The Theology of Unity

Muhammad 'Abduh, Isḥāq Musa'ad, Kenneth Cragg, Kenneth Cragg, Isḥāq Musa'ad

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000519853
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Comparative Religion

Originally published in 1966, this was the first of Muhammad 'Abduh's works to be translated into English. Ris?lat al Tauhid represents the most popular of his discussion of Islamic thought and belief. 'Abduh is still quoted and revered as the father of 20th Century Muslim thinking in the Arab world and his mind, here accessible, constituted both courageous and strenuous leadership in his day. All the concerns and claims of successive exponents of duty and meaning of the mosque in the modern world may be sensed in these pages. The world and Islam have moved on since 'Abduh's lifetime, but he remains a source for the historian of contemporary movements and a valuable index to the self-awareness of Arab Islam.

Chapter 1 Prolegomena Definition of TauhĪd the Meaning and Source of the Term

The theology of unity (Tauḥīd) is the science that studies the being and attributes of God, the essential and the possible affirmations about Him, as well as the negations that are necessary to make relating to Him. It deals also with the apostles and the authenticity of their message and treats of their essential and appropriate qualities and of what is incompatibly associated with them.

The original meaning of Tauḥīd is the belief that God is one in inalienable divinity. Thus the whole science of theology is named from the most important of its parts, namely the demonstration of the unity of God in Himself and in the act of creation. From Him alone all being derives and in Him alone every purpose comes to its term. Unity was the great aim of the mission of the Prophet Muḥammad, the blessing and peace of God be upon him. This is entirely evident from the verses of the mighty Qur’ān, as will fully appear below.

The doctrine of unity could equally well be called scholastic theology. One reason for this lies in the fact that the chief point of debate at issue between the learned of the early centuries was whether the Quranic word was created or pre-existent. Another may lie in the fact that theology is built on rational demonstration as alleged by each theologian in his spoken case. For in their rationality they only occasionally appealed to dogmatic tradition (naql) and then only after establishing the first principles from which they went on yet again to further deductions, like branches of the same stem. The name may perhaps also be credited to the fact that these scholastic methods of proof in theology were comparable to those of logic in its procedures of argument within the speculative sciences. So Kalām, or scholastic theology was used as a term in preference to logic, to denote the distinction between the two, with their identical procedures but differing subject-matter.

This branch of science, dogmatic theology and prophetic interpretation, was known among the nations before Islam. There were in every people custodians of religion concerned with its protection and propagation, of which the first prerequisite is expression. They had, however, little recourse to rational judgement in their custody of belief. They rarely relied for their ideas and dogmas on the nature of existence or the laws of the universe. Indeed there is an almost total contrast between the intellectual cut and thrust of science and the forms of religious persuasion and assurance of heart. Oftentimes religion on the authority of its own leaders was the avowed enemy of reason, and all its works. Theology consisted for the most part of intricate subtleties and credulous admiration of miracles, with free play to the imagination—a situation familiar enough to those acquainted at all with the condition of the world before the coming of Islam.

The Qur’än came and took religion by a new road, untrodden by the previous Scriptures, a road appropriate and feasible alike to the contemporaries of the revelation and to their successors. The proof of the prophethood of Muḥammad was quite a different matter from that of earlier prophecies. It rested its case on a quality of eloquence, belonging even to the shortest chapter of it, quite beyond the competence of the rhetoricians to reproduce, though in his recipience of the revelation he was simply a man. The Book gives us all that God permits us, or is essential for us, to know about His attributes. But it does not require our acceptance of its contents simply on the ground of its own statement of them. On the contrary, it offers arguments and evidence. It addressed itself to the opposing schools and carried its attacks with spirited substantiation. It spoke to the rational mind and alerted the intelligence. It set out the order in the universe, the principles and certitudes within it, and required a lively scrutiny of them that the mind might thus be sure of the validity of its claims and message. Even in relation of the narratives of the past, it proceeded on the conviction that the created order follows invariable laws, as the Qur’ān says: ‘Such was the way of God in days gone by and you will find it does not change’ (Surah 48,23). And again: ‘God does not change a people’s case until they change their own disposition’ (Surah 13.11). ‘. . the shape of religious man as God has made him. There is no altering the creation of God’ (Surah 30.30). Even in the realm of the moral it relies on evidence: ‘Requite evil with good and your worst enemy will become your dearest friend’ (Surah 41.34). Thus for the first time in a revealed Scripture, reasons finds its brotherly place. So plain is the point that no elucidation is required.

Saving those who give place to neither reason nor faith, all Muslims are of one mind in the conviction that there are many things in religion which can only be believed by the way of reason, such as the knowledge of God’s existence, of His power to send messengers, of His knowledge of the content of their inspiration, of His will to give them particular messages, and, with these, many consequent points relating to the comprehension and evidence of prophetic mission. So Muslims are of one mind that though there may be in religion that which transcends the understanding, there is nothing which reason finds impossible.

The Qur’ān describes the attributes of God, by and large, with a far surer accent of transcendance than the earlier religions. Nevertheless, there are several human attributes, which, in name or form, are made comparable, such as power, choice, hearing and seeing. In what is ascribed to God we find points that have counterparts in man, like taking one’s seat upon a throne, and like the face and the hands. The Qur’ān deals at length with predestination and human free-will, and takes controversial issue with those who exaggerate on both sides of this theme. It affirms the reward of good deeds and the retribution of evil deeds and leaves the recompense of approbation and punishment to the arbitrament of God. In this introduction there is no need to expatiate further on similar topics.

This Quranic esteem for the rational judgement, together with the use of parables in the allegorical or ambiguous passages in the revealed text, gave great scope to alert intelligences, the more so inasmuch as the appeal of this religion to reason in the study of created things was in no way limited or hedged about with conditions. For it knew that every sound study would conduce to belief in God, as Quranically depicted. So it had no need of either excessive abstraction or over-rigorous definition.

The Prophet’s day passed—he who was men’s recourse in perplexity and their lamp in the darkness of doubt. His two immediate successors in the Caliphate devoted their span of life to repelling his foes and ensuring the unity of the Muslims. Men had little leisure at that time for critical discussion of the basis of their beliefs. What few differences there were they took to the two Caliphs and the Caliph gave his decision, after consultation, if necessary, with the available men of insight. These issues, for the most part, had to do with branches of law, not with the principles of dogma. Under those two Caliphs, men understood the Book in its meaning and allusions. They believed in the transcendence of God and refrained from debate about the implications of passages involving human comparisons. They did not go beyond what was indicated by the literal meaning of the words.

So the case remained until the events which resulted in the death of the third Caliph—a tragedy which did irreparable damage to the structure of the Caliphate and brutally diverted Islam and the Muslim people from their right and proper course. Only the Qur’ān remained unimpaired in its continuity. As God said: ‘It is We who have sent down the Reminder and We truly preserve it’ (Surah 15.9). And thus the way was open for man to transgress the proper bounds of religion. The Caliph had been killed with no legal judgement and thus the popular mind was made to feel there could be free rein to passion in the thoughts of those who had not truly allowed the faith to rule in their hearts. Lawless anger had possessed many of the very exponents of pious religion. Both worldlings and zealots together had overborne the steadfast people and set in motion a train of consequences they could only deplore.

Among the actors in that crisis of disloyalty was ‘Abdallāh ibn Saba’, a Jew whom had embraced Islam and an excessive admirer of ‘Alī (whose face God honour) to the point of asserting that God indwelt him. Ibn Saba’ claimed that ‘Alā was the rightful Caliph and rebelled against ‘Uthmän who exiled him. He went to Basrah where he propagated his seditious views. Evicted from there, he went to Kūfā, taking his poison with him, and thence to Damascus, where he failed to find the support he wanted. He proceeded to Egypt where he did find collaborators with the dire consequences we know. In the time of ‘AlΗ, when his school showed its head again, he was exiled to Madā’in. His ideas spawned a lot of later heresies.

Events took their subsequent course. Some of those who had pledged allegiance to the fourth Caliph broke their fealty. Civil war ensued, issuing in the hegemony of the Umayyads. But the community had been sundered and its bonds of unity broken. Rival schools of thought about the Caliphate developed and were propagated in partisanship, each striving by word and act to gain the better over its adversary. This in turn gave rise to forgeries of traditions and interpretation, and the sectarian excess brought sharp divisions into Khawārij, Shī’ah and moderates. The Khawārij went so far as to declare their opponents infidels and to demand a republican form of government. For a long time they maintained their ‘excommuncation’ of those who resisted them, until after much fighting that cost many Muslim lives their cause grew weak. They fled into remoter parts but continued their seditious activities. A remnant of them survives to the present in certain areas of Africa and of the Arabian peninsula. The Shī’ahs carried their heresy to the point of exalting ‘Alā or some of his descendants to Divine or near-Divine status, with widespread consequences in the field of dogma.

These developments, however, did not halt the propagation of Islam and did not deprive the areas remote from the centre of controversy of the light of the Qur’an. People came into Islam in droves—Persians, Syrians and their neighbours, Egyptians and Africans, and others in their train. Freed from the necessity of defending the temporal power of Islam, great numbers were ready to busy themselves with the first principles of belief and law, in pursuance of the Qur’an’s guidance. In this task, they gave due place to the delivered tradition without neglecting the proud role of reason or overlooking the intellect. Men of sincere integrity took to the vocation of knowledge and education, the most famous of them being Hasan al-Baṣrī. He had a school in Basrah to which students came from every part and various questions were examined. People of all religious persuasions had come into Islam without knowing it inwardly, but carrying with them into it their existing notions, seeking some kind of mediating compromise between the old and the Islamic. So after the tempests of sedition came the tensions of doubt. Every opinion-monger took his stand upon the liberty of thought the Qur’ān enjoined. The newcomers asserted their right to an equal stake with the existing authorities, and schisms raised their heads among the Muslims.

The first theme of contention to arise was that of will—man’s independence in willing and doing and choosing, and the question of the supreme sin unrepented of. Wāṣil ibn ‘Atā’ and his master, Hasan al-Baṣrī, differed on this issue and the former broke away, teaching according to his own independent lights. Many of the first Muslim masters, including Hasan al-Baṣrī, or so it is alleged, were of the view that man truly has choice in the deeds which proceed from his knowledge and will. So they opposed the school of Jabr, or determinism, which held that man in his volitional activity is like the branches of a tree swaying necessarily. Throughout the period of the rule of Marwan’s sons no effort was made to regulate the issue or to get people back to first principles and bring them to a common position. Individual idiosyncrasy had free play, though ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-’Azīz gave directions to Al-Zahrā to record the traditions he had come by and he was the first tradition-collector.

These two problems, however, were not all. Controversy developed also over the question whether the real attributes of God should be posited of the Divine essence or not. There was also the question of reason and its competence to know all religious principles, even the ramifications of law and matters pertaining to worship, which some espoused even to the point of excessive pleading of the Quranic text. Others limited the writ of reason to the first principles, as explained above. Others again—a minority—in a spirit of contention against the first group, totally repudiated reason and thus went counter to the Qur’an itself. Opinions on the Caliphs and the Caliphate marched with those on matters of doctrine, as if they were an integral part of Islamic dogma.

With the disciples of Wāṣil the paths diverged further. For they had recourse to drawing congenial ideas from the Greeks. They had the idea that it was a work of piety to establish dogma by scientific corroboration, without discriminating, however, between what went back to rational first principles and what was merely a figment of the imagination. So they mingled with the tenets of religion what had no valid rational applicability. They persisted on this tack until their sects multiplied apace. The ‘Abbāsid rule, then in the prime of power, helped them and their views prevailed. Their learned scholars began to write books. Whereupon the adherents of the schools of the early masters took up their challenge, sustained by the power of conviction though lacking the support of the rulers.

The early ‘Abbāsids knew the extent of their debt to the Persians for the successful establishment of their power and the overthrow of the Umayyad state. They relied strongly on Persian collaboration and brought them into high positions among their ministers and retainers. Many of them thus came into authority without any part or lot in Islam religiously, including Manichee sectaries and Yazidīs, and other Persian persuasions, as well as utterly irreligious people. They began to disseminate their opinions and by attitude and utterance induced those to whom their views were congenial to accept their direction. Atheism emerged, and views inimical to belief in God became rife, to the point that Al-Mansūr ordered the issue of books exposing their errors and negating their claims.

At this juncture the science of theology was still a young plant, a still partly reared edifice. Technical theology took its point of departure from its perpetual principle, namely the study of the created order, within the terms laid down by the Qur’an. There ensued here the dispute over the createdness or un-createdness of the Qur’an. Several of the ‘Abbāsid Caliphs adopted the dogma of the Qur’än’s being created, while a considerable number of those who held to the plain sense of the Qur’ān and the Sunnah either abstained from declaring themselves or took a stand for uncreatedness. The reticence arose from a reluctance to give expression to what might conduce to heresy. The dispute brought much humiliation to men of reason and piety and much blood Was criminally shed. In the name of faith the community did violence to faith.

It was in this way that the lines were drawn between the thoroughgoing rationalists and the moderate or extreme upholders of the text of the law. All were agreed that religious principles were a matter of obligation for their followers, both in respect of acts of worship and mutual dealings, and should be stringently followed. It was recognised that the inner attitudes of heart and the spiritual life constituted a binding obligation to which the soul must be set.

A further element in the picture was the sect of the Dahriy-yün, who believed in ḥulül and sought to foist upon the Qur’ān the notions they brought with them on assuming the externals of Islam. They strayed far in their exegesis and pretended to find in every plain deed some hidden mystery. In their handling of the Qur’ān they were as far from the import of the text as error is from truth. They were known as the Bātiniyyah and the Isma’īiyyah, as well as by other names current among historians. Their schools of thought had a disastrous influence on the faith and undermined conviction. Their deviations and deeds are only to...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• FOREWORD
• TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION
• Table of contents
• RISÄLAT AL-TAUHĪD
• 1. PROLEGOMENA
• 2. THE CATEGORIES OF KNOWLEDGE
• 3. THE PRINCIPLES OF THE NECESSARILY EXISTING
• 4. THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES
• 5. THE ACTS OF GOD
• 6. THE DEEDS OF MAN
• 7. THE PROPHET AS THE HELPER
• 8. MAN’S NEED OF PROPHETIC MISSION
• 9. THE POSSIBILITY OF REVELATION
• 10. REVELATION AND MISSION IN THEIR ACTUALITY
• 11. THE MISSION AND MESSAGE OF MUHAMMAD
• 12. THE QUR’ĀAN
• 13. THE ISLAMIC RELIGION, OR ISLAM
• 14. RELIGIONS AND HUMAN PROGRESS: THEIR CULMINATION IN ISLAM
• 15. THE EXPANSION OF ISLAM: ITS UNPARALLELED SPEED
• 16. A READY OBJECTION
• 17. ACCEPTING THE TRUTH OF MUHAMMAD’S MESSAGE
• CONCLUSION
• INDEX