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The Aš‘arite Ontology: I Primary Entities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Richard M. Frank
Richard M. Frank
Affiliation:
The Catholic University of America, Department of Semitic and Egyptian Languages, Washington DC 20064, U.S.A.
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Abstract

The present study seeks to lay out the most basic elements of the ontology of classical Aš‘arite theology. In several cases this requires a careful examination of the traditional and the formal lexicography of certain key expressions. The topics primarily treated are: (1) how they understood “Being/ existence” and “being/existent” and essential natures; the systematic exploitation of the equivocities of certain expressions (e.g., ḫaqīqa, ḫadd, ma‘na) within a general context in which other than words there are no universals proves to be elegant as well as insightful; (2) the basic categories of primary entities: independant beings and nonindependant beings, (a) created and (b) uncreated, the equivocity of “being/existent” as predicated of contingent entities on the one hand and of God and His attributes on the other, and certain problems that arise because of the rigid application of the system's underlying analytic principles.

Nous essayons ici de presenter les éléments fondamentaux de l'ontologie de l'aš‘arisme classique. Pour quelques expressions, il a fallu examiner la lexicographie et ordinaire et technique pour bien comprendre leur emploi et leur signification. Les sujets examinés sont: (1) le sens de “Etre/existence” et de “être/existant” et le concept de réalité essentielle; l'emploi nuancé des équivocités de quelques expressions (e.g., ḫaqiqa, ḫadd, ma‘nā) dans un contexte où les seuls universaux sont des mots, emploi qui se révèle philosophiquement élégant; (2) les catégories fondamentales des êtres: (a) êtres indépendants et (b) êtres non-indépendants, soit créés soit incréés, l'équivocité de “être/existant” dit des êtres contingents d'une part, de Dieu et ses attributs d'autre part, et enfin quelques difficultiés qui résultent de l'application rigide des principes analytiques du système.

Type
Research Article
Information
Arabic Sciences and Philosophy , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , September 1999 , pp. 163 - 231
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

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References

1 Accordingly, the notions of ontologically distinct “states” (ahwāl) as held by al-Bāqillānī and al-Ǧuwaynī will not be treated. Nor will be offer more than a very elementary discussion of the concepts and terminology that have to do with relationships of primary entities, e.g., those that involve matters such as an atom's being blck or a cognition's realtionship to its object, and the like, for these are topics that embrace a number of complex issues about which there were disagreements on various levels.

2 Al-Bāqillānī, al-Tamhīd, K. [hereafter Tam], ed McCarthy, R. (Beyrouth, 1957), p. 234, 7f.Google Scholar (‘description’ is there singular since these terms are taken as synonymous). The reason that some, including al-Bāqillānī, do not hold these to be the most universal is that ’ and several others may be used of both the existent and the non-existant, while these, according to common Aš‘arite doctrine, are used only of the actually existent; cf. Fūrak, AbūBakr ibn, Muǧarrad maqālāt al-Aš‘arī [hereafter Muǧ], ed. Gimaret, D. (Beyrouth, 1987), pp. 252, 4ff.Google Scholar and 255, 4ff. To predicate ‘šay” fo a non-existennt (i.e., a possible or imagined) being is to use the word in an extended sense (tawassu‘;ibid., p. 253, 12f. and al-Qušayrī, Latā'if al-išārāt, ed. Busyūnī, I., 6 vols. Cairo, 1968-1971), 4, p. 200, 13ff.Google Scholar (ad al-Qur'ān, 22.1). Note that, following the usage of the gramarians, ‘ism’ is employed as a term for all nominal forms, including verbal adjectives, both active and passive, which are used as attributives and/or predicates. Our rendering of the word, therefore, varies according to what seems most appropriate in each context. ‘šay” and the other words under discussion here are taken up in a somewhat different perspective in Gimaret, D., Les Noms divins en Isalm, (Paris, 1988), pp. 133ff.Google Scholar

3 Al-Mubarrad, K., al-Muqutaḍab, ed. 'Udayma, M. A., 4 vols. (Cairo, 1964–1968), vol. 4, p. 280.Google Scholar[The indefinite noun] “is not particular to one individual of a class apart from all the others, e.g., ‘man’, ‘horse’ …” (Mubarrad 4, p. 276);Google Scholar “the most indefinite of nouns is ‘šay” for it is non-specific with respect to all things (ankaru al-asmā'i qawlu al-qā'ili šay'un li-annahu mubhamun fi al-ašyā: ibid. 3, p. 186), Similarly al-Zaǧǧāgī, Abū al-Qāsim says (al-Ǧumal fi al-naḥw, ed. al-Ḥamad, A.T. [Beyrouth, 1984], p. 178)Google Scholar “‘šsay” is the most indefinite of indefinites, then ‘ǧawharun’, then ‘body’, then ‘animal’, then ‘human being’ (insān), then ‘man’ (raǧul);” cp. also Ištiqāq asmā' Allāh, ed. Mubārak, A.H. (Cairo, 1974), p. 466,Google Scholar ult. The occurence of ‘ǧawhar’ has in this sentence – for us at least – a somewhat peripatetic ring, but that it be meant as an equivalent to Greek oὐσία is quite implausible. The word is used in its normal Arabic sense where, for example al-Mubarrad says (3, p. 272) that [the names for] iron and silver and the like, which are material substances (ǧawāhir) cannot be employed as descriptives (lā yun'atu bihā). Similarly Ibn Ǧinnī says (al-Ḫaṣā'iṣ, ed. al-Naggār, M. A., 3 vols. [Beyrouth, 1983], I, p. 119)Google Scholar that verbs are taken only from events not from substances (innamā yaštaqqu min al-hadti lā min al-gawhar), i.e., they are derived form verbal nouns, not form nouns that name material substances.

4 Muǧ, p. 252, 10f. (concerning the meanings of ‘iṯbāt’ and the sence of ‘positive’ here, see below). So also ‘mawǧūd’, is termed a universal and a synonym of ‘šay”; cf. also ibid., p. 255, 6 ff.

5 Muǧ, p. 27, 12ff. (Waǧada, yaǧidu in the sence of to know commonly connotes to know of one's own knowledge and is sometimes so distinguished form 'alima, ya'slamu and 'arafa, ya'rifu. It is clear from al-Aš‘arī's discussion here, however, that this distinction is not in play).Google Scholar So also in Šīrāzī, (La Profession de foi d'Abū Ishāq al-Shīrāzī, ed. Bernard, M., Supplément aux Annales islamologiques, no. 11 [Cairo, 1987], p. 67, 10 f.) we read, “al-mawǧūdu huwa al-šay'u al-kā'in … fa-ma'nā qawlinā mawǧūdun wa-šay'un wa-tābitun ma‘nan wāhid” and inGoogle Scholaral-Ǧuwaynī, Abū al-ma'ālī, ad-Din, Aš-Šmil fi Uṣūl, Some Additional Portions of the Text [hereafter Šam (81)], ed. Frank, R. M. (Tehran, 1981), p. 48, 9f., “… anna al-ṯābita wa-al-šay' a wa-al-mawǧūda ‘ibārātun ‘an mu ‘abbrin wāhid.” For a different use of the expression ‘al-mawǧūdu al-muṭlaq’,Google Scholar see al-Ansārī, Abū al-Qāsim, Šarḥ al-Iršād, [hereafter Š.Ir], MS Princeton University Library, ELS no. 634, fol. 42r, 11ff, cited below.Google Scholar

6 al-Anṣārī, Abū al-Qāsim, al-Ġuwaynya fi uṣūl al-dīn [hereafter Ġn], MS III Ahmet no. 1916, fol. 12r, 14ffGoogle Scholar. It is thus that al-Ǧuwaynī cites al-Bāqillānī as defining to be a šay’ (al-šay'iya) by existence (Šam (81), p. 56, 20f.). On the phrase ‘al-ṯābitu al-kā'in’ here see n. 25 below.

7 al-Sīrāfī, Abū Sa‘īd, Šarḥ Kitāb Sībawayh [hereafter ŠK], ed. al-Tawwāb, R. 'Abd et al. , 2 vols. (Cairo, 1986–1990), vol. 1, p. 316,Google Scholarad Sībawayh, al-Kitāb, 2 vols. (Bulaq, 1316), vol. 1, p. 18, 1–5. In the sequel, where the citation is found, as here, in the margins of the Bulaq edotion of the Kitāb reference is given simply as ad loc.Google Scholar

8 For a list, cf. Gimaret, , Noms, pp. 151ff.Google Scholar

9 al-'arab, Lisān, s.v. and al-Ǧawharī, Tāǧ al-luġa wa-ṣiḥāḥ al-'arabiyya, 6 vols., ed. 'Aṯṯār, T. A. (Beyrouth, 1979), s.v.Google Scholar, citing Ta‘lab. So in the line of Ibn Abī Rabī‘a (Dīwān, # 204, 5): in kāna saqamun fa-kāna lanā / wa-lahā l-salāmu wa-ṣiḥḥatu lnafsī (If there is illness, let it be ours, while to her, well being and good health. The plural, ‘anfus’ is treated as masculine because it is taken to refer to men: Magālis Ta'lab, ed. Hārūn, A. M. (Cairo, 1969), p. 252.Google Scholar

10 Ta'wīl al-āyāt al-muškila, MS Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, Tal‘at, maǧ. no. 490, fol. 133v, 4ff.Google Scholar

11 Note that the ‘-hi’ of ḏātu al-šay'i wa-lam takun ‘ārifan bihi refers to ‘šay” and not to ‘ḏāt’, which is simply an emphatic as in ‘he himself’. The phrase means the individual as an individual. (With this contrast its use in the phrase ‘mawǧūdu al-ḏāt’ in the following citation (Muǧ, p. 218, 16)). It may be worth pointing out that in kalām works ‘dāt’ is often treated as a masculine, e.g., al-Ġuwaynī, Abū Al-Ma‘ālī, al-Šāmil fī uṣūl al-dīn [hereafter Šam (69)’, ed. al-Naššār, A. S. (Cairo, 1969), p. 127, 9 and 132, 11Google Scholar, but al-Sīrāfī in the passage translated above treats it more properly as feminine (… lā ḏātahu allatī ‘arafahā at the end of the passge cited). Regarding variant readings, K = the portion of the text edited by H. Klopfer (Cairo, 1963), T = Tehran University Library, MS 350, and E = a paraphrase found in Escorial MS 1610. Naššār's edition is based on Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya MS Kalām no. 1290, which is in fact a photocopy of MS Köprülü no. 826 form the part of which Klopfer prepared his edtion.

12 Köbert, R., Bayān muškil al-ḥadīṯ des ibn Fūrak: Auswahl nach den Handschriften Leipzig, Leiden, London, und dem Vatikan, Analecta Orientalia 22 (Rome, 1941), p. 19, 13f. [hereafter Bayān (K)].Google Scholar

13 al-Bāqillānī, Abū al-Qāsim, al-Inṣāf fimā yaǧib i‘tiqāduh, ed. al-Kawṯarī, M., 2nd edn (Cairo, 1963), p. 23, 15.Google Scholar Cp. al-Aš‘ari, Risāla ilā ahl al-ṯahr bi-Bāb al-Abwāb [hereafter Tagr’, inGoogle Scholaral-Funün, Dar: Ilahiyat Fakültesi Mecmuast 8 (1928), pp. 80–108, at p. 93, 11f. (= p. 65, 8f. in the edition of M. A. al-Ǧulaynid [Cairo, 1987]), where he says the world has a single creator “iḫtara‘a a‘yānahu… wa-ḫālafa bayna aǧnāsihi” using ‘‘ayn’ where al-Bāqillānī employs ‘ḏāt’. God's creating the classes of contingent beings we shall take up later.Google Scholar

14 In defining “ayn’ al-Ǧawhrī says (s.v.), “wa-‘aynu al-šay'i nafsuhu, yuqālu huwa huwa ‘aynan wa-huwa huwa bi-‘aynihi.”Google Scholar

15 Hallem, A. S. Abdel, “Early theological and juristic terminology: Kitāb al-ḥudūd fi l-Uṣūl by Ibn Fūrak,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 54, 1 (1991): 5–41 p. 20, # 13f. [hereafter ḤHudūd].CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 The use of the singular noun here seems a bit curious, since the plural plainly refers to the multiple instances of each of the two classes. I heve for this reason emended the ḏātuhumā of the first sentence in accord with the plural that folows and for the sake of the sense have translated the three singulars in the final clause as plurals even though I have let them stand in the transcription. What I have transcribed as lam takun lacks the diacriticals; I have chosen the feninie because of the plural dawātihimā that precedes.

17 Šam (69), p. 401f., where with T read al-ḏātayn for al-ḏāt at p. 401, 2.

18 Abū al-Qāsim al-Qušsayrī, al-Taḫbīr fi al-taḏkīr, MS Yeni Cami no. 705, fols. 22v 131v, under the title Sarḥ asmā’ Allāh al=ḫusnā. An abridged and multilated version of the work was published by I. Busyūnī (Cairo, 1968) which is here reffered to when it contains the integral text of the passage cited.

19 So too, for example, al-Bāqillānī speaks of a set of names that signify features of things which are “structure and shape, as with ‘horse’ and ‘man’ and ‘human being’ and those analogoues nouns that convey the meaning of structure and composition” (al-mufidatu li-al-binyati wa-al-ta'lif: Tam, p. 235, 9ff.)Google Scholar. With this cp. al-Mubarrad 4, p. 276, 3ff.

20 Cf., e.g., Bayān (K), p. 18, 1ff., where he contrasts the strict meaning of ‘one’ to its use with reference to things that are in fact composites or conglomerates, e.g., when it is said of a man or a house, where what is referred to is in reality an assemblage of beings (fi al-ḫaqīqati ašyā'u muǧtami‘a).Google Scholar Thus al-Baġdādī, ‘Adb al-Qāhir (Uṣūl al-dīn [Istanbul, 1928], p. 35, 8f.)Google Scholar speaks of bodies as things that are single units considered as a class (i.e., members of the calss named by ‘ǧism’) but not as actually existent beings (mufradun fi al-ǧinisi dūna al-ḏāt). That is, they are members of a particular, well defined class, but in themselves are not unitary beings and so are not primary entities.

21 Commonly ‘ḫuliqa’ and ‘waqa‘a’, as in Sībawayh 1, p. 21, 13 but the ‘ḫuliqa’ is paraphrased as ‘ḥadaṯa’ by al-Sīrāfī, ŠK 2, p. 354.

22 Fāris, Abū al-Husayn ibn, Maqāyīs al-luġa, ed. Hārūn, A. M., 6 vols. (Cairo, 1969–1972).Google Scholar

23 Al-Aš‘arī, , Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn [hereafter Maq], ed. Ritter, H. (Istanbul, 1929–1930), p. 529, 6fGoogle Scholar. Accordingly ‘bāq’ may not be said of a human being (ibid., p. 531, 6f. The same position is asserated in Tam, p. 263, 8 and Ištiqāq, p. 347); and al-Bāaillānī employs the phrase ‘kā'inun bi-ġayri ḥudūṯ’, p. 263, 8.; cp. ‘al-Hamaḏānī, Abd al-Ǧabbār, al-Muġnī fī abwāb al-tawhīḥd [hereafter M], 16 vols. (Cario, 1959–1965), 5, p. 237, 10fGoogle Scholar. Thus the use of ‘kā'in’ seems to have been common, as ‘Abd al-Ǧabbār, says wa-yūṣafu ta ‘ālā bi-annahu kā'inun wa-yurādu bihi annahu mawǧūdun li-anna kulla mawǧūdin yastahiqqu an yūsafa bi-ḏālika (M 5, 232, 10f.)Google Scholar. For a discussion of the semanatics of ‘mawǧūd’, ‘kā'in’, and ‘tābit’ as equivalents cf. M 5, p. 202.

24 Muǧ, p. 43, 12. The use of ‘tubūt’ instead of ‘wuǧūd’ here and in ibid., p. 27, 12ff., translated above, as well as in Tam, p. 263 (cited in the previous note), is no doubt in order to avoid the presence of items that do belong to the lexion of proper Arabic as recoginzed by the lexicographers. Thus al-Ǧuwaynī, says (Šam (69), p. 271, 5) “al-wuǧūdu ṯubūtun ‘alā al-taḥqīq.”Google Scholar

25 Since tabata, yaṯbutu is often used as a synonm of wuǧida, yūǧadu', the IVth form, aṯbata, yuṯbitu (most often the maṣdar, iṯbāt) is sometimes employed with the meaning to cause to exist, as in Ġn, fol. 13r. 9f. cited below, n. 36. Concerning the original and more general sense, of tabata, yatbutu', cf. al-Ṣāhibī fi fiqh al-luga, ed. el-Chouémi, M. (Beyrouth, 1964), p. 130Google Scholar, where, in discussing the usage of ’, Ibn Fāris says “al-ma'nā fi inna Zaydan qā'imun tabata 'indī hāhā al-hadīt,” i.e., it introduces an assertion that seems to be certain/the fact, to present what is truley the case. The verb is thus used in a number of senses. The phrase “al-tābitu al-kā'in” in Ġn, fol. 12r, 14 (cited in n. 6 above) and in Mug, p. 43, 12 (cited in the previous note), for example could be understood either as “that has actuality and exists,” i.e., what actually is and exists, or as “that in fact exists.” In the former he is using the verbs as equivalents in order to define ‘mawgūd’, while in the latter it is used in the sence of ‘acutal’, what in fact is [presently] the case. In this latter sense, ‘tābit’ may be used in the sence of true or validly assertable, as al-Guwaynī speaks (Šam (81), p. 87, 5f.) of contradictory theses all of which cannot be taken as valid (madāahibu mutanāqidatun yastahīlu taqdīru tubūti gamī'ihā), or in speaking of “the actually non-existent,” in the phrase “idā arāda an yūgida gawharan min al-ǧawāhiri al-ma'dūmati al-tābita” (Ġn, fol. 13v, 6) where he may mean either presently non-esixtent or (more likely?) those atoms whose [eventual] is given in God's eternal knowing as present, though in the present now of the world's time are non-existent (cf. Ġn, fol. 67r =S.Ir. fol. 73r). Al-Guwaynī uses ‘tubūt’ of the ahwāl, e.g., Šam (69), p. 694, 18f. This is closely related to the common use of atbata, yutbitu in the sense of asserting, making a positive statement as opposed to negating something. The univocity of ‘mawgūd’ in the sense of entity/existent in the usage of the Aš'arites is most probably due to the fact that, in contrast to ‘kā'in’ and ‘tābit’, this meaning does not belong to it in the lexion of ordinary Arabic but only as a calque on Syriac ‘šekīḥ’.

26 Šay” is, of course, occassionally employed in these texts with the general sense it has in ordinary language, as Abū al-Ma‘ālī al-Ǧuwaynī says “laysa li-al-‘abdi min īqā‘i al-maqdūri šay’”, which might best be rendered, “the human agent has no part in…” (K. al-Iršād [hereafter Ir], ed. Mūsā, M. Y. and el-Hamid, A. A. Adb [Cairo, 1950], p. 203, 6Google Scholar; regarding variant readings the edition of J.-D. Luciani [Paris, 1938] is also cited). In the most general sense of “thing”, one more commonly finds ‘al-amr’, as where Abū Bakr al-Bāqillāni says (Hidāyat al-mustaršidīn (Part Six), MS al-Azhar, al-tawhīd no. (21) 242, fol. 11r, 7f.) that he objects to a given thesis “because it is something that implies…” (li-annahu amrun yūgibu…) and similarly (ibid., fol. 129v, 2) that a given theiss “entails one of two things both of which are flase” (innahu qawlun yūgibu ahada amrayni bātilayn). In both these cases the “thing” is an abstract, (the content of) a proposition. Speaking elsewhere of something more concrete he says (ibid., fol. 10r, 12ff.) that if a given thesis were tenable, “then it would point to something [sc., a state of affairs]…” (la-dalla 'alā amrin min al-umūr…). So also with the Mu'tazila, as where al-Nīsābūrī, Abū Rašīd, says (al-Masā'il fi al-Hilāf bayn al-Basriyyīn wa-al-Bagdādiyyīn, ed. Ziyāda, M. and al-Sayyid, R. [Beyrouth, 1979], p.65, 3f.) “one of two things must be the case (lā yahlū 'an amrayn), either it is a relationship of need or a relationship of necessity”, and he speaks of non-existence as an ’ where we read “non-existence is not something that comes to be… (laysa bi-amrin hāditin…)” (Ziyādāt al-Šarḥ [hereafter ZŠ], ed.Google ScholarZīda, M. A. Abū under the title Fi al-tawhīd (Cairo, 1969), pp. 300, 18f.).Google Scholar

27 Šam (69), p. 125, 1f.: yusammā šay'an itlāqan wa-lugatan wa-lam yakun fi al-haqīqati 'aynan wa-lā dātan The same use of ‘iṯlāq’ is found where al-Ansārī says (Ġn, fol. 27r. 16f.), in reply to an objection, “kalāmunā fi al-ḥaqā'iqi lā fi al-iṯlāqāt” (we are talking here about strict and proper meanings, not about mere words).Google Scholar

28 Šam (69), p. 637, 5ff.Google Scholar: inna haqīqata al-ī-wugūdi lā yahtalifu fi qadāyā al-‘uqūli id al-wugūdu huwa al-tubūtu wa-al-sawādu lā yuhālifu al-bayāda fi wasfi al-wugūd. Cf. al-Kiyā al-Harāsī, Usūl al-dīn, MS Dār al-Kutub al-Misriyya, kalām no. 295, fol. 38v, cited in n. 39 below.

29 E.g., Tam, p. 234, cited above ad loc. n. 2. Though less commonly than ‘dāt’ or ‘'ayn’, ‘nafs’ too is employes in the sense of entity, e.g., al-Bayhaqī, Abū Bakr (al-Asmā' wa-a;-sifāt [Cairo, 1357], p. 286, 2ff.)Google Scholar, where he says that to say that God is a nafs is to say “annahu mawgūdun tābitun gayru muntafin wa-lā ma 'dūmin wa-kullu mawgūdin nafs” cp. Mug, pp. 27, 12f., cited above and 254, 13, cited below.

30 Tam, pp. 193f., where he is speaking only of contingent entities; cp. Ġn, fol. 56r, 3f., cited above. The phrase ‘bi-ǧinsin’ here seems curious, but the sense, i.e., that is not [an instatiation of] any classes, is clear enough. Note also that even though ‘ḫādiṯ’ and ‘muḫdaṯ’ may be, and in certain contexts are, formally distinguished they are commonly employed as synonyms (v. n. 94 below) and are also here translated where appropriate.

31 We shall have later to examine the Aš‘arite discussion of the senses of ‘qā'imun bi-al-nafs’ more closely. Regarding its use in the present passage it would seem obvious that as a general predicate or description its basic sense is “independently existing,” i.e., not in another as its bearer, subject or substrate. This use of the expression is found outside kalām and falsafa, as for example in the statement of Abū al-Qāsim al-Zaǧǧāǧī (al-Idṣāh fi 'ilal al-nahw, ed. al-Mubārak, M. [Beyrouth, 1973], p. 93)Google Scholar, that al-harakatu lā taqūmu bi-nafsihā wa-lā tūgadu illā fī harf. So also al-Anbārī, Abū al-Barakāt asserts (al-Insārf masār'il al-hilāf, ed. al-Hamīd, M. M. 'Abd, 4th edn [Cairo, 1961], §28, p. 237)Google Scholar that, unlike the verb, the noun is an independent word: al-ismu yaqūmu bi-nafsihi wa-yastaġnī 'an al-fi 'li wa-ammā al-fi‘lu fa-innahu lā yaqūmu binafsihi wa-yastaqiru ilā al-ism. The use of the expression in kalām is analogous to (and may well have its origin in) the use of αὐθ⋯παρϰτο⋯ a/o αὐθυπóστατο⋯by Hellenistic authors (e.g., John of Damascus) to describe the οὐσία.

32 Note that the position of al-Guwaynī here does not differ in the present matter from that of those Aš'arites, the great majority in fact, who refuse the concept of ontologically distinct features or states. Since ‘nafs’, ‘hāt’, and “ayn” are held to be synonymous and are often employed interchangeably, it is for the most part not practicable to distinguish them in translating. I have here employed ‘Self’ for all three where it seems appropriate. That they should not be translated by ‘essence’ would seem obvious. The topic of essence as what essentially a being is we shall take up shortly.

33 Fūrak, Abū Bakr ibn, Muškil al-hadīt wa-bayānuh (Hyderabad, 1943), p. 151Google Scholar, 17 [hereafter Bayān (H), where variants are mentioned V = MS Vatican, Ar. no. 1406], which is based on Ta'wīl, fol. 144v, 2f. and is repeated in al-Bayhaqī, Asmā', p. 286, 4ff. Following kamā taqūlu, Bayān has al-‘arab, which was inserted in the margin of Ta'wīl and subsequently deleted. For kamā taqūlu V reads mimmā taqūlu al- 'arabu kamā taqūlu, which would seem likely to be the original reading, subsequently confused because of the quasi homoioarch, mimmā/kamā taqūl.Google Scholar

34 Sam (69), p. 208, 19f., reading nafsan with T and K against the nafsahā of Naššār's edition. Note too that the in which is added in line 17 is found neither in T nor K and is not needed.

35 Inna waṣfa Allāhi ta 'ālā bi-anna lahu nafsan … ma‘nā hāḏā al-iṯaqi yarǧi‘u ilā annahu mawgūdun li-anna dāta al-šay'i huwa nafsuhu wa-wugūduhu: Bayān (H), pp. 181f.

36 Ġn, fol. 13r, 9. Thus “the atom's being an atom is, in our view, identical with its being an entity: Šam (69), p. 132, 14, where with T read 'aynu kawnihi ddātan for ġayru kawnihi dātan.

37 Mug, p. 139, ult. The indefinite, ‘qadīman’, is used here because God's eternal attributes are distinguished from His Self.

38 Some formulations might, on first reading, give the impression that independent entities (al-qā'imu bi-al-nafs) are in some way beings in a primary sense, as for example where al-Bāqillānī speaks (Tam, p. 222, 18) of “the entitative attributes which exist in entities” (al-ma'ānī al-mawgūdatu bi-al-dawāt). Again, al-Qušyrī says “alqadīmu lā yaqūmu bi-ddātihi hāditun li-anna man qabila dātuhu al-hawādita lam yahlu minhā” (al-Fusūl fi l-usūl [hereafter Fusūl], ed. Frank, R.M. in MIDEO, 16 [1983], pp. 59–75, at p. 62, 1f.)Google Scholar and al-Mutawallī, Abū Sa'd “al-sifatu mawgāatun ma'a al-dāti qā'imatun bi-al-dāt” (K. al-Muġnī, ed. Bernand, M., Supplément aux Annales islamologiques, no. 7 ‘Cairo, 1986], p. 31, 7)Google Scholar; and similar usage is found in Frank, R. M., “Al-Ustādh abū Ishāq al-Isfarā'īnī, an ‘Aqīda together with Selected Fragments,” [hereafter al-Isfarā'īnī], MIDEO, 19 (1989), pp. 129–202Google Scholar, Fr. #71 and elsewhere. ‘Dāt’ is employed here, however, simply to designate the unnamed “other,” i.e., the entity which is the subject or locus in which reside those beings whose existence is to reside in another (yaqūmu bi-ġayrihi, yūgadu bi-ġayrihi). Thus it is that al-Guwaynī speaks (Šam (69), p. 174, 11) of “those entities (dawāt) which we call accidents” and says (ibid., pp. 180f.) that in the case of some kinds of accidents we know their reality as entities immediately, i.e., without the need of drawing an inference (na'lamu anna hurūban min al-a'rāhi tatbutu dawātani ihtirāran). For the etymological explanation of the use of “arah” see below, n. 72. That the gawhar and 'arah of the classical kalām have conceptually little to do with the ούσία and συμβεβεхος of Aristotle, υ., e.g., van Ess, Joseph, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschras, [hereafter Th.u.G], 6 vols. (Berlin, 1991–1997), 3, pp. 68f. One might note here also that according to AvicennaGoogle Scholar (al-Hudūd, in Tis'rasā'il fī alhikma wa-al-tabī'iyyāt [Cairo, 1908], pp. 71–102, at pp. 87f.) ‘gawhar’ may be said of God; it is also used of God by the sufiGoogle Scholar, Karrām, Ibn who described God as “ahadiyyu al-dāti ahadiyyu al-gawhar” (υ. Th.u.G. 4, p. 367).Google Scholar

39 Taġr, p. 94, 4ffGoogle Scholar. (= p. 67, 2ff., deleting the ta' marbūta erroneously added to almagwūd in the Cairo edition). Similarly, distinguishing between what is meant by existence in metaphysics and ‘existence’ as a general expression, al-Harāsī says (fol. 38v, 1ff.), “The particular characteristic of a being (hāssiyyatu al-šay') is its existence and its existence is its particular characteristic and nothing more; ‘existence’ is simply a loose expression that is common to disparate beings (laqabun ‘amma almuhtalifāt) since it is a concept (qahliyya) generally applicable to disparate beings.” If one consider the morphological form of ‘hāss’, ‘hāss’ with its suffixed -iyya, it might be more appropriate to render it by ‘being a particular entity’ and in some places this would suit very well, even though ‘specific/particular characteristic’ or the like is generally more convenient in translating. One should, in any case, keep this (in English) ambivalence in mind.

40 ‘Wasf’ and ‘sifa’ are not everywhere interchangeable, however, since ‘ssifa’ lacks the verbal force of ‘wasf’ and therefore cannot take an accusative object.

41 al-Sarrāg, Abū Bakr ibn, al-Usūl fi al-nahw, 3 vols., ed. al-Fatlī, A. (Beyrouth, 1985), 2, pp. 23f.Google Scholar

42 Cf., e.g., Tam, pp. 213f. and generally ibid., 213–24. Al-Ansārī reports (Š.Ir, fols. 134v f.) that the distinction was made already by Ibn Kullāb. Fūrak, Ibn reports (Mug, p. 39, 6)Google Scholar that al-Ašarī did not distinguish the two words and al-Baġdādī (Usūl, pp. 128f., cited by al-Ansārī, Š.Ir, fol. 134v) that he held the two words to be synonymous in the sense of entitative attribute. These reports, however, have to do with but a single question that is of importance in the Aš'arite understanding of the Names of God but is not pertinent to our present discussion; what is meant is that the wasf – the act of describing, which is the actuality of the descriptive term – is an attribute of the describer (al-wāsif, al-musammī) in describing, and so of God's as He describes Himself (cf. the references cited in n. 45 below concerning the discussion of the Name, the naming, and the named). In al-Aš'arī's normal use of the words, he employs ‘sifa’ consistently in the sense of attribute (e.g., TTaġr, pp. 93f. (= pp. 66f.), al-Httt ‘;alā al-baht, ed. Frank, R. M. in MIDEO, 18 [1988]:135–152, at p. 135, 8;Google Scholar in the edition of McCarthy, R. under the title R. fi istihsān al-hawh, in The Theology of al-Ash'arī [Beyrouth, 1953], p. 88, 2,Google Scholar and al-Luma, K.' [hereafter Luma' (A)], ed. McCarthy, R. [Beyrouth, 1968], pp. 14, 17f., 24, 4ff.)Google Scholar and at the same time employs ‘wasf’ in the sense of a descriptive expression (e.g., TTaġr, p. 95, 2 (= p. 68, ult.); the distinction is made fully explicit where he says (ibid., p. 95, 5 = p. 69, 3f.), “these are descriptive expressions that are derived from the most precise names for these attributes” (inna hāhihi awsāfun muštaqqatun min ahassi asmā'i hāhihi alsfāt; in the Cairo edition of Taġr, p. 68, 2, read al-ilāhiyya for al-ahliyya with the Istanbul edition; one suspects that yahrugu in the same line might better be read lahzaraja, though both editions have the same reading); cp. Luma' (A), p. 22, 9ffGoogle Scholar. (where with the MS read li-hālika for the editor's dālika in line 9). That the formal use of the words is rigorously observed does not mean that the word ‘sifa’ is not, where appropriate, used in the sense of adjective or adjectival qualifier, as where, e.g., al-Guwaynī speaks of “general qualifiers”(al-s iātu al-'āmma: Šam (69), p. 317, 13f.).

43 Al-Guwaynī's formulation in Šam (69), p. 152, 8f., seems somewhat strange as he says of an atom that “when a particle of life resides in it … then there reside in it also various kinds of accidents such as cognitions, …, etc., and other awsāfi al-hhayā. The problem here is that he cannot say “other attributes (sifāt) of life” since cognitions, volitions, etc., are themselves distinct accidents and cannot exist in the accident life. The descriptions which implicitly assert the existence of these accidents (‘knows’, ‘wills’, etc.) are true, however, only when life exists in the subject.

44 Ġn, fol. 61v, 23f.: iqtiḍā'u al-waṣfi li-al-sifati ka-iqtihtā'i al-sifati li-al-wasfi faman yuttbat lahu hāihi al-sifātu wagaba wasfuhu bihā kahālika ihā wagaba wasfuhu bihā wagaba itbātu al-sifati lahu (reading li-al-wasfi for bi-al-wasfi in line 23 as is required by the context; note that one could vowel man tatbut lahu rather than man tutbat lahu, but the following iṭbāt would seem to indicate the former, though either validly states the basic intention of the sentence.) The context here concerns God's “essential attributes” (knowing, life, etc.) but is equally valid with regard to the entitative attributes of creatures and to essential attributes that are not distinct or distinguishable from the Self (nafs/ḏāt) of a being.

45 E.g., Tam, p. 227 (§ 383), Inṣāf, pp. 60f., Mutawallī, pp. 31f. and Šam (81), p. 45, 8ff. So al-Ansārī says that ‘wasf’ and ‘sifa’ are “bi-mattābati al-tasmiyati wa-al-ism” (Ġn, fol. 96r, 7, q.v. ff.). The use of ‘ism’ here conforms fully with that of the other terms we are considering (sc., hadd and haqīqa); see the example presented in n. 86 below. The usage is discussed in Tam, §383ff., though the best account of how the thesis is understood and how treated in terms of various classes of the names of God is found, together with a discussion of the distinction between ‘waṣf’ and ‘ṣifa’, in al-Kāmil fi ihisār al-Šāmil (author unknown), MS III Ahmet no. 1322, fols. 120v if. [hereafter Iḫt]; cf. also Š.Ir, fol. 134r and al-Harāsī, fols. 145v f.

46 E.g., Šam (69), p. 129Google Scholar, translated above and Muǧ, p. 16, 3, translated below, & alibi pass. It is thus that ‘ma‘nā’ is frequently employed as a term for entitative attributes (which are sometimes referred to as ma'nā attributes (ṣifatu al-ma‘nā, ṣifatun ma‘nāwiyya), since ‘ṣifa’ is also commonly employed for essential attributes (sifatu al-ḏāt, sifātun dātiyya/nafsiyya) which as such are distinguishable aspects or features — specific characteristics: hāssiyyāt – of the essential natures of particular beings. ‘Ma‘nā’ occurs thus as two distinct lexemes where, in defining ‘accident’, al-Anṣārī says: “ma‘nā qawlina innahu ‘arahun annahu ma‘nan qā'imun bi-al-ǧawhar” (the meaning of ‘it is an accident’ is that it is a something that exists in an atom: Š.Ir, fol. 47v, 19; cp. Mutawallī, pp. 5, 12 and 6, 1f.).

47 Cf. also ibid., p. 80, 8, Ġn, fol. 59v, 13, and Š.Ir, fol. 54r, 17, cited below. In some places, as will be seen in several of the texts cited here and below, where one is speaking of definition in the usual sense of the word, ‘taḥdīd’ (to give, present, assert, a definition) is used instead of ‘ḥadd’ in order to avoid all chance of misunderstanding. In rendering the word we have used ‘definition’ with lower case {d} when ‘ḥadd’ is used in the sense of a verbal definition and ‘Definition’ with uppercase where it means an essential property of a being. There is little discussion of these terms in the shorter manuals. They are, however, discussed at length ind al-Ǧuwaynī's, al-Kāfiya fi al-ǧadal, ed. Maḥmūd, F. (Cairo, 1978), pp. 1ffGoogle Scholar. and Sam (81), pp. 42ff., as well as in Ġn and Š.Ir.

48 Cf. also Mug, p. 10, 23f., cited below. ‘Al-ṣifatu al-ḏātiyya’ here means a feature or property which belongs to and characterizes the individual entity in its being essentially what it is, as such and in itself.

49 Š.Ir, fol. 54r, 6ff.; cf. generally ibid., fols. 54r ff. and Šam (81), p. 83, 14ff., where the identical citation from Abū Isḥāq is found with the reading kāna asadda (would be more exact) instead of kāna hasanan at the end. Al-Ǧuwaynī employs ‘al-ḥadd’ in both senses (e.g., taḥhdīd is clearly intended in Šam (81), p. 42. 19ff. and appears explicitly p. 43, 7), though he plainly takes it as the essential characteristic of an entity at ibid., pp. 45, 2, 47, 15sff., and 80, 8ff. (cited above) as do al-Isfarā'īnī and Ibn Fūrak. The discussion of definitions in Šam (81), pp. 42ff. is complex and not everywhere easy to follow as it shifts back and forth between the implied disputational contexts and also views of various authors with none of whom al-Guwaynī fully agrees, as his own understanding and analysis of the topic is integrally linked to his conception of real ontological “states” (which allows him to speak of general and particular attributes), a concept which they do not recognize as valid. Al-Guwayni's polemically elaborated opposition to Ibn Fūrak's describing the ḥaqīqa and the ḥadd of a being as its 'illa (pp. 47f.), for example, is largely due to the latter's refusal to recognize the reality of “states.” On the other hand, he disapproves the position of al-Bāqillānī, who held a theory of states, but identified the hadd with the statement of the one who defines (qawlu al-ḥāddi: v. ibid., pp. 45, 5f. and 47, 11f). This whole discussion of definitions in Šam (81) deserves a thorough analysis.

50 Al-ḏawātu lā tu 'qalu ġayra mawṣūfa (Iḫt, fol. 227v, 16). The intended sense of ‘mawṣūfa’ here is clear enough (cp. the use of ‘ṣifāt’ in Kāfiya, p. 4, 11f., the translation of which follows immediately here, and see generally below). A being is intelligible only as qualified by its essential attributes (as mawṣūf /muttaṣifun bihā), but since on the other hand knowledge (cognition) is considered as propositional, a being is known as mawṣūf, i.e., as that of which a given description is true. That knowing is propositional does not entail that it be articulated.

51 Kāfiya, p. 4, 11ffGoogle Scholar. ‘Al-hasr’ here is the distinctness required for a conceptually precise definition, i.e., its embracing the thing defined in such a way as not only to exclude beings of any other class but also not to exclude any given instance of what is defined; cf., e.g., Šam (81), pp. 75, 6ff, 46, 4ff., and 55, 12ff. ‘Al-imtiyāz’ is that it presents the thing as distinct in its true nature from things that differ in any essential respect; cf., e.g., Iḫt, fols. 248r, 16 and 253r, 6, where it seems to be basically equivalent to ‘tamayyuz’. Note the use of the singular verb following al-hasru wa-al-imtiyāz; the two are taken together, if not as equivalent, then at least as constituting a single feature of correct definitions. By “referents and attributes” (al-ma'ānī wa-al-ṣifāt) here he does not mean entitative attributes or accidents, which are often referred to by the same words, but the entity of whatever kind or class which is named or referred to and the essential properties of its Being.

52 Šam (69), p. 634, 7fGoogle Scholar. Concerning something's “deserving to be named/described by ‘x’ see below. Note that ‘ilmiyya’ is formally understood to be a masdar, i.e., to be a cognition; it names the reality which is the truth condition of “ilm’ when it is used to describe an entity, just as the occurrence of the event named by the masdar is, according to the grammarians, the truth condition of ordinary verbs. In the language of classical kalām, such forms are not to be understood as abstracts.

53 With this cp. Šam (81), p. 50, 9ff.Google Scholar, where al-Guwaynī, arguing from the perspective of his doctrine of “states,” attacks this thesis polemically saying that it means that two instances of a single class, e.g., two cognitions which have different objects, if they differ per se (il-hātayhimā), will simply be unique existences (wugūdāni fardān) each of which is different from the others in every respect. For the traditional position cf., e.g., Ġn, fol. 64r, 5, cited above.

54 Wa-lā yamtani‘u ‘inda nufāti al-aḥwāli ta‘līlu al-šay'i bi-nafsihi id lā farqa bayna al-‘illati wa-al-ḥaqīqati wa-kāna lā yamtani‘u an yakūna ǧawharan li-nafsihi wa-la yamtani‘u an yuqāla ma'lūlun bi-nafsihi: ibid., fol. 48r, 7f. = Ġn, fol. 58r, 3f. In accord with this Abū Ishāq al-Isfarā'īnī is cited as holding that ‘hadd’, ‘haqīqa’, ‘ma'nā’, and “illa’ are synonymous since the ground and what is grounded are one and the same (Ġn, fol. 59v, 20f.; cf. also Šam (81), p. 47, 17ffGoogle Scholar., where the same formula is cited by al-Guwaynī only to be rejected on the basis of his understanding of “states”; v. also ibid., p. 48, 7ff. against Ibn Fūrak and cp. Šam (69), pp. 715f. On the basis of an analogous notion of “states” al-Bāqillānī takes the same position as al-Guwaynī regarding ‘illa; cf. Ġn, fol. 57r, 14ff). Al-Guwaynī accepts the equivalence of ‘haqīqa’ and “illa’ in Kāfiya (§18) since it is valid in law, even though he does not allow it in kalām. Concerning the origin of the identification of “illa’ and hāaqīqa’, etc., see below. Note that the formulation in the preceding citation of Ġn (fol. 46v, 6f.) is valid both as these terms are employed in speaking of primary entities and with regard to the presence of entitative attributes in a subject. It is obvious that “illa’ as it occurs in classical kalām texts, were better not translated ‘cause’; “illa” ≠ ‘sabab’. We may note here that the As'arites make no distinction between ‘li-nafsihi’ and ‘binafsihi’ in the sense of ‘per se’ (cf. Mug, p. 214, 21f.), nor did al-Gubbā'ī (cf., e.g., Iḫt, fol. 64r, 8), against al-Ka'bi who refused to use ‘li-nafsihi’ on the grounds that it implied the presence of an ‘illa (cf., ibid., fol. 70r, 6ff.).

55 Thus one cannot properly talk of an existing atom as an object of God's power, “since the entity continues to exist and to view it as something merely posited [i.e., possible] makes no sense when its existence is a known fact” (iḏ al-ḏātu mustamirru al-wuǧūdi wa-lā ma‘nā li-taqdīrihi ma‘a tahaqquqi wuǧūihī: Šam (69), p. 181, 19fGoogle Scholar.; There reads taḥqīq for tahaqquq, but this is most likely an error induced by the preceding taqdīr). A contingent entity is, strictly speaking, an object of God's power only at the instant of its coming to be (huwa maqdūruhā ḥāla ḥūdūṯihi: Iḫt, fol. 174r, 14; cp. (69), p. 694, 9f.

56 ‘Tahqīq’ is employed by the grammarians in the sense of positive or affirmative as opposed to negative; e.g., “following a negative ‘illā’ introduces an affirmation and following an affirmative introduces a negation” (takūnu tahqīqan ba'da al-nafyi wanafyan ba'da al-tahqīq) Zaggāgī, Hurūf al-ma'ānī, MS Laleli, no. 3704/7, fol. 62r, 18f.;Google Scholarcp. Rummānī, Abū al-Hasan, Ma‘ānī al-Ḥurūf (ed. Šalabī, A. [Jidda, 1987]), p. 33, 10 and Zaggāgī, Gumal, p. 106, 2f.Google Scholar

57 Šam (81), p. 51, 18f.; cf. also ibid., p. 47s, 21: kullu mā yuhaqqaqu wa-yuhaddu fahaqīqatuhu 'illatuhu wa-ḥadduhu ḥaqīqatuhu. There is general agreement that the muḥaqqaq and the ḥaqīqa are one and the same (Šam s(81), p. 48, 9f. and Ġn, fol. 55v, 12f.).

58 One should keep in mind that we are, in the present context, talking only about primary entities as such and the words (tasmiyāt / awsāf) that name them (i.e., the particular class) as such and so present the specific characteristics (al-ḫāṣṣiyyāt) that belong to them per se as primary entities. Consequently, the haqīqa of a particular word cannot here be that of words such as “āalim’ (knows) that imply the existence of two beings (an entity together with an entitative attribute), as where al-Aš'arī says that the fact that such predicates are true of two beings does not necessarily imply (lā yūgibu) that the two entities are essentially similar, but only that they are alike in the true sense of“ālim’ (Tġar, pp. 93f. [= pp. 66f., where for ittiāqa haqīqatin ilā in p. 66, ult. f. read ittiāqan fi haqīqati with the Istanbul edition, p. 94 3 and delete the ta' marbūṭa erroneously added to al-mawgūud in the Cairo edition]). The Aš'arite understandings and descriptions of the “truth” and implications of expressions such as these are complexly diversified and so will have to be examined in a separate study.

59 On how, according to the Aš‘arites, speaking and knowing are related, cf., e.g., al-Isfarā'īnī, Fr, #52 and al-Harāsī, fol. 225r, f. Also concerning this, cp. the grammarians' understanding of interpretation (ta'wīl) discussed in our “Meanings are spoken of in many ways,” Le Muséon, 94 (1981), pp. 259–319, at pp 294f.Google Scholar

60 Cp. Mug, p. 29, 19f. (inna al-gawāhira mutagānisatun wa-a'rāhuhā muhtalifa) and the discussion ibid., pp. 208f. Al-Baġdādī's use here of ‘naw‘’(rendered by ‘kind’) is vague, as at the beginning of the section he speaks of two “kinds” of single beings that exist in the world and subsequently uses the same word to speak of subclasses of accidents.

61 Mug, p. 16, 3Google Scholar; note that one should read makānayn for mahallayn in line 1. Cf. also Šam (69), p. 156, 6ff.

62 This is sometimes abridged to say that it has (or, more strictly, must have) at least a color and a single locational accident (kawn); cf., e.g., Muğ, p. 243, 10ff.; al-Aš'arī's preferred formula for defining the atom is “qābilun li-lawnin wāhidin wa-harakatin wāhida” (ibid., p. 210, 21f.). The first definition given by al-Ğuwaynī in the section on the basic nature of the atom (Šam (69), p. 142, 5ff.) is simply “what receives accidents” (mā yaqbalu al-'arah), for this is sufficient to present the essential nature of the atom, its hāssiyya. It is interesting to note the thesis that since the atom cannot exist without a unit of a color it follows that not all colors are visible (cf. ibid., pp. 210f.), as in the case of air and water (ibid., p. 214, 8ff.; cp. Ġn, fol, 18v, 25ff. That the atom cannot exist without inherent accidents (a single instance of each class or its contrary if the class has or includes contaries), cf. also Ir, p. 23, 1ff., Šam (69), pp. 204f., and Ġn, fol. 17v, 16f.). This is a question the details of which we need not go into here; for further information see Gimaret, D., La Doctrine d'al-Ash'arī (Paris, 1990), pp. 43ff.Google Scholar

63 Cited in Šam (69), pp. 158f. Concerning the speaking of the atom as a two dimen sional figure see Dhanani, Alnoor, The Physical Theory of Kalām, Atoms, Space, and Void in Basrian Mu'tazilī Cosmology (Leiden, 1994), p. 98et alibi.Google Scholar

64 Muǧ, p. 203, 12ff.; cp. Ġn, fol. 102, 20f. ‘Inḍimām /muḍāmma’ in this context is equivalent to ‘ittiyṣāl’ (Ġn, loc.cit.) and to ‘iǧtimā‘’, ‘muǧāwara’, and ‘ta'lif’ cf. Muğ, p. 245, 13 and Šam (69), p. 462, 3ff., quoted in Ġn, fol. 39r, 8ff., citing al-Bāqillāni. In Šam here omit the dittographied wa-ihā ihtassa bi-hayyizihi in line 5, and with Ġn insert fa-al-akwānu mutamātila following al-hayyizu al-wāhid in line 6 and ilayhi after al-ǧawhari in line 7 and with Ġn and T omit ḥaraka in line 8 and read wa-lākin for wa-laysa in line 10.

Shape (sūra) and sensible (physical) characteristics (hay'a) cannot be used to describe the single atom. ‘Sūra’ (form, shape, configuration) is identified by al-Bāqillānī (Inṣāf, p. 32) with a composite body (al-ǧismu al-mu'allaf), and is defined by Ibn Fūrak (Bayān (H), p. 14, 8) as al-ta'līfu wa-al-hay'a (cp. Ištiqāq, p. 424) and by al-Bayhaqī (Asmā', p. 289, 3) as al-tarkīb (cp. Ibn Fūrak, Bayān (H), pp. 19f., where read šā'i‘an for šā'iġan in line 19 with V.). ‘Ṣūra’ is also used of the physical (acoustic) structure or configuration of spoken sentences (cf., e.g., Luma' (A), p. 78, 9, Insāf, p. 156, 21f., and al-Mutawaflī, p. 27, 6f.), as the sound of a spoken word, phrase, or sentence is a composite (mu'allaf) and has, as audible, a perceptible character (hay'a). Concerning body as a composite of two or more atoms see below.

65 This statement is based on the common kalām definition of the ǧawhar as “that which occupies space” (e.g., Ir, p. 17, and Š.Ir, fol. 52r); v. also Šam (69), p. 142, 13ff. (where with T read tahayyuz for ḥayyiz in line 15), where this is given as a second definition, one that is “held by some of our leading authorities.”

A. Dhanani is most probably correct in suggesting (The Physical Theory of Kalām, p. 59) that since the word ‘ǧawhar’ occurs in the translation literature for Greek οὐσία, its use for the atom may derive from the conception of οὐσία as substrate (ὑποхείμενον, e.g., Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1028a6f.). That the description of the atom as qa'imun bi-nafsihi may well derive from the hellenistic description of the ούσία as αὐθύπρхτον was suggested above. It is interesting to note that al-Aš'arī held that, used of the atom, ‘gawhar’ is a laqab, i.e., it does not properly name or describe the atom (tasmiyatun 'alā al-talqībi lā 'alā al-thqīq), but is so used “in the technical usage of the mutakallimūn since it is something that can receive accidents and they exist in it” (Mug, pp. 29, 11f. and 291, 2f.; one should perhaps read fa-yāgadu bihi for wa-yūǧadu bihi at p. 29, 12). Though originally a loan word from Persian, in ordinary Arabic a gawhar is a substance, not in the sense of an Aristotelian οὐσία, but rather in the more usual sense as that of which something is made or composed, e.g., clay (Sībawayh 1, p. 274, 17f.; cp. ŠK, ad Sībawayh 1, p. 228, 22ff.) or iron (Mubarrad 3, p. 272). Concerning the atom's occupying a minimal volume of space, see Dhanani, The Physical Theory of Kalām, which though focused primarily on the Mu'tazila gives a very good analysis of the concept and its background.

66 Šam (69), p. 157, 5ff.Google Scholar, where with T, E, and Iḫt read bi-al-mutahayyiz for bi-al-tahayyuz in line 5 and with T add 'alā following dalla in line 8. Al-Bāqillānī defines the atom (Insāf, p. 16, 20) as what has a volume of space (allachī lahu hayyiz) and in Tam (p. 205, 17) speaks of it as hū hayyiz. The akwān are a class of accidents that determine position in space, sc., motion and rest, conjunction, contiguity and discontinuity (on this see our “Bodies and atoms: the Ash'arite analysis,” in Marmura, M.E. (ed.), Islamic Theology and Philosophy: Studies in Honor of George F. Hourani [Albany, 1984], pp. 39–53, at pp. 44f.). The use of ‘kawn’ in this sense is taken from the description of an atom as being in a particular position in space; see below, n. 88.Google Scholar

67 Šam (69), p. 142, 17f. (reading ğirm for ğuz' with K, T, and E; also with T read tahayyuz for hayyiz in line 15); cf. also, e.g., Š.Ir, fol. 47v, 18f. & alibi pass. AlĞuwaynī says (Šam (69), p. 156, 9f.) that al-Bāqillānī preferred this definition. Juxtaposition and contiguity can only occur with a pair of corpuscles (innamā taqarrara hālika fī ğirmayn): ibid., p. 198, 17ff. It is said that sound (i.e., a single quantum of the accident sound) can exist in an isolated corpuscle (yağūuzu qiyāmu al-sawti bi-al-ğirmi al-fard: Iht, fol. 210r, 2). Al-Ansārī says (Ġn, fol. 24v, 16f.) that what is meant by ‘locations’ is the surfaces of atoms and their dimensions as corpuscles (al-murādu bi-al-ahyāzi misāhātu al-ğwāhiri wa-aqdāri ağrāmihā) … and it is impossible to posit two corpuscles in a single location.” (I have paraphrased in order to avoid barbarous English or something which would be more an exegesis than a translation.) By the plural ‘ğawāhir’ he means bodies and by ‘ağrāmuhā’ the individual atoms of which they are composed. In the previous line he spoke of ‘mutasakkilun aw ğirm” and immediately following the passage of Šam (69) cited above, he goes on to say that al-Bāqillānā often spoke of the atom as “mā lahu hzzun min al-misāha.” The other Ašarites, however, do not speak of the atom's having surface area.

68 Cf., e.g., Ġn, fol. 36r, 12. ‘Ğasad’, however, unlike ‘ğism’, is most often used specifically of a living body; cf., e.g., Ta'wāl, fol. 119r, 17 and Ġn, fol. 36r, 16. In translating a paragraph on definitions of the atom given in Šam (69), p. 156, 4ff.), Dhanani (The Physical Theory of Kalām, pp. 63f.) renders ‘ğirm’ as “corporeal object,” which is at best vague and misleading. I have chosen to use ‘corpuscle’ here in order to convey the sense that it is a minimal solid, the basic component of bodies, though not by itself a body and also because it fits well with hağm. (I was not so meticulous in “Bodies and atoms,” p. 44, where I also mistranscribed misāha).

69 Hağm in ordinary usage is commonly taken as a tangible protuberance of a body; v., e.g., Maqāyīs, , al-Gawharī, , and Sīda, Abū al-Hasan ibn, al-Muhkam al-muhīt al-a'zam fi al-luġa, ed. al-Saqā, M. and Nassār, H., 6 vols. (Cairo, 1958–1972), s.v.Google Scholar

70 That is, an atom cannot cease to occupy space and yet be an atom, just as it cannot cease to be an existent entity and yet be an atom. In Ir (p. 17, 7f.) al-Ğuwaynī defines the atom saying, “It is that which occupies space and whatever is [or has] a volume (hağm) occupies space.” The MSS employed in the Cairo edition and in that of Luciani are equally divided between reading kullu hağmin and kullu hī hağmin. Š.Ir, fol. 47v, 18f., has wa-ma'nā qawlinā innahu ğwharun annahu hağmun wa-ğirm.Google Scholar

71 Here reading bi-haytu with the MS and T for the editor's bi-hasabi in line 18. For this use of ‘bi-hayt’ cp. Ġn, fol. 14r, 7 (kullu hağmin wa-ğirmin wa-ğuttatin … yastahīlu taqdīru tubūti ahadihimā bi-haytu al-tānā bi-hilāfi al-'arahlayn) and fol. 32v, 14, translated below. God has no locus (hayt: Ġn, fol. 18v, 6). (Note that in our “Bodies and atoms,” p. 43 and p. 290, n. 16, the treatment of ‘ğirm’ and ‘ğutta’ is quite wayward due to a simplistic assumption of the more ordinary uses of the two words and a simultaneous failure to read the texts with sufficient care.) In the present citation (Ġn, fol. 14r) the three words are employed simply as synonyms for a material entity of some kind. Lexically ‘ğtta’ is commonly taken in the sense of a living human body, šahsu al-insān: e.g., al-Gawharī, and al-Qālī, Abū 'Ali, al-Kitāb al-bāni' fi al-luġa, facsimile of MS British Library, Or. no. 9811, ed. Fulton, A. S. [London, 1933], s.v.). The Aš'arites' use of words that commonly mean body is interesting in that only ‘ğism’ is formally defined as a body in more or less the ordinary sense of a corporeal object.Google Scholar

72 Bi-annahu ya'ridu fi al-gismi wa-al-gawhar: Mug, pp. 211, 4; “it is the being that occurs in the atom, whose ceasing to exist in it is possible while the subject continues to exist” (yasihhu butlānuhu minhu ma'a baqāi al-hāmil: ibid., p. 280, 7); “because it is something that occurs in bodies and does not endure”: ibid., p. 291; cf. also Taġr, pp. 95f. (= 70, 8ff.), and Ir, pp. 18, 13ff. and see our “Bodies and atoms,” pp. 40f. The sense of ‘occurs’ here is that the particular accident comes to exist momentarily in the atom. The two words ‘gawhar” and ‘'arah’ are intimately associated as categorial terms. So it is that al-Aš'arī (along with most of his followers) normally uses ‘'arat’ in conjunction with ‘gawhar’ and ‘sifa’ in conjunction with ‘mawsāf’ (e.g., Mug, p. 29, 9f.; see also n. 125 below), for though referents of each pair may coïncide, the two are not equivalent in what is intended. ‘'Arah’; was taken along with ‘gawhar” from the translation tradition, while ‘sifa’ and ‘mawsūf’ as formal terms are taken from the lexicon of ordinary Arabic. In ordinary Arabic usage ‘'arah’ commonly refers to something whose occurrence is in one way or another undesirable, e.g., as an illness or misfortune (Sikkīt, Abū Yūsuf ibn, Islāh al-mantiq, ed. Šākir, A. M. and Hārān, A. M. [Cairo, 1970], p. 72; cp. Insāf, pp. 16f.)Google Scholar. Interpreting Sībawayh 1, p. 8, 4, al-Sīrāfī says (ŠK ad loc.) that by ‘'arah’ he means “things that occur in sentences in such a way as to violate the normal rules.”

73 Cf. our “Bodies and atoms” pp. 43ff. (where at p. 49, 2 add ‘are formally strict’ which was dropped by the printer following ‘two predicates’). In the present context we need not be concerned with the dispute over whether what are called al-mugāwara and al-mumāssa are one and the same or are two distinct kinds of accident, discussed, e.g., in Šam (69), pp. 456ff.Google Scholar

74 Contrary to the usage of al-Guwaynī, what is meant by ‘hukm’ in the context of the present study is not an ontologically distinct “state” of the Being of the subject, but rather the fact or state of affairs constituted by the presence of the accident in the subject. The Aš'arite treatment of this matter is complex and, since it lies beyond the scope of the present study, were best taken up elsewhere.

75 Cf., e.g., Mug, p. 13, 1f.Google Scholar, Insāf, p. 16, ult., and Šam (69), p. 175, 7f.

76 Cf., e.g., Šam (69), pp. 711f.Google Scholar, citing al-Bāqillānā; on p. 712, 11 read aġrāhihim for a'rāhihim.

77 E.g., Mug, p. 246, 5ff.Google Scholar, et alibi and Bayān (K), p. 20, 7ff.; the akwān are defined (Šam (69), p. 198, 9f. and Ir, p. 17, 10f.) as mā awğaba tahassusa al-gawhari bi-makānin aw taqdīri makān.

78 God creates the accident so that the atom continues to exist instead of ceasing to exist. The way this is formulated in Ġn, fol. 92r, 6f., “hattā sāra bi-kawnihi bāqiyan awlā minhu bi-kawnihi fāniyā” is noteworthy, as it emphasizes the determination (tahsās) of the occurrence of one of two possibilities with respect to the particular atom, sc. its remaining existent or its ceasing to exist, as depending on the choice and action of God. Since al-baqā' is an accident, al-Aš'arī (Mug, p. 239, 7ff.) speaks of particles of baqā'. (The occurrence of anwā'uhu in line 7 here with reference to al-baqā' is strange to say the very least; the sentence states that the accident al-baqā' has no contrary (lā hidda lahu) but that its instances are contrary to one another since two cannot exist simultaneously in the same atom. The presence of the ‘anwā'’ is most likely an error, though how it came about is diffcult to imagine.) “In the case of contingent entities [God's] making [them] continue to exist and continuance in existence (al-ibqā' wa-al-baqā') are one and the same, just as causing to move and motion and causing to be black and [the accident] black are one and the same” (Mug, p. 238, 11f.). In hearing this sentence one could focus narrowly on the entity described and hear the masdars ‘ibqā'’, ‘tahrīk’, and ‘taswīd’, as passives: being caused to continue in existence, being set in motion, and being made black, but this comes down to the same basic conception as the active reading. That is, just as the existence of the atom is God's causing it to exist which is its being caused to exist (īgāduhu), so also the atom's continuing to exist is God's causing it to continue to exist by His creation of the accident, baqā'. The exploitation of the quivocities of this and other masdars is significant.

79 Speaking of the second position, al-Ansārī says (Š.Ir, fol. 130v, 5ff.) that in the passage cited al-Bāqillānī mentions only the akwān because this was most convenient within the context of his argument against the Mu'tazila. Al-Bāillānī's thesis that God annihilates the atom recalls that of the Mu'tazila, according to whom God makes atoms cease ot exist by creating their contrary (hidduhu), sc., a ceasing to exist (a fanā') that occurs in no substrate; cf., e.g., Mattawayh, Ibn, al-Tadkira fī ahkām al-gawāhir wa-al-a'rāh, ed. Lutf, S. N. and 'Awn, F. B. (Cairo, 1975), p. 213, 4ff and generallyGoogle Scholaribid., p. 208ff. and M 11, pp. 441ff. One notes al-Bāqillānī's conception of “states” he most likely took from that of Abū Hāšim and it is possible that he took from him as well the notion of the annihilation of the atom whether with modification or without. On the question of continuance in existence generally, see Iht, fols. 73v if., Š.Ir, fols. 124r–130r, Ġn, fols. 90r ff.

80 Cf., e.g., al-Mutawallī, p. 31, 15ff., Ir, p. 140, 7ff. and, citing al-Bāqillānī, Šam (69), pp. 270, 3ff. and 716, 2 and al-Baġdādī, p. 90, 3. The basic reason for which continuance is asserted to be an entitative attribute (accident) is that it is not identical with eistence; i.e., ‘continues to exist’ is not synonymous with ‘exists’, since the former is not true at the first instant of the atom's existence (cf., e.g., Tam, p. 263, 8ff. and Ġn, fol. 91v, 8ff.). Al-Ansārī says (Š.Ir, fol. 35r, 7ff. and Ġn, fol. 90r, 20f.) that the doctrine that al-baqī' is “an entitative attribute distinct from the existence [of the subject]” (ma'nan zā'idun 'alā al-wugūd) is the position of al-Aš'arī and “most of our fellows” ('āmmatu ashābinā). The thesis that al-baqā' is simply an entity's continuing to exist is in part based on the commonly accepted principle that continuance in existence has no contrary since if the atom does not continue to exist it ceases to be a subject for any accident (cf., e.g., Šam (69), p. 204, 17ff. and Š.Ir, fol. 61v, 5f.). Accordingly, one says that whatever continues in existence does so of itself (al-bāqī bāqin bi-nasfihi: ibid., 35r, 8f.). ‘Perdures’, that is to say, has no referent other than the existence (the Self) of the particular entity (cf., e.g., Ir, pp. 138f.). Al-Aš'arī's views on this question varied; cf., e.g., Mug, pp. 43, 6ff. and 237ff. and al-Mutawallī, p. 31, 15ff. and the texts cited below in the discussion of his several opinions concerning God's eternal baqā' and that of His essential attributes. The position of al-Bāqillānī in Tam, p. 263, is contrary to that commonly attributed to him by later authors (cf., e.g., Š.Ir, fol. 35r, 13f.) and presented (Ġn, fol. 62r, 21f.) as “what he preferred,” nor are “states’ of being (al-ahwāl) a constitutive part of the ontology set forth there, as they are in Hidāya.

81 Baqā'uhā lā yuhriguhā 'an wuqū'ihā bi-qudratihi fa-hiya ‘aynu af'ālihi wa-lahu ifnā'uhā in shā’: Iht, fol. 196v, 14ff. Elsewhere he says (Šam (69), p. 175, 6f.) that “in the moment of its continuation in existence the atom is not correlated to [God's] power and will.” That is to say, He does not re-create the Self of the atom in each succeeding instant, but since its continued existence depends on His ongoing creation of accidents in it, it is yet dependent on his power and will.

82 It is worth noting that, in speaking of the impossibility of the atom's existence without accidents, al-Guwaynī says “yastahīlu wuğūdu al-gawhari bi-lā ‘arah” (Ir, p. 140, cited above), using ‘yastahīl’, which is normally used of the logically impossible. Similary al-Ansārī says “al-gawharu al-'arī 'an al-a'rāhi ġayru mumkin” (Š.Ir, fol. 26v, 4), using mumkin rather than gā'iz.

83 It is characterised by number, limits and dimensions (…ittisāāfuhu bi-al-'adadi wa-al-hudūdi wa-al-aqtār: Šam (69), p. 571, 8).

84 Cf., e.g., Šam (69), pp. 174, 16ff., where read bi-mahallihi at p. 175, 5 against the editor's emendation and in 1. 6, omit the sukūn on al-'arah and read mqth for mqthy with K and T.

85 Al-mubtadā'u kullu ismin ibtudi'a li-yubnā 'alayhi-kalām: Sībawayh 1, p. 278, 4. It would seem reasonably clear that the Basrian grammarians view the mubtada' as the logical subject of the habar, not merely as “in focus.” That a kalām is a complete sentence, cf., e.g., Ibn Ğinni 1, p. 17. With the Aš'arite analysis we have to do here only with propositions about actually existent beings. Sentences whose initial subject refers to things that are not considered beings in the formal sense of the term (e.g., relations: ta'alluqāt and ansāb) have, in order to achieve logical and conceptual precision, to be recast in a form in which one or another of the relata is presented as the subject term (v. infra).

86 One has here again an example of one and the same expression's serving significantly on two distinct, albeit intimately related planes. It may also serve as an excellent illustration of the thesis that al-ismu huwa al-musammā: as the masdar, ‘tahayyuz’ underlies the description/predicate (al-wasf = al-tamiya) so the Name (al-ism) is what is named, sc., the atom's actually occupying space, which is its essential attribute and the ground of the truth of the description.

87 Cf., e.g., Mug, p. 28s, 10f., Šam (69), pp. 328ff., and Abū Bakr al-Fūrakī, al-Nizāmī fi uūl al-dīn, MS Ayasofya no. 2378, fol. 66r, 17.

88 Šam (69), p. 198, 9f., citing al-Bāqillānī. This is the common definition, save that generally one finds ‘gawhar’ or ‘guz” rather than ‘kā'in'; cf., e.g., Mug, p. 203, 4f. and Sam (69), pp. 157, 2, 198, 9f., 451, and p. 451, 2, where he employs a particularly good formulation. On the origin of the use of ‘kawn’ in the theology of Abū al-Hudayl see Th.u.G 3, pp. 234f. Van Ess renders ‘kawn’ by ‘Befindlichkeit’, a very felicitous rendering, but one for which we have no simple equivalent in English. Note, however, that the Aš'arite conception differs somewhat from that of Abū al-Hudayl for whereas he conceived the kawn as something distinct from motion and rest, for them the word is a general term for motion, rest, conjunction, and disjunction as they constitute a distinct class of accidents (just as ‘color’ is for black, white, etc.). The details of this (on which see Gimaret, Doctrine, pp. 99ff.) we need not go into here.

89 Cf., e.g., Mug, pp. 204, 17ff. and 243ff., Šam (69), pp. 432, 10ff. (citing al-Bāqillānī) and 444f. At p. 432 with T read tahsīs for tahassus in line 15 and for al-tānī ma'a taqdīri baqā'i al-ğawhar in line 16 read al-kawnu al-tānī min tahsīsi al-gawhar (T has al-kawnu al-tānī min taqdīri al-gawhar). The As‘arites’ conception of motion is rather more subtle than the commonplace definition here cited; cf. ibid., pp. 453f. and 462f., where several earlier masters are cited.

90 Cf., e.g., Mug, p. 206, 15Google Scholar, Bayān (K), p. 20, 6 (where with V read al-muwahhidūna for 'lmwgdwn in line 5) and al-Mutawallī, pp. 15f.

91 Ir, p. 17, 12, reading gismayn with three MSS against both editors. This thesis, alas, I failed to note in “Bodies and atoms.”Google Scholar

92 Cf. Šam (69), pp. 458f. All of this is important, e.g., in the discussion of the atoms that make up a body because when a body moves the interior atoms remain in the same positions relative to one another while the surface atoms move with respect to those to which they had been contiguous; cf., e.g. ibid., p. 454, 7ff. Being apart or disjoined is, thus, not a simple spatial relation (nasab/nisba), since such relations are not accidents (and therefore not beings, mawgūdāt). Some authorities distinguish between mugāwara, mumāssa, inhimām, et al.; cf., e.g., ibid., pp. 456ff.

93 Kullu fi'lin šay'un wa-hātun: Šam (69), p. 170, 14 (where with T read fa-yuqālu for fa-qāla in line 13; E has fa-qulnā). Note also that in many contexts one may read the noun ‘fi'l’, either as the simple noun, ‘fi'l’, or as the masdar, ‘fa'l’, and this as either active or passive, while in some it must be the one and not the other.

94 Note that though formally a passive participle, ‘muhdat’ is generally understood as a synonym of the intransitive ‘hādit’ (e.g., Ibn Fūrak's Hudūd, #16), being defined as that whose existence has a beginning (e.g., ibid., Mug, p. 37, 7f., Tam, p. 194, 3; and Fusāl, #3 (p. 60). ‘Muhdat’ occurs more commonly than does ‘hādit’.

95 Mubdi'u al-a'yāni lā 'alā midālin taqaddama… al-munši'u lā 'alā mitālin…gā'ilu al-'ayna 'aynan wa-al-dāta dātan: Tahbīr, fol. 126v, 13ff. (Only the first sentence is found in the printed edition, p. 92). Note that one could hear the participle ‘mubdi'u’ as present, in which case it is indefinite (and the following word therefore implicitly accusative): “God creates…” or as past, in which case the participle is definite by virtue of the annexed definite: “God is the one who created…”. Al-Qušayrī takes care to note here that said of God ‘mubdi'’ means to carry out an action that has no precedent (cp. al-Gawharī, s.v.) whence it would seem likely that the past definite is intended. This might also suggest that in the present world the exemplars of ongoing and future creation are all given. This, however, is a complex question which I will not go into here.

96 Taġr, p. 93, 11f. (= 65, 9); cp. Ta'wīl, fol. 108v, 6f. Ibn Fūrak says (Bayān (H), p. 2, 1 = (K), p. 9, 6) that God created “anwā'an mutafarriqatan wa-ağnāsan muttafīqa.” ‘Ġāyara’ is employed in the same way where al-Qušayrī says (Latā'if 4, p. 313, ad al-Qur'ān 25.53) of salt water and fresh water that God made them different in their characteristics (ġāyara baynahumā fi al-sifa).

97 ‘Naw'’ is defined as the name for a subclass of a gins by al-Gawhari, s.v. and this use would seem to be implied in Maqāyīs, s.v.

98 With this, cp. the statement of al-Qušayrī, (Latā'if 3, p. 216, ad al-Qur'ān 13.3) that God made animals to be of various kinds (nawwa'a) and flowers and fruits to be of diverse sorts (sannafa).Google Scholar

99 Al-Fūrakī, fols. 71v f. (note that the plural ‘aqsām’ indicates that ‘naw'ān’ here means the most general classes); cf. also Tam, p. 22, 4f (using gins), Baġdādī, pp. 33, 14f. and 35, 9ff. (using naw'), and Šam (81), p. 27, 15ff. (using gins).

100 In taġr, p. 93, 10f. (= p. 25, 7f., where with the Cairo edition read agsāmihi for agnāsihi), al-Aš'arī divides contingent beings into bodies and accidents as, e.g., does Ibn Fūrak in Bayān (K), p. 19, 13f. and al-Bāqillānī in Insāf, p. 17, 8ff., because it is bodies, not atoms that are the objects of our experience and immediate knowledge. (The single atom is not perceptible.) Thus, although al-Ansārī will speak loosely of bodies as belonging to one and the same class (tagānusu al-agsām: Ġn, fol. 73v, 10), he states clearly (ibid., fol. 35v, 14ff.) that ‘body’ is not the name of a class (laysa min asmā'i al-agnās) in the strict sense of the term, but is so employed in a kind of loose or improper sense (as a laqab). What he does here is, in effect, to set aside the lexicographers' sense of class names as formally improper in kalām. It is following the latter, ordinary sense of the words that one speaks (Mug, p. 82, 10f.) of structure and appearence (al-kayfiyyatu wa-al-hay'a) as “a class (naw') of accidents.” So Ibn Fūrak, following common usage and that of the grammarians in speaking of class nouns, says that bodies are of two classes (naw 'ān), living and non-living and that the former consist of two classes (naw'ān), plants and animals, and finally speaks of men, angels, and jinn as “classes of rational animals” (Bayān (H), pp. 10f.). Similarly following ordinary usage one speaks of “the other questions that belong to this class” (sā'iru mā gānasa hādihi al-masā'il: Mug, p. 260, 17) or of two ways of understanding an expression (naw'ay ma'nahu: ibid., p. 28, 2). Similarly, when al-Guwaynī speaks of subclasses of speaking (Šam (81), p. 27, cited above) he doubtless means various genres, as al-Bāqillānī speaks of such as poetry, rhymed prose, ordinary prose, oratory, etc. (Hidāya, fol. 185r, 2ff.).

101 Cp. Mug, p. 10, 23f.Google Scholar: al-haddu mā yagma'u naw'a al-mahdūdi faqat wayamna'u mā laysa minhu an yadhula fihi. On the “Definition” as the essential characteristic of the defined, see above. Note the play of the ambivalence of the word in this and the following citation and see below concerning universals. Regarding the use of gamā'a, yagma'u here, note that common nouns (“class nouns”) are sometimes termed asmā'un gāmi'a by the grammarians; e.g., Sībawayh 1, p. 267, 2.

102 Mug, p. 17, 13ffGoogle Scholar. On the same page read makānayn for the second mashallayn in line 1.

103 Šam (69), p. 292, 5ffGoogle Scholar. Cp. sāf, p. 32, 12f. Concerning the meaning of ‘sifātu al-itbāt’ see above.

104 Ihā istabadda ahadumā bi-wasfin lā yagūzu 'alā sāhibihi…kāna muhālifan lahu: Mug, p. 209, 9ff.; cf. also ibid., p. 266, 2ff. and Bayān (K), p. 16, 11ff.

105 Mug, p. 214, 3ffGoogle Scholar. where read al-mawğūdayni al-muhdathayn for al-mawgūdīna al-muhdathīn in line 7. (The reading tagānusi al-harakāti wa-ihtilāfihā of Mug, p. 214, 5 would seem to be correct in that there is nothing to indicate the contrary. Motion, however, is nowhere mentioned in the paragraph, wherefore one should perhaps read tagānusi al-akwān…, since this would more precisely have presented the basic intention.) Al-Ansārī, says (Ġn, fol. 38r f.) “… fa-al-kawnu al-ttānī min ginsi alkawni al-awwali fa-inna hāssiyyata al-kawni igābu tahassusi al-gawhari bimakānin…wa-idā awgaba al-kawnu al-tāni mā awgaba al-kawnu al-awwalu fa-qad tabata tamātuluhumā,” i.e., they all determine the atoms being in a particular location in space. This would seem perhaps to mean that some motions are essentially the same as some restings if at different times they determine one or several atoms being in one and the same place.

106 There is a lengthy discussion in Baġdādī, pp. 40ff., where he lists thirty classes (anwā'), but I have not noted such a discussion elsewhere. The numeration of al-Baġdādī here is not coherent since, with his usual sloppiness, he distinguishes simple belief (i'tiqād) from knowledge (p. 42, 2f.), but does not number it separately. Contrary to Mug, p. 17, 13ff. (cited in n. 102 above and Š.Ir, fol. 153r, 16), he also lists each mode of sense perception as a distinct class. One may note in this context that where the Mu'stazilites held knowing, error, opinion (the judgement that such and such is likely or may be the case) to be varieties of belief (sc., of assent to a proposition) the Aš' arites distinguish them as distinctly different accidents. In Baġdādī, p. 44, 8 read al-zann for al-nazar; cf. Š.Ir, fol. 77v, 3ff. and Šam (69), pp. 99f (where on p. 99, 12, following wagh add al-dalālati yatahammanu al-gahla kamā anna al-nazara fī waghi with T.

107 By ‘tahqīq’ here he means a strict or precise sense as distinct from a loose or imprecise sense; cp. al-Bāqillānī's distinction of the use of an expression “'alā al-tahqīq” – its haqīqa strictly considered – as opposed to its use in a loose and imprecise sense ('alā al-magāz): Hidāya, fol. 147r, 14ff.

108 Ġn, fol. 55r, 4ff. = Š.Ir, fols. 39vff. Contrary, thus, to the doctrine of al-Guwaynī and of al-Bāqillānī, the common Aš'arite teaching is that ‘being a color’ (al-lawniyya) and the like are simply verbal expressions that of themselves do not signify ontologicaily distinct aspects or features of the Being of the entities of which they are said. Al-Guwaynī too says that as such names are said of beings only on the basis of linguistic convention (isttilāhan wa-tawqīfan: Šam (69), p. 134, 14f.): “particularity and generality have reality only in verbal expressions (innamā yataHaqqaqāni fi al-aqwāl: ibid., pp. 305f.). Nonetheless, on the basis of his theory of “states” he holds that being a color is an ontologically real aspect of the being of every existent color (see generally ibid., pp. 292ff. and the very succinct discussion in Š.Ir, fol. 39v, 9ff.). This is not explicitly discussed in the earlier Aš'arite manuals that are available, perhaps simply because those that we have are all very elementary, though it may be that it became a topic of serious debate within the school only with al-Guwaynī. There is a lengthy discussion of the varying degrees of generality and particularity of names and descriptions in Tam, pp. 218f.

109 Šam (69), pp. 305f. (with this cp. Ġn, fol. 62v, 13f., translated above). ‘Qahiyya’ here as an equivalent to ‘hukm’; tahādd is described as qahiyya in Ġn, fol. 17v, 10) while ‘qahiyya’ and ‘hāssiyya’ are contextually employed as equivalents ibid., fols. 102v, 13 and 102r, 20 respectively.

110 Involved here is the correlation (ta'alluq) of every cognition to what is known. This, however, is a matter that involves a number of questions that will have to be taken up in another context. Because of the inadequacy of the available data it is not clear whether ‘perception’ is a general term like color so that each mode of sense perception (e.g., sight) is a basic or essential class like cognition, subclasses of which may be distinguished according to particular classes of objects or whether they took perception as an essential class, distinguishing subclasses of two levels. The former alternative would seem to be the more consistent with the general notion of essential attributes and specific characteristics.

111 Several scholars regularly translate ‘ma‘nā’ by ‘entity’ (entité). It seems to me, however, that the rendering is not wholly suitable even though the ma‘ānī are considered entities (mawgūdāt, dawāt). That is, the normal extension of ‘entity’ is far too broad for it to be appropriate here, since in these texts atoms are conceived as entities, at least in the normal sense of the word, and to stipulate (or simply to assume) a formal restriction that would exclude independent beings would do violence to its most basic sense. I have for a time now chosen to render ‘ma'nā’ generally by ‘entitative attribute’ since this seems rather precisely to render the technical sense of the word in this use and that is our primary concern. It also allows one to retain the implicit presence of the equivocal ‘ṣifa’ while specifying the distinction intended by ‘ma'nā’.

112 al-Hasan, Abū 'Alī b. Yūsuf al-Qiftī, Inbāh al-ruwāt 'alā anbāt al-nuhāt, ed. Ibrāhīm, M.A., 4 vols. (Cairo, 1955–1973), vol. 3, p. 259.Google Scholar

113 Usūl 1, p. 36 and Ihāh, p. 50. Other examples of the word's use in the sense of referent are given in our “Meanings,” pp. 272ff.Google Scholar

114 Ṣifatu al-nafsi kullu ṣifatin dalla al-wasfu bihā 'alā al-dāti dūna ma'nan zā'idin 'alayhi wa-ṣifatu al-ma'nā kullu sifatin dalla al-wasfu bihā 'alā ma'nan za'idin 'alā al-dāti ka-al-'ālimi wa-qādiri wa-nahwihimā: Šam (69), p. 308, 9ff., reading kullu sifatin for kullu wasfin with T in line 10.

115 The background in the usage of earlier mutakallimūn is, alas, not very clear as we have but few citations and one is never sure as to how exact they are in reflecting the original vocabulary and language of the individual cited. It is reported (M 6/2, p. 5, 6f., cited by van Ess in “Ibn Kullāb und die mihna,” Oriens 18/19 [1967]: 92–142, p. 116)Google Scholar that Sulaymān b. Garīr held “that God's will is a ma'nā that is neither God or other than God.” Abū al-Hudayl is reported to have used ‘ma'nā’ to describe motion and rest (Muhīt 1, p. 32, 11f.) and also perception (M 5, p. 55, 15). It would certainly seem to have been used in the later formal sense by ‘Abhād, as he is quoted (Maq p. 307, 6ff.) as distinguishing descriptions said of a being li-nafsihi and those (e.g., ‘is in motion’) said li-ma'nan and also to have used ‘li-'illa’ for the latter, something that is common with later writers. That al-sāliHī also used the word in this sense would seem clear enough from the report in Maq, p. 396, 3ff. Prof. van Ess called my attention to the report (Maq, p. 496, 9) that Ibn Kullāb “said that God is an other unlike others but would not say that He (it?) is a ma'nā” (wa-lā yaqūlu innahu ma'nan). The sense of the first proposition is clear enough, but the second, is not clear at all. One is tempted to read this along with the statement attributed to unnamed Mu'tazilites (Maq, p. 181, 6f.) who hold that “God is per se a being unlike beings but one does not say that He is other by an otherness (li-ġayriyya).” To take the pronoun of ‘innahu ma'nan’ in the statement attributed to Ibn Kullāb as referring implicitly to something like “God's being other” may seem somewhat questionable, however, given the way the report is cast, but does at least offer plausible sense. (One might, on the other hand, read li-ma'nan for ma'nan, again taking the pronoun to refer to God's being other, but no such variant is listed.) This interpretation would seem to gain some support from al-Aš'arī's report (Maq, p. 178, 6f., cited by van Ess, op. cit., p. 122) that some of Ibn Kullāb's followers said that God's being God (al-ilāhiyya) is a ma'nā, while others denied it. Cp. their analogous disagreement (cited Maq, pp. 170, 4f and 547, 1ff.) on the question of whether God is or is not eternal by virtue of “a being eternal” (bi-qidam).

116 Cf., e.g., Mānkdīm, Abū Muḥammad b., Ta‘līq 'alā Šarh al-Usūl al-hamsa, ed. ‘Uṯmān, A. under the title, ŠSarh al-Usūl al-Hamsa (Cairo, 1965), p. 182, 13f.Google Scholar

117 Cf., e.g., Mug, pp. 28, 13ff. and 326, 8ff. and al-Baġdādī, p. 90, 7f.Google Scholar

118 Šam (69), p. 329, 8f.Google Scholar, where with T read wugūh for al-wugūh in line 7 and bal for the editor's <li-anna> and li-gamī'i for <yahtassu> bi-gamī'i in line 8.

119 Cf., eg., Taġr, p. 82, 13f. (=35, 14f.), Luma' (A), p. 17, 9ff., al-Isfarā'īnī, 'Aqida, p. 138, 17, and Šam (69), p. 186, ult.

120 Tam, p. 263, 15f.Google Scholar; cf. also ibid., pp. 193f., cited in n. 30 above and cp. Qušayrī, Risāla 1s, p. 66. Cf. also the citation of Khalīl b. Ahmad in Th.u.G 2, p. 223 and see our “Elements in the development of the teaching of al-A'arī,” Le Muséon, 104 (1991): 141–90, p. 157, n. 40. Ibn Fūrak reports (Mug, p. 66, 14) that al-Aš'arī said of God that He is the only possible member of His class: inna al-qadīma al-azaliyya fī naw 'ihi lā yagūzu an yakūna aktara min wāhid. This seems initially to be inconsistent with what he explicitly says in Luma' (A). The context here in Mug, however, is that each of God's essential attributes is one and unique, as He cannot have two speakings, two knowings, etc., whence the use of ‘naw'’, though loose or metaphorical, is not wholly out of place.

121 Ġn, fol. 18v, 4f.; cf. also ibid., fol. 36v, ult. and al-Isfarā'īnī, p. 134s, 13 and cp. Šam (69), pp. 573f., where al-Isfarā'īnī is cited. Note that while as a technical term ‘mahall’ is used as a name for the subject or substrate of an accident or entitative attribute (e.g., Mug, p. 246, 17ff.), it also occurs occasionally in its ordinary meaning of the place or location where one stops or resides, as “it is impossible that two atoms be in a single mahall” since no two entities belonging to a single class can reside in one and the same mahall simultaneously” (Mug, p. 207, 10ff.).

122 Al-Aš'arī (Mug, p. 82, 10f.)Google Scholar defines al-kayfiyya as “a class (naw') of accidents, viz., composition [of parts] and physical appearance (tarkībun wa-hay'a), something which is characteristic of created beings;” cf. also, e.g., Insāf, p. 29, 2ff. and al-Qušayrī, , al-Luma' fi l-'tiqād, ed. Frank, R.M. in MIDEO, 15 (1982): 59–73, at p. 60, 19fGoogle Scholar. This lexical understanding of ‘kayf’ is found already with al-Khalīl b. Ahmad (cf. Th.u.G 2, p. 223). Concerning the Ašarite analysis, see our “Elements in the development of the teaching of al-Aš'arī,” pp. 154ff. and “The science of Kalām,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 2 (1992): 7–37, pp. 24f.

123 Cp. Š.Ir, fol. 27v, 11ff.: wa-min ashbinā man qāla al-fi'lu yadullu 'alā qasdi al-fā'ili wa-irādatihi, fa-inna al-gā'iza tubūtuhu wa-intifā'uhu lā yahassu bi-al-tubūti badalan min al-intifā'i al-mugawwazi illā bi-muhassisin qāsidin ilā īqā'ihī (omitting al-gā'iz after tubūtuhu and reading min al-intifā'i for min intifā'i). Thus one says that it is impossible that a contingent entity come to be without the one who determines its existence to a specific time and location (istihālatu al-hudūti dūna al-muhassisī ma'lūm: Šam (69), p. 541, 4). Concerning the will and intention of the agent (creator), see Šam (81), p. 66, 12f., (69), pp. 270, 12ff. and 273, 12ff. (citing al-Aš'arī) and 541, 2, (citing al-Bāqillānī).

124 Sam (69), p. 269, 5Google Scholar, reading bi-fā'ilin muhassis for bi-al-fā'ili wa-al-muhassis. In the same general passage read wagaba (with T) for ywgb on p. 268, 17; on p. 269 add gā'iz before ayhan in line 12 with T and tahaqquq with T and K following iltazamtum in line 16 and read yatahaqqaq with T for yata'allaq in the last line; on p. 270, T reads al-'adam for al-ma'dūm in the first line and both T and K add lā following limā in line 11 and T contains the kawna inserted by the editor in line 14.

125 For the use of the verb in this sense by the Mutakallimūn, cf., e.g., Šam (69), pp. 141, 11 and 199, 5f.: lā ma'nā li-qiyāmi al-'arahi bi-al-gawhari illā an yūgada bi-haytu wugūdi al-gawhar. Though he sometimes employed the expression, al-Aš'arī generally refused to say ‘al-'arahu qā'imun bi-al-gawhar’ or ‘al-sifatu qā'imatun bi-al-mawsūf’ (cf. Mug, 213, 1f.), preferring the use of ‘mawgūd’ (ibid., p. 29, 7ff. and 265, 2ff.). Similarly, he disapproved of the use of ‘halla fi’ to speak of the accident's being in the atom, on the grounds that ‘hulūl’ is synonymous with ‘sukūn’ and therefore is properly used of something's occupying a place (makān), whence is it most properly said of the atom and only in an extended sense of the accident's existence in the atom (ibid., p. 212, 14ff.). It is thus appropriately rendered by ‘reside’ or ‘exist’ as may seem most suitable in terms of the particular context. One should note concerning al-Aš'arī's use of ‘qāma bi-’ that reports given by later authors tend in many, if not most cases, to present his position ad sensum rather than verbatim.

126 Al-Isfarā'īnī, Fr. #26, where for ‘lmhs at p. 150, 8, read al-muhassis; cp. Šam (81), p. 65, 20ff., (69), pp. 423, 8f. and 573, 20ff., and al-Mutawallī, pp. 20f.

127 In some disputational contexts al-Aš'arī denied that ‘qā'imun bi-al-nafs’ may be used of God (cf., Mug, pp. 29, 3f. and 43, 6f.) and is reported to have asserted in analogous contexts that the expression has no strict or proper meaning (haqīqa) either with reference to contingent entities or to the transcendent (cf. Sam (69), pp. 423, 9ff. and 574, 13f.). Much of this is directed against the use of ‘gawhar’ by Christians (cf., e.g., Tam, pp. 75ff. and Šam (69), pp. 524ff. and 571ff.). Al-Guwaynī acknowledges the Christians' claim that in their use the word is equivalent to Greek ούσíα not to Arabic ‘gawhar’ as the latter is normally used and understood by the mutakallimūn, but he nevertheless refuses to allow the validity of their use (ibid., p. 572, 13ff.; cp. Ir, pp. 46f.). It is possible that al-Guwaynī may also have had the philosophers in mind in this polemic (v. Avicenna's view, cited in n. 38 above). All this is, in any case, but disputational dialectic that is basically irrelevant to the normal use and sense of the expression.

128 Cf. also ibid., fol. 106r f. and also fol. 19v, 4: idā lam yakun li-wugūdihi muftatahun fa-lā yu'qalu fihi al-tanāhī wa-al-imtidād. Cf. also Mug, p. 239, 16ff., translated below. This thesis is significant also in that it applies also to God's foreknowledge of what with respect to our now was and what is and what is to be.

129 Al-Isfarā'īnī, p. 137, 18: ’al-dalīlu 'alā istihālati al-haddi wa-al-nihāyati 'alayhi anna al-nihāyata tūgibu miqdāra al-guz'i fa-mā fawqahu. I have rendered ‘guz'’ here by ‘discrete quantum of magnitude’ in order to allow for instants of time as well as “particles” of accidents and atoms. Cp. Bayān (K), p. 19, 10ff.

130 Cp. Ġn, fol. 32v, 14f.: al-muqtahī li-al-ansābi al-nihāyātu wa-man lā niyāyata lahu fi dātihi wa-lā fī wugūdihi lā yunāsibu al-mutanāhiya fī al-makāni wa-al-zamāni wa-man lā haytu lahu lā yunāsibu mā lahu hayt (omitting the wāw following wugūdihi in line 14). What is meant when we speak of an instant or moment of time (waqt) is a number of events, sc., of created realities, that exist simultaneously (cf., e.g., Ir, pp. 32f.). Thus there is for creatures (for us) a now and a before, but all created entities are, for God, immediately present in the actuality of their Being (cf., e.g., Ġn, fol. 67r, 6ff.). Note that the use of ‘hayt’ in Ġn, fol. 32v, 15, makes it clear that, though it has no position in space (giha) or place (makān), the accident has “locus” as it exists in the locus of the atom (cf., e.g., Šam (69) pp. 185, 18f. and 199, 5, and Ġn, fol. 18v, 6, cited above in n. 71 above). With this, cp. the phrase “al-makānu wa-al-haytiyya”: Ġn, fols. 33r, 4f., translated immediately below.

131 The same phrase is found also at Ġn, fol. 73r, 5. Various interpretations are given for ‘samad’ (whose meaning in al-Qur'ān 112.2 was a mystery to the lexicographers). Though not offered by the lexicographers (it is not given, e.g., Ištiqāq, pp. 441ff.) ‘who perdures’ or ‘who perdures forever’ is found, e.g., in Ta'wīl, fol. 115v, 12f.; it is the first interpretation given in Tahbīr (fol. 109v, 13f. = p. 80) and is plainly intended in the present context, where the word may perhaps stand last as a term that combines the first two. It is commonly employed by al-Qušayri (e.g., Latš'if 1, pp. 57, 129, et alibi), but is not given by al-Guwaynī in Ir (p. 145). Maqāyis, as usual, gives only the established basic meanings, saying that there are two stems; one meaning al-qasd and the other al-salābatu fī al-šay’. The latter serves as the base of one commonly accepted meaning of ‘samad’ as it occurs in al-Qur'ān (112.2) that is followed, e.g., by al-Isfarā'īnī (p. 134, 7f.), while the former is the base for the more commonly accepted interpretation, given in al-Gawharī (s.v.) which is followed, e.g., by al-Zaggāgi (Ištiqāq, p. 441). Al-Guwaynī (Ir, p. 154), along with other Aš'arites, gives but the usual lexical definitions. On this see generally Gimaret, Doctrine, pp. 320ff.

132 Al-Qušayrī, al-Luma' fī l-i'tiqād, p. 61, 18f. This is quite common with Aš'arite theologians (cf., e.g., Insāf, p. 42, 17ff., al-Isfarā'īnī, p. 133, 16f., and Ġn, fols. 32v f. and 65r, 8), even though they hold that certain aspects of His Being are accessible to the mind through rational inference (ma'qūlu al-dalīli ġayr mawhūmin wa-lā muqaddar: Ġn, fol. 32r, 20). For the sense of ‘wahm’ as thought, cf., e.g., Isfarā'īnī, p. 136, 22f and Ta'wīl, fol. 115r, margin. In Ġn, fol. 29r, 14 one reads lā yusawwiruhu wahmun wa-lā yuqaddiruhu fikr.

133 Al-istidlālu bi-al-šāhidi 'alā al-ġā'ib: Mug, p. 14, 7ff.; cf. also ibid., pp 69, 7f. and 286, 13ff. and Šīrāzī, p. 21, 9ff. For a detailed discussion of the matter along with the conditions and methods of such reasoning, cf., e.g., Šam (81), pp. 63ff. It is on this basis that one says that the existence of created entities manifests God's will, power, and knowledge (e.g. ibid., p. 66, cited above). The possibility of such reasoning is grounded in the haqā'iq of names and descriptions; on this see below.

134 These attributes are described as some of (or among) His essential attributes (min sifāti hātihi), because they are distinct from (zā'idatun 'alā) His existence, which is the primary attribute of His Self, The essential attribute, if you will.

135 Š.Ir, fol. 68r, 4ff; cp. Ġn, fol 65v, 2ff. and also, e.g., Mug, pp. 66, 8 and 194, 13f. and Iht, fol. 6r f.

136 Cf., e.g., Mug, p. 58, 4ffGoogle Scholar. and Šam (69), p. 351, 8f., citing al-Bāqillānī, where with T read tamāniya for nihāya in line 9; cp. Gn, fol. 64v, 9. Concerning its not being sanctioned by the revelation, cf. Šam (69), p. 350, 7ff., where with T read bi-al-'adad for bl'd in line 7, yumātil for yugānis in line 8, add fa-yu'adda minhā following alma'dūdāt in line 9, and read wa-raddada for wrd in line 13; see generally pp. 350f., where with T add ahaduhumā anna following ma'nayayn at p. 350, 2 and read sifāti Allāhi subhānahu ašyā'u for al-sifāti laysat in line 6; the argument cited from al-Isfarā'īnī (pp. 350f.) makes there no sense in the reading of the printed text. Cf. also Luma' (A), p. 32, 5f.

137 Taġr, pp. 95f. (= 70, 12f.): …li-anna mufāraqatahā mā yūgibu hudūtahu wahurūgahu 'an al-ilāhiyya (where read ġayriyya for ġayruhu at p. 96, 1 and add lahu following mufāraqatahā at 96, 2; and read nafs for tafsīr at 96, 3 of the Istanbul edition and taġyīr at 70, 14 of the Cairo edition and mimmā for lm' in the following line of both editions). Cf. also Luma' (A), loc. cit.

138 Ġn, fol. 65r, 19f., citing al-Aš'arī; cf. also Iht, fol. 66r, 14ff. The double formulations of al-Isfarā'īnī are significant from a logical point of view, albeit he is cited by al-Harāsī (fols. 128v f.) as saying that the argument is chiefly over words; see the general discussion ibid., fols. 128r ff.

139 Tam, p. 211, 7ff.Google Scholar, reading wa-lā following ginsayn in line 14 with the variant; on the use of ‘muttafiq’ see the discussion of the qusetion in Šam (69), pp. 330ff.

140 Cf. also ibid. p. 58, 4ff. and Ġn, fol. 65r, 17, Tam, p. 211 and Insāf, p. 39, 7f. (inna sifāti hātihi laysat bi-aġyārin lahu wa-lā huwa ġayrun li-sifātihi wa-lā sifātuhu mutaġāyiratun fī anfusihā). A similar formulation is given by al-Qušayrī, Abū al-Qāsim, in al-Mu 'tamad, MS Murat Buhari, no. 210, fol. 74r, 10f.Google Scholar: …la aġyārun lahu wa-lā fī anfusihā mutaġāyira.

141 This is not the case with the ‘ġayrihi’ of yaqtadī mā yata'allaqu bihi min mahallin aw-ġayrihi (Mug, p. 28, discussed above), since the ‘-hi’ of ‘aw-gayrihi’ here refers to ‘mahallin’. Cf. also ibid., p. 29, 9f., where employing ‘sifa’ as a general term used either for God's attributes or for accidents, sc., the entitative attributes of creatures, he says al-sifatu mawgādatun bi-al-mawsūfi bihā. Cf. also Tam, pp. 259f.

142 In Tam (p. 263, 7ff.), which, as we have noted, is a quite elementary and so standard Aš'arite handbook, he asserts the more common thesis. The divisions of the school concerning God's baqā’ seem in some degree to parallel those concerning His face (e.g., in al-Qur'ān 55.15f.: “All who are on the earth shall perish; the face of your Lord, glorious and majestic, perdures…”). Abū al-Hasan al-Habarī says (Ta'wīl, fol. 127v, 7ff.) that “the face of a being is the being itself (waghu al-šay'i huwa <huwa> bi-'aynihi) and so also al-Bāqillānī, using ‘hāt’ rather than “ayn’ (Insāf, p, 38, 1f.), while in an equivalent formulation al-Guwaynī says that ‘face’ here means existence (Ir, p. 155, 14f.; cf. also ibid., p. 157, 9ff.). Ibn Fūrak, by contrast, says (Bayān (H), p. 172, 18f.) that “our fellows take the position that God has a face and the face is one of His attributes that exist in His Self (sifatun min sifātihi al-qā'imati bi-dātihī)” and, having rejected the thesis that ‘wagh’ means the Self or existence of a being (ibid., pp. 172f., where V adds hādā waghu al-tarīq following bi-qawlihim at p. 172, 14), asserts (p. 222, 5ff., where V adds huwa after alladī and correctly lacks al-tānī in 1.7) that there is no lexical basis for the thesis that ‘face’ means dāt. Al-Aš'arī's position on this seems to have been somewhat inconsistent. Al-Guwaynī says (Iht, fol. 125v, 6) that “the sounder of his two responses (asahhu gawābayhi) concerrnng the face is that it is the dāt,” while al-Ansārī reports (ġn, fols. 99v f.) that of his two positions the predominant one (azharu qawlayhi) is that it is an attribute distinct from existence (sifatun zā'idatun 'alā al-wugūd).” Al-Qušayrī seems to attempt an intermediate position in Latā'if 5, p. 85 (ad al-Qur'ān 28.88) and 6, p. 76, 5ff. (ad al-Qur'ān 55.26f.).

143 Mug, p. 239, 16ff. With this cp. Ištiqāq, p. 347, where he says that predicated of any being other than God, ‘al-bāqī’ has always an explicit or implicit reference to a limited period of time, wherefore it is said truly of God and only metaphorically (magāzan) of creatures. Concerning the association of contingent existence with intervals or periods of time, cf., e.g., ġn, fol. 19v, 21ff.Google Scholar

144 Cf. Ġn, fols. 90r, 21 and 94v, 14, cited above. In Š.Ir, fol. 35r, 14f. he says that this is the common view of the school save for al-Bāqillānī. Regarding the thesis that baqā' is an entitative attribute it is interesting to note that al-Qušayrī at the beginning of his discussion of ‘The Living’ as one of God's Beautiful Names (Tahbīr, p. 76) says, “His life is one of His essential attributes and is distinct from His baqā'.” This seems curious at first, but lexically life is defined as the opposite of death (e.g. Maqāyīs and Ištiqāq, p. 168) and on this basis AbūGoogle Scholaral-Zaggāg, Ishāq says (Tafsīr asmā' Allāh, ed. Daqqāq, A.Y. [Cairo, 1975], p. 56)Google Scholar that as a description of God “al-hayyu yufīdu dawāma al-wugūd” and this is followed by his pupil, al-Zaggāgī (Ištiqāq, loc. cit.).

145 Š.Ir, fols. 124v f. In the sentence lā yamtani‘u kawnuhā bāqiyātin bi-baqā'ihi the phrase ‘kawnuhā bāqiyātin’ is used instead of the simpler ‘baqā'uhā’ in order to avoid the ambivalence of the noun ‘baqā” i.e., because the latter may be heard as a simple noun which names and refers to the attribute, whereas what is intended is not the attribute but the verbal noun in a gerundive sense: continuing [to exist]. The ‘kawn’ functions, in short, as a syntactical particle which serves to nominalize the sentence ‘huwa bāqin’ so as to make it the subject of lā yamtani‘. This use of ‘kawn’ is quite common and has carefully to be distinguished from that in which it is semantically significant, as in phrases such as ‘kawnuhu ‘āliman’ in the work of al-Ǧuwaynī who speaks of ontologically real “states” (aḥwāl) of the Being of entities.

146 Š.Ir, fol. 125r f.: qāla fī ba'hi kutubihi sifātu Allāhi ta'ālā bāqiyātun bi-anfusihā wa-anfusuhā baqā'un lahā wa-al-'ilmu baqā'un li-nafsihi wa-kahālika sā'iru sifātihi (reading baqā' for mq’ and for 'ilmun, the first of which is a simple scribal error and the second a lapse, the correct reading for which is obvious. See also ġn, fol. 90v, 10f., where the same basic report is given verbatim, though without the final sentence, and where also he goes on to say that Abū Ishāq al-Isfarā'īnī holds the same position. Whether by the phrase ‘fī ba'hi kutubihi’ he means in several of his works or in only one is uncertain, though the latter would seem more likely.

147 Cp. ġn, fol. 61v, cited in n. 44. “Al-ismu ihā ištuqqa min ma'nan istahā1a ahhuhu min ġayrihi fa-al-'ālimu ištuqqa min al-'ilmi wa-yastahīlu itbātu al-ismi al-mušitaqqi bi-dūni itbāti al-muštaqqi minhu” (Itt, fol. 71r, 13f.). For the sense of ‘mustahīl’ here, cp. the use of ‘muhāl’ in Sībawayh 1, p. 8, 13, which is followed in Ištiqāq, p. 292, 18f.

148 Cf. al-Mutawallī, pp. 21f., Šam (69), pp. 297f., (81), pp. 63ff. and 72f.; with regard to the reasoning itself see the references given in n. 133 above.

149 Tahbīr, fol. 72, 1ff.; cf. also Luma' (A), §§ 15ff., Insāf, p. 37, 1ff., and Ir, pp. 72ff (where he has then to get rid of taste, smell, etc., as essential attributes, pp. 76f.).

150 ‘Qadīm’ commonly means old or ancient: that the time of something is anterior (zamānuhu sālif: Maqāyīs, s.v.; al-qidamu al-'atqu, masdaru al-qadīm: Lisān al-'arab, s.v..); “‘new’ (hadīt) is the contrary of ‘qidam’ (al-Gawharī, s.v.). “God is the qadīm in an absolute sense” (Ibn Sīda and Lisān al-'arab, s.v.). According to al-Aš'arī, thus, when said of God “it means that His existence is, without limit or duration, antecedent to every being that exists through a coming to be” (Mug, p. 42, 19f; cp. ibid., p. 27, 17ff., where read al-wugūd for al-mawgūd in line 19); it is therefore taken to mean “His existence has no beginning” (lā awwala li-wugādihi: e.g., Insāf, p. 99, 6, Bayān (K), p. 19, 11f., and al-Mutawallī, p. 12, 8ff.). In this al-Aš'arī followed his master, al-Gubbā'ī who held that when said of God ‘qadīm’ means His existence is antecedent in a preeminent sense and that it has no beginning (for al-Gubbā'ī's discussion of the semantics of the term cf., e.g., M 5, 233). It may be, in part at least, because these interpretations of the word appear to imply a temporal relation of God's Being to that of contingent entities, that ‘qadīm’ is frequently defined as meaning that God's existence is necessary (e.g., Šam (69), pp 504f.), that His non-existence is impossible (e.g., Taġr, p. 82, 11 [= 35, 14] and al-Isfarā'īnī, p. 138, 17; see generally Sam (69), pp. 254ff.). It is noteworthy for our present context that al-Harāsī says (fols. 72v f.) that both ‘qadīm’ and ’wāgib’ are here negative.