism". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 109 (1). American Oriental Society: 37–62. doi:10.2307/604336. ISSN 0003-0279. JSTOR 604336. LCCN 12032032.
  6. ^ Glassé, Cyril, ed. (2003) [1989]. "Ashʿarī". The New Encyclopedia of Islam (3rd Revised ed.). California and Maryland: AltaMira Press. pp. 61–63. ISBN 978-0-7591-0190-6. OCLC 1291928025.
  7. ^ a b Frank, Richard M. (2020) [2007]. "Al-Ashʿarī's conception of the nature and role of speculative reasoning in theology". In Frank, Richard M.; Gutas, Dimitri (eds.). Early Islamic Theology: The Muʿtazilites and al-Ashʿarī. Texts and Studies on the Development and History of Kalām. Vol. II (1st ed.). London and New York: Routledge. pp. 136–154. doi:10.4324/9781003110385. ISBN 978-0-86078-978-9. LCCN 2006935669. S2CID 169898034.
  8. ^ Hoover, John (2020). "Early Mamlūk Ashʿarism against Ibn Taymiyya on the Nonliteral Reinterpretation (taʾwīl) of God's Attributes". In Shihadeh, Ayman; Thiele, Jan (eds.). Philosophical Theology in Islam: Later Ashʿarism East and West. Islamicate Intellectual History. Vol. 5. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. 195–230. doi:10.1163/9789004426610_009. ISBN 978-90-04-42661-0. ISSN 2212-8662. LCCN 2020008682. S2CID 219026357.
  9. ^ Halverson, Jeffry R. (2010). Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam: The Muslim Brotherhood, Ash'arism, and Political Sunnism. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 14–15. ISBN 9781137473578.
  10. ^ Weeks, Douglas. "The Ideology of Al Muhajiroun." Al Muhajiroun. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2020. 103-140.
  11. ^ Henderson, John B. (1998). "The Making of Orthodoxies". The Construction of Orthodoxy and Heresy: Neo-Confucian, Islamic, Jewish, and Early Christian Patterns. New York: SUNY Press. pp. 55–58. ISBN 978-0-7914-3760-5.
  12. ^ Richard McCarthy The theology of al-ash'ari 1953 Appendix IV
  13. ^ Brown, Jonathan A. C. (2014). Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy. Oneworld Publications. p. 53. ISBN 978-1-78074-420-9. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  14. ^ John L. Esposito The Oxford History of Islam Oxford University Press 2000 ISBN 978-0-199-88041-6 p. 281