Beings and Their Attributes: The Teaching of the Basrian School of the Mutazila in the Classical Period

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Beings and Their Attributes : The Teaching of the Basrian School of the Mutazila in the Classical Period Studies in Islamic Philosophy and Science Frank, Richard M. State University of New York Press 9780873953788 9780585077703 English Motazilites, Islam--Doctrines--History, Ontology. 1978 BP195.M6F73eb 181/.07 Motazilites, Islam--Doctrines--History, Ontology.

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Studies in Islamic Philosophy and Science Published under the auspices of the Society for the Study of Islamic Philosophy and Science Editorial Board George F. Hourani, State University of New York at Buffalo Muhsin Mahdi, Harvard University Parviz Morewedge, Baruch Cortege of City University of New York Nicholas Rescher, University of Pittsburgh Ehsan Yar-Shater, Columbia University

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Beings and Their Attributes The Teaching of the Basrian School of the Mu`tazila in the Classical Period Richard MacDonough Frank State University of New York Press Albany, 1978

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Published by State University of New York Press Albany, New York 12246 Translation © 1978 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Frank, Richard M Beings and their attributes. (Studies in Islamic philosophy and science) Includes indexes. 1. Motazilites. 2. Islamic TheologyHistory. 3. Ontology. I. Title. II. Series. BP195.M6F73 181'.07 78-6957 ISBN o-87595-378-9

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To Jane

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Contents Acknowledgments

xi

Introduction

1

1. The Background and Evolution of the Concept of the Attributes

8

2. The Ontological Structure of the Living Composite: Some General Notions

39

3. The Attribute of the Essence

53

4. The Essential Attributes

58

Essential Attributes and Characteristics .

58

Similarity and Difference .

64

The Modes of the Actuality of Attributes .

66

Attributes Ascribed to the Gins * and to the Naw'

72

5. Attributes Grounded in the Presence of an Accident a) The 'akwaân b) Accidents that do not effect a state either of the substrate or of the totality

93 95 104

c) Accidents that effect a state of the composite whole as a totality but 106 have no determinant effect on the substrate as substrate . d) Accidents that necessitate a state of the total composite and also have 107 a determinant effect on the substrate as such Change 6. Attributes Determined by the Agent Who Causes the Existence of the Thing (bil-fâ `il) "Derived Predicates" (as-sifat* al-mutaqqa)

109 124 135

7. Attributes and Characteristics that are Grounded Neither in the "Essence," Nor in an Entitative Accident

148

Abbreviations

175

Index of Proper Names

179

Index of Technical Terms

181

Index of Citations of Kalâm Works

201

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Acknowledgments This little book was long a making. It had its beginning in an attempt to write a short exposition of what at the time I thought was a simple aspect of kalâm wherein certain basic differences between the Mu`tazila and the As `arites could be easily illustrated. The need to explain the contexts of a progression of different theses and their formulations, however, became ever more apparent as did, with it, the inadequacies of my own understanding of many of them. Further reading and reflection, the preparation of several brief papers and much talk gave sharper focus to my grasp of various elements of the system and its vocabulary; and after winters' dormancies renewed writing brought further revisions as the scope of the study changed and grew. The work is, I think, come now at length to such shape that those who wish to understand something of the Mu`tazilite kalâm may find it genuinely useful. I wish here to express my gratitude to those who contributed to the completion of the work: to the Catholic University of America, grants from whose Research Fund allowed me to take two summers off to devote to study and writing, to Dr. Leslie MacCoull, Mrs. C. Pace, and Mrs. M. Mirabelli who helped with the preparation of the manuscript and with the proofs and to my daughter who assisted in the preparation of the indices and, finally to all those too of my colleagues and kin who willy-nilly had often to listen as over and again I tried to work my talk about kalâm to some reasonable degree of clarity; "And bot thai wist what it mente Ellis me thoght it were alle schente."

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Introduction By way of introduction I wish to indicate briefly something of the scope and aim of this study and to make a few remarks on the perspective from which it was conceived. The work is offered as a kind of introduction to the kalâm, at least to one aspect of the kalâm, to the Mu'tazila of Basra in the classical period of its development and to its teaching concerning the "attributes" of beings: the essential and the accidental properties, characteristics, and qualities of entities and their being in general. The appreciations and judgments of the thought of the early and classical kalâm 1of its quality and historical significance as a speculative reflection, a formally theoretical discussion2 about the central problems of metaphysics and theology as these were construed and constructed by Muslim religious thinkers through the fifth century A.H. (the eleventh A.D.)have been as diverse as the sundry historical and theoretical points of departure, the preoccupations and the prejudices that have served to furnish their frameworks and to give them focus. The early rnutakallimûn, especially those of the Mu`tazila, have frequently been congratulated for introducing into Islam a certain number of "Greek ideas" and "Greek methods of reasoning and argumentation"; just as often their successors of the classical period have been chided for neglecting to pursue the acquisition of classical learning with the result, it is suggested, that the kalâm reached such perfection as it was to achieve only in the later period with the formal adoption of "Greek" logic and the systematic adaptation of certain other elements of ancient philosophy, mostly taken over from the falsafa. There can be no doubt concerning the validity, not to say the necessity, of reading the kalâm within and against the background of classical (and Patristic) thought. In a real and basic sense the fundamental questions are Greek, for the tradition of their explicit conception and formulation as theoretical questions is Greek in origin and the investigation and discussion of them cannot be utterly detached from their origin. The significance of the intellectual achievement of the kalâm as a theoretical science is to be assessed in terms of its insight into a number of questions that had previously been defined and elaborated in the Greek tradition,

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pagan and Christian. This tradition, moreover, variously represented in a number of diverse cultural, intellectual, and religious milieux, furnished significant elements in several layers of the kalâm's background and contributed to its formation, accordingly, on several levels. This fact, however, does not entail the conclusion, often drawn either explicitly or implicitly, that the more its vocabulary and formulation expressly subordinate themselves to and approximate those of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonic traditions, the greater must be its sophistication and maturity, as if the kalâm were no more than a kind of bastard half-brother to the falsafa. It does not, certainly, warrant the thesis that historically "the stammerings of the mutakallimîn" represented at best the beginnings of an intellectual development that would attain its adult perfection in the falsafa. Nor does it permit us to conclude that the kalâm of the early and classical periods was, so to speak, a sort of theological ugly toad that, by the kiss of a philosophical princess of unquestionably hellenistic lineage, was transformed into a more or less handsome prince, though one who remained always defensively apologetic because of his earlier condition. The reasons for the "hellenization" of the A`arite and Maturidite kalâm in the late period and for the ultimate demise of the Mu`tazilite school in Sunni Islam are extremely complex and involve the whole web of Islam's religious and intellectual development in that and in the preceding period. The assumptionto put it in its most extreme formthat the "Aristotelianized" kalâm of al-Gazzali * (d. 505/1111), aahrastâanî (d. 548/1153), Fakhr ad-Dîn ar-Râzî (d. 606/1210), and al-Gurgani* (d. 816/1413) followed through a kind of mutation as the natural intellectual maturity and perfection of that of the earlier period, while the kalâm of al-A`arî (d. 324/935) and al-Bâqillânî (d. 403/1013), abû Haim (d. 321/933), and `Abd al-Gabbar* (d. 415/1025) formed an intermediate stage of the processa sort of holding operationbetween the intellectual ferment of the early period and the introduction of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonic elements into the kalâm at the beginning of the twelfth century, must give rise to a number of serious questions. It is plain that the doctrines of Ibn Kullâb (d. ca. 240/854) and abû l-Hudhayl (d. ca 226/ 840), as represented in the schools that trace their origins to them, achieve a kind of maturity and perfection in the work of al-A`ari and abû Hâim respectively, for their successors over the next two centuries did little more than work out in various detail the implications of their thought.3 As the discourse on "the fundamental theses of religion," the kalâm addressed itself principally towas developed, studied, and transmitted withinthe same intellectual and religious circles as were grammar and law, exegesis and hadit*. Indeed, one of the most conspicuous aspects of the classical kalâm is its close relation to these sciences, especially grammar,

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philology, and law. The assumption (or conclusion) that the kalâm, as an Islamic religious science, was to emerge from its chrysalis into its mature perfectioninto a form, that is, in which it was to achieve an essentially more profound grasp of those basic issues with which it had been concerned from the outsetonly in the sixth/twelfth century requires that one believe that in the period of its greatest creativity Islam failed to generate a reflective discourse or speculative science commensurate with the other "Islamic sciences" and adequate to express fully the Sunni community's sense of its belief and to handle the philosophical and theological problems that such formulation engendered. This is not immediately plausible. From a purely methodological point of view we must begin with the assumptionperhaps subsequently to be modified or abandonedthat whatever their idiosyncrasies, the systems of kalâm that were predominant in the tenth and eleventh centuries were, in dealing with the problems with which they were primarily concerned, at least no less sophisticated than were those other characteristically Islamic disciplines to which they were most allied. Even though no little progress has been made in understanding the kalâm and its historymost particularly in recent years as more texts have come to light and been publishedone has yet, whenever he tries to articulate the sense and meaning of the texts, the continuing sensation of discomfiture, an awareness of having failed to penetrate the texts and to understand fully what they are saying: what they mean and how their statement, explanation, and argumentation of this meaning coherently articulate it and manifest its underlying foundation. This is not merely that we have not yet succeeded in elucidating all the various theses set forth and debated by the mutakallimîn together with their presuppositions, premises, and principles; the simple fact is that we have not yet managed to gain a satisfactory understanding of the language of the kalâm of the early and classical periods. Even for some of the most common and important terms, we lack a reasonably exact and nuanced comprehension of the formal meaning of its technical vocabulary. Too often, indeed, the language of the kalâm has been taken to lack the refinement and nuance of a serious philosophical discipline and its vocabulary has been treated as if it were or should have been, by design or by nature or both, imitative of the Greek philosophical vocabulary. The facts, however, are quite other. Albeit in a general way aware of the problems surrounding the formation of the formal languages of the several traditions of speculative science in Islam, of their diversity and their evolution, students of the kalâm (the present writer among them) have not always been duly sensitive to their implications. The Muslim scholar of the first four centuries of the hegira who wished

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to study falsafa had to learn a vocabulary whose specialized meanings and implicit sense and reflection of the way things are, originating in a differently articulated historical experience of life and the world, not only did not arise congenially out of native Arabic usage but were in many instances dissonant with it and awkwardly superimposed upon it. In time, with the full naturalization of the falsafa and the consequent spread of its vocabulary, this original awkwardness and dissonance came to be forgot. Such was far from the case, however, in the ninth and tenth centuries. By contrast, the language and conceptual structure of the kalâm, most particularly in the Basrian schools, is basically and essentially Arabic: the natural, unaffected, and integral product of Islam's original flowering. Unlike the falsafa, whose expression was for some time constricted and restrained by its dependence upon the translations and so, directly and indirectly, upon a language whose semantics and syntax were known only imperfectly if at all to the falâsifa, the kalâm formed itself from the beginning in the spontaneous exploitation of the inherent richness and flexibility of its native idiom. For this reason the vocabulary of the kalâm of the tenth and eleventh centuries is in many respects richer and more nuanced than is that of the falsafa. We now try to hear and understand the sense and meaning of these texts across a considerable chasm of time and through all the distortion and transformation that its long lapse and the complex evolution of scholarship entail in the contexts of understanding and their availability. Looking backwards to reconstruct these texts, we tend to get some elements turned around, since the natural and inalienable context of our activity is cast in its own structures and impregnated by the habits of schooling in other recovered contexts. Thus it is that the modern reader often tends to feel more at home and in easier converse with the frequently obscure and sometimes clumsy Arabic of al-Kindî than with the plain succinct speech of the earlier mutakallimin * and may, in fact, find the latter somewhat outlandish, while failing altogether to perceive the foreign tone of al-Fârâbî's usage. How often has the famous dialogue concerning ''logic" (al-mantiq*) between abu Bir Mattà ibn Yûnus, the translator of the organon, and abû Sa`îd as-Sîrâfî which took place in 320/ 932 been read without the reader's ever hearing the word mantiq* at all in its first and primary sense of "speaking aloud and dearly"?4 (Ibn Sikkît's Islah* al-mantiq*, after all, is a work not on logic but on the correct and proper usage of Arabic: "The Rectification of Speaking.") The source of our difficulty in trying to understand the kalâm texts of the early and classical Periods is, in brief, that in both language and conception they are essentially Muslim and Arabic. To understand the writings of the falâsifa of this period one must refer to another language

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and another intellectual tradition, some knowledge of which must, if not already possessed, be acquired; it is for this reason that one finds lists of terms and their definitions from the time of al-Kindî. In order to understand the kalâm, on the contrary, one needs only the native language and tradition of Arab Islam. For this very reason, however, the modern reader can find no key or clue to their vocabulary and conception outside the texts themselves and those other Muslim writings that belong to and form an integral part of their original context. There are no lists of definitions, nor do any of the terms have strict equivalents in the philosophical vocabulary of classical antiquity or in the theological vocabulary of the Greek Fathers. To seek to make such equivalences is not merely hazardous but, as has become plain enough, most often conducive to confusion. This is not to say that the kalâm contains no parallels with and no clear dependences upon the pagan and Christian traditions that preceded it, but rather that these dependences are chiefly to be sought on a deeper level. Most of the basic issues, though in a real sense (and for us unavoidably) "Greek," are nevertheless framed and conceived in an Islamic mode and must be so read. Finally, one cannot turn to the lexicon of law or of grammarnor, a fortiori, to that of literary Arabicin the expectation of finding the specialized and nuanced meanings of the terms as they occur in the separate schools of kalâm and, for each, in the different periods of its development. In the present study, then, the effort has been to recover, set forth, and explain some part of the basic sense and structure of the thought and expression of the kalâm out of the available texts and certain elements of their original context. I have chosen the teaching of abû Hâim and his followers because, with the publication since 1959 of a considerable body of the work of the Qadi * `Abd al-Gabbar* it is their teaching for which we have the most thorough documentation and so the best control. Their understanding and analysis of "the attributes of things and their characteristics" (sifatu* l-'ayâ'i wa-'ahkamuha*) was chosen for the obvious reason that this area of their thought forms at once the core and framework of the system; it constitutes, in the strict sense of the term, the metaphysics of the system and accordingly embodies and manifests most of the underlying principles and assumptions that give meaning, order, and coherence to the whole and to its various parts. The theological doctrine of the school I have not attempted to treat as such, though a number of theses concerning the being and attributes of God are perforce discussed. Because of the nature of the sources there is here some amount of reconstruction and a little new construction too. The texts consist largely of theological compendia, shorter and longer, complete and incomplete, and so do not systematically set out for its own sake the philosophical

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substructure of their various theses and arguments. 5 This must be recovered from the diverse evidences that are presented, sometimes plainly and directly but at others only by allusion, at greater length and less, in many disparate contexts. To understand the sense and order of this framework or substructure, to appropriate it to our own grasp, we must in some cases view the problems of the texts from a perspective that is not theirs and ask of them questions they do not explicitly formulate and may never have envisioned specifically. In all this, however, the texts themselves always act as a control; if our interpretation of any given element is really erroneous, the error will become apparent as we seek to apply it in interpretation of new contexts. In order to minimize distortions of the sense of the thought and reasoning of the texts I have sought, insofar as I have been able, to follow in the exposition the language and reasoning of the sources themselves. This has also been done in the hope that this study may serve as an introduction to the reading of the texts, to their language, style, and vocabulary. To this end, as well as to ground the validity of the analysis itself, it seemed appropriate to quote, translate, and cite many more passages than would be required were the study of the kahâm more advanced and to discuss some matters which might well be superfluous were its background and vocabulary more certainly known. The scope of the work is narrowly restricted to the teaching of abû Hâim and his followers in the Mu`tazilite school of Basra. Chapters 1 and 2 examine certain elements of the work of abû Hâim's direct predecessors in the Basrian school, but almost entirely as they form the background for the thought of abû Hâim. No attempt has been made to treat the earlier Mu`tazila as such and of itself and even less to deal with the teaching of al-A'ari and his background. These matters I hope to present in a subsequent study. Again, though I have tried to treat the school's conception of the "attributes" with reasonable thoroughness, setting forth all the principal theses in their various elements and parts as they are conceived, analysed, and discussed in the sources, a number of problems are alluded to only in passing or are avoided outright. Under each topic or heading, that is to say, I have on the whole discussed those questions which appeared most essential or which were unavoidable, employing and setting forth, where there were several, those examples that are treated most extensively and clearly in the texts themselves. The analysis of some individual problems are thus omitted as, in one respect or another redundant, of others for lack of sufficient material or because I simply did not understand them. In many points, no doubt, the present effort will have to be refined, revised, and corrected; of some of these I am aware even at this writing. Other things surely have slipped my notice. Restricted in scope as it is and incomplete though it be, the work

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will nevertheless, I hope, serve to put the study of the kalâm on a somewhat firmer foundation. Notes to the Introduction 1. The history of the kalâm may be divided into three rather clearly defined periods: 1) the early period, running from the beginning to about the end of the ninth Christian century; 2) the classical period, initiated in the work of al-A'ari, abû Hâim, al-Ka'bi, and al-Mâturîdî and ending towards the close of the eleventh century; and 3) the late period, characterised by the introduction of Greek logic and the assimilation of the vocabulary of the kalâm largely to that of the falsafa, begun in the work of al-Gazzali *. I have in what follows preferred on the whole to maintain the Arabic terms kalâm and falsafa rather than to "translate" them as "theology" and "philosophy" respectively, since the Arabic terms at least quite unambiguously denote clearly identified historical traditions in Islam, while the latter terms, being pregnant with connotations and overtones that flow from their historical origins in the classical and Christian traditions, inevitably give rise to ambivalences and questions when applied to the Islamic tradition. 2. Concerning the beginnings of the kalâm and the origin of its being termed "discourse" or, better, "discussion," see J. van Ess, "The Beginnings of Islamic Theology," in The Cultural Context of Medieval Learning edited by J. Murdoch and E. D. Sylla (Cambridge, 1975), PP. 87 ff. 3. The place of al-A'ari within the tradition that bears his name and most particularly the relationship of his teaching to that of his successors in the classical period are rather complex and, in the present state of kalâm studies, less clear to see than are those of abû Hâim to his successors within the Mu`tazilite tradition. The thought of al-A'arî was much less highly elaborated than was that of abû Hâim, and his foremost followers (al-Bâqillânî, Ibn Fûrak, and abû Ishaq* al-Isfarâ'înî) were consequently more divided in their interpretation and treatment of his doctrine than were those of abû Hâim in dealing with his. There is, it should be noted, a sense in which the later kalâm of al-Gazzali* and his successors plainly represents the final maturing of the kalâm. This is particularly true if one takes into account the question of the integration of the theology of the kalâm and of the "Islamic sciences" generally with the ancient sciences. This matter, however, lies outside the purview of the present study; it involves the convergent influence, within the religious and intellectual life of the Muslim community, of a complex set of historical factors, some of which were absent and others of which were of only marginal significance in the development of the classical kalâm. 4. On this dialogue generally, see M. Mahdi, "Language and Logic in Classical Islam" in Logic in Classical Islamic Culture, edited by G. yon Grünebaum, (Wiesbaden, 1970), pp. 51 ff. and the references there cited. 5. Of the principal texts here employed only the Tadkira* of Ibn Mattawayh and, though somewhat less systematically, the Masâ'il of abû Raîd set forth and treat the "philosophical" questions in their own order and for their own sake. All the others are theological compendia, preserved either in whole or in part. Of these, unfortunately, the first three parts of the Mugni* of `Abd al-Gabbar*, containing the Kitâb as-sifat*, where one might expect to find a number of important questions treated in goodly detail (it is explicitly referred to in later portions of the work) are not available. Some of this detail is to be found in the fragment of abu Raîd's Ziyâdât as-sarh* published by abu Rida but only in part and in a restricted number of problems.

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Chapter 1 The Background And Evolution Of The Concept Of The Attributes The predominant theological traditions of Sunnî Islam formulate and elaborate the primary issues and questions that concern the nature of God and of beings in general as problems concerning descriptive predicates and attributes: sifat *. Indeed the term sifa* or "attribute," as it is normally and often quite exactly rendered, is of so common occurrence in the sources and is so manifestly natural an expression to most contexts in which it occurs that the peculiarly Islamic character of the term and the concept may easily escape notice as one's attention is more forcibly drawn to other idiosyncrasies of the texts. One tends to forget that Greek and Latin have no equivalent term that holds a corresponding position of central importance and prominence in the Patristic and Scholastic traditions. The present study intends to examine the essential elements of the philosophy of the attributes as these were conceived and discussed by the leading thinkers of the Basrian School of the Mu`tazila in the classical period of its development. It is necessary, however, by way of introduction, to sketch briefly the development of the concept, i.e., how the "attributes" were formally conceived and understood. The perspective I shall here take is somewhat narrowlymyopically perhapsfocused on the role and function of certain grammatical concepts as these contributed to and, in significant measure, determined the way in which the masters of the Basrian Mu`tazila viewed and considered the attributes. Restricted as it is and though neglecting, for the moment, the matter and substance of most of the major questions that were treated under the rubric of the attributes, this perspective will, I hope, serve to elucidate, if not in part to explain, not only one of the main lines of the evolution of the Mu`tazilite tradition but also one central aspect of the progressive divergence between the teaching of the Mu`tazila and the A`arites. The beginnings of formal theology of Islam are obscure to say the

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least. The theological teachings of Gaylan * ad-Dimaqî (d. before 125/743) and those of Wasil* ibn `Ata* (d. 131/748) and `Amr ibn `Ubayd (d. 144/ 761)if, indeed, any theological doctrine in the formal sense can be ascribed to the latter twoare scarcely known at all. Gahm* ibn Safwan* (d. 128/745) seems to have tended towards some form of Neoplatonic or Neoplatonising doctrine, but from the present data one can tell little more. In the later part of the second/eighth century, however, theological thought in Islam enters upon a period of rapid growth as it gains greater sophistication as a theoretical discipline and begins to take shape as a distinct and separate science, until by the middle of the third/ninth century a number of more or less comprehensive and coherent "systems" have been formulated. It is in this period that the principal traditions of later Sunni theology are founded in the work of Bir ibn al-Mu`tamir (d. 210/825), abû l-Hudhayl al-`Allâf (d. ca. 226/841 in extreme old age), `Abdallâh ibn Sa`îd, known as Ibn Kullâb (d. 245/859), and the jurist theologian, Ahmad* ibn Hanbal* (d. 241/855). Their theological thought is somewhat rough and rudimentary, as it were, but the basic outlines of the future systems are nonetheless clearly established. Several factors concerning the background and general character of the theological schools that trace themselves to these men (and most particularly for the present study, the Basrian Mu`tazilite tradition that derives from abû l-Hudhayl and the A`arite tradition that descends from Ibn Kullâb) have particular significance not merely for the formulation and elaboration of the questions concerning the attributes but also for the historical predominance of these two schools during the classical period of Muslim speculative theology. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of the Arabic language and of the Koran within Islamic culture and especially in its earlier periods. In no culture, perhaps, has speech and the eloquent use of language been so praised and admired or the language itself more cherished and studied. An eminent scholar has suggested that "Islam itself was a part of that miraculous linguistic process by which the Arab nation came into being."1 It is within this context that one should view the Koran as the revelation to the Arabs. It is the revelation of the divineGod's revelation of Himselfthrough language: "the discourse of God" (kalâm Allâh). Several hadiths* are reported to the effect that "the superiority of God's discourse over all other discourse is like God's own superiority over His creatures."2 Common Islamic dogma, founded in the Koran itself, has it that while the miracle of Mosesthe signs and wonders worked through him by God to confirm his missionhad the form and character of magic and that of Jesus the form and character of medicine and healing, that of Muhammad* was of language. The primal

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and essential signs and wonders (`âyât) through which God revealed Himself to the Arabian Prophet were not actions and deeds but are, for the Muslim, articulate discourse (kalâm): the verses (`âyât) of the Koran, revealed in "clear Arabic speech" (lisânun `arabîyun mubîn: 16.103, 26.195, 46.12) as a scripture for recitation in Arabic (qur'ânun `arabîyun: 12.2, 20.112, 39.28, 41.3, 42.7, 43.3). The science of grammar developed, thus, in response to a complex of preoccupations (and not, I think, so predominantly that of scriptural exegesis as some would appear to suggest) that, if not altogether unique to Islam, held, at any rate, a conspicuous and singularly significant position in the development and structure of Islamic culture. Fittingly, for it joins central elements of the ancient Arab culture with Islampoetry and the Korangrammar is the first science to reach maturity in Islam before the end of the second/eighth centuryand it does so, almost completely apart from earlier and alien traditions, as a peculiarly Islamic science. 3 This attention to language, most particularly to the language of the Koran and to the grammatical and lexical structures and the characteristics of literary Arabic, had a profound influence on the formation and development of the kalâm, most especially in the principal Mu`tazilite tradition of Basra and in that of the A`arites, not simply in their terminology but also in the manner in which many fundamental problems of ontology and ethicsconcerning, thus, God's Unity and His Justice (at-tawhid* wal-`adl)were conceived, formulated, and analysed. At exactly what point questions bearing specifically on the nature of God as such (as opposed to theological issues having a more "practical" i.e., legal or politicalsignificance, such as the nature of faith, who is a Muslim, predestination, etc.) began to be of central concern to Muslim theological speculation is somewhat uncertain. They are scarcely alluded to in al-Fiqh al-`akbar I, a short profession of faith (`aqîda) written by the jurist abû Hanifa* (d. 150/767) or in his little "catechism," the Kitâb al-`âlim wal-muta`allim. It is clear, anyhow, from the controversies involving the teaching of Dirar* ibn `Amr (ca. 110/728-200/815) that late in the century, in close conjunction with the debates over the nature of the Koran as the speech of God (and especially over the createdness of "the speech of God"), they had taken a position of major importance.4 The scripture and its exegesis were from the very beginning of central concern to Muslim theology. Questions relating to the nature of God were, for most of the principal authorities, commonly stated in terms of the "names" ('asmâ') and the "attributes" (sifat*) "by which He has described Himself" (wasafa* bihâ nafsahû), i.e., the nouns ('asmâ') and the adjectives (sifat*) that are used of God in the Koran. In the teaching of abû l-Hudhayl and in that of Ibn Kullâb the discussion and investigation

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of the attributes is, to some extent, carried on in the form of an analysis and interpretation of the predications made in such statements as `God is living' (Allâhu hayyun *), `God is knowing' (Allâhu `âlimun), 'God is creating (Greator)' (Allâhu haliqun*), and so forth. Though the whole panoply of terms that occur in the Koran was discussed, the reports make it plain that the central focus of the theologians clearly concentrated on several principal attributes: His being all-powerful (qâdir), knowing (`âlim) hearing and seeing (samî`un basir*), speaking (mutakallim), an entity (say'*'>), existent (mawgud*) and eternal (qadîm). (It should be noted that the last two do not occur in the Koran.) One reads, thus, from Ibn Kullâb: "The meaning of the statement 'God is knowing' is that an act of knowing belongs to him" or from abû lHudhayl: "When one states that the Creator is knowing, he has asserted the reality of an act of knowing that is God and has denied ignorance in God and has indicated [that there is] some object known [to Him] that has been or will be."5 This is not to imply that they were by any means simply concerned with semantics and exegesis. Their doctrines, as revealed in the sources, embrace closely related and rather elaborate, even if yet not fully refined, systems of physics and metaphysics on the basis of which their theologies of God's attributes and the attributes of beings in general are supported and to be understood. They begin the study of the attributes of thingsof God and His creationnevertheless with a conspicuously linguistic bias. Such a bias is peculiarly congenial to the cultural milieu. The science elaborated, to the extent that it is Islamic and theological, begins as also it must end by constructing, on whatever principles and with whatever presuppositions, an exegesis of God's statements about Himself and creation. To be sure, all speculative inquiry that means to account for the nature of things must begin in some kind of exegesis, in that understanding must be formulated in order to be critically examined. Aristotle asks what do we mean when we say of something that it an entity ( ) or when we say that something has come about "through nature" ( ); but in the kalâm (and the term itself is resonant in the context), the origin of the questioning which is at the root of the science itself is perforce more self-consciously and more explicitly exegetical because of its explicit relationship to a revelation whose linguistic nature is not merely a fact among facts, something given and to be taken for granted, but an overarching fact, the awareness which must influence the view and conception of all facts. For the dominant Basrian mutakallimîn the point of departure in the study of the attributes of things is what is said about things: how the nature of the being of things is presented and revealed in articulate language, both in the Arabic of the Koran and as the mind knows and

Page 12

formulates them in Arabic words and sentences. One seeks to explicate the assertion (al-'itbat *)what being is asserted implicitly or explicitly to have reality in beingthrough an analysis of the predicate, and the predicate terms (as-sifat*), therefore, are classified according to what is asserted to be (al-mutbat*) For abû l-Hudhayl and Ibn Kullâb, thus, the principal categories appear to be three as the proposition asserts the reality l) only of the thing itself (its "self": nafsuhû), 2) a cause (`illa) or determinant (ma`nà),6, or 3) an action (fi'l) performed by the subject. A rather rigid adherence to a form of analysis that was coordinated with and, in some significant degree, dependent upon, concepts and terminology developed by the grammarians produced several serious problems and difficulties for the mutakallimîn who were developing their doctrines along these lines. Statements, as they understand it, are statements about things ('ayâ') and the analysis of their meaning is accomplished through other statements, themselves statements about things. The tendency, therefore, since the significant meaning (fâ'ida) and the assertion ('itbat*) of a proposition is conveyed in the predicate, was to paraphrase the adjectives found in the predicates (and so to analyse the sense and meaning of the predicate terms: what is asserted to have reality: al-mutbat*) through nominal propositions whose subject terms are held to refer to entities of some kind. Ibn Kullab says that "the meaning of the statement `God is knowing' is that an act of knowing belongs to Him" (lahû `ilmun); that is to say, there is subsistent in Him (qâ'imun bihî)7 an act of knowing by virtue of which He is said to be knowing. Taking a doctrinally contrary position, abû l-Hudhayl, who would allow the validity of Ibn Kullâb's paraphrase in the case of a created knower, says that the sense of this proposition is that "there is an act of knowing that is God" and "there is an objecti.e., an entitythat He knows." Their use and understanding of this form of analysis had far-reaching effects on the philosophy of the schools that developed from their teaching. Among others it produced a tendency (later reduced and systematized) to proliferate a host of entitative "accidents" as different grounds (ma`ânî) were conceived to be asserted as constituting the ontological basis for each one of many predicates, negative as well as positive, that are predicated about various kinds of beings. This had originated, no doubt, in a simple process of reifying the qualities of things as they are indicated by the adjectives that are predicated of them. Just as one says that the statement "he is knowing" (`âlim) indicates the presence of an act of knowing (`ilm) that "he is living" (hayy*) indicates the presence in him of life (hayat*), that "a body is present'' (kâ'in) in a particular position in space indicates that it has spatial presence (kawn) in that location or position, or that "it is in motion" (mutaharrik*) indicates that it has move-

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ment (haraka *), so each such predicateeach such adjective or verbmay be paraphrased in terms of a noun which is taken to denote the reality of somethinga kind of entitative realitythat belongs to or inheres in the being of which the adjective or verb is predicated.8 This process is fixed already as a formalized principle in the teaching of abû l-Hudhayl and Ibn Kullâb and in their different conceptions of the kind of being denoted by these nouns is laid the foundations of the differences in the conception of the attributes that characterizes the doctrines of their respective followers. During the middle and later decades of the third/ninth century a number of abû l-Hudhayl's disciples, among them Hiâm al-Fuwati* and abû Ya`qûb as-Sahham*, the master of al-Gubba'i*, continued to pursue their investigations along much the same lines as had abû l-Hudhayl, with some revisions, innovations, and modifications of various degree and significance. With the work of abû `Alî Muhammad* ibn `Abd alWahhâb al-Gubba'i* (235/849-303/915), however, the first of "the Two Masters" of the Basrian Mu`tazila, the early period of the school's teaching reaches its climax. Al-Gubba'i* while following the basic tradition of the school as it had developed, introduced significant revisions and refinements into all the major areas of the theological system. Two correlated aspects of his teaching are most important for the subsequent development of the school's understanding of the attributes and for its continuing divergence from the tradition represented by Ibn Kullâb and later by the A`arites and many of the 'ahl al-hadith* who followed the tradition of Ibn Hanbal*. As opposed to the idea that the nature of language and the relationship of words to reality is in some way absolutewhether by nature or by God's having instituted human language so (tawqîfan)and that, therefore, in the givenness of language one is, as it were, given an absolute, articulate, and intelligible paradigm of all beingof creation in human speech and of the transcendent in the revelation, al-Gubba'i* insisted that words express simply what the mind grasps ('aqala) and that understanding (`aql) determines the use of words and judges its correctness and incorrectness. He is quoted as saying: When understanding indicates that the Creator is knowing, then we must call Him `knowing' (`âlim), even if He has not called Himself by this, since understanding indicates this meaning; and such is the case with all other names. The names of the Creator may not be applied to Him arbitrarily and apart from their established semantics (`alà t-talqîb)9

Accordingly, `Abd al-Qâhir al-Bagdadi* states, with a trifle of polemic, that "the Basrian Qadarîyaviz., al-Gubba'i* and his followerssay that the names of God (The Exalted) are taken from specialized, technical use

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and reasoning (al-istilahu * wal-qiyâs), not from God's revelation of language and the Koran."10 Al-Gubba'i's* doctrine here may do no more than make fully explicit a basic attitude and tendency already at work in the teaching of his predecessors in the Basrian Mu`tazila in the drift of their difference from the followers of Ibn Kullâb and Ibn Hanbal*. That it is thematically stated, however, is of great importance, because it is thereby raised to the level of a formal principle in accordance with which the doctrine of the school is to be explicitly guided and developed. The tendency to view the problem of the attributes in linguistic terms, however, is in no way diminished or abandoned; quite to the contrary, al-Gubba'i* is, if anything, even more consistentnot to say rigidin the way he employs the linguistic framework used by his predecessors. His principles, to judge from the available evidence, may be briefly stated as follows:11 for al-Gubba'i*, as for all the Basrians, knowing is not an intuition of simple essences or "forms" but is to know something about something; the act of knowing is, in his formulation, "the conviction that the thing is as it really is."12 To know something, then, is to recognize it or understand it as having certain attributes, certain essential or accidental qualities or characteristics, which it does in fact have. Language expresses (`abbara) and reflects what the mind knows, understands, or intends, and statements (i.e., formal statements) are statements about things (`ayâ), composed of a noun (ism, sc., a name) that signifies the thing that is known and a predicate (habar*) that indicates what is known about it.13 What is known, properly speaking, is a being: an entity ( in the Aristotelian sense); an entity (ay'), that is, is what is, in the truest sense, the object of our knowing (al-ma`lûm) and, therefore, that which may be referred to (madkur*) and of which something may be predicated (al-muhbaru* `anhû),14 It is that of which something is said but which is not itself said of something else. What is said about somethingwhat is known to be true of itis expressed in the descriptive term (as-sifa*) that is predicated of it.15 What is known about an entity (its being thus and so, its being such that...) is not itself an entity (ay'); it may, however, involve one or more entities. The systematic explanation of the ontological implications of the affirmation of the sifa* as it expresses a judgment of what is true concerning the subject is one of the central preoccupations of the Basrian kalâm. For al-Gubba'i*, then, the formal examination of the attributes is carried out, within the framework of the system's philosophical assumptions and judgments, in the analysis of the propositions in which the descriptive term (sifa*) is affirmed of the thing. Specifically the predicate (sifa*, wasf*) is paraphrased into a separate proposition so as to bring to explicit formula-

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tion what being (or beings) is (or are) asserted to have entitative reality, what is affirmed concerning it and how, and, finally, in what way the predicate with its paraphrased subject is related to the first and primary subject. The basic form of this paraphrasing follows, as we shall see, certain basic syntactical structures of the language as they are analysed by the grammarians. Al-Gubba'i *, however, employs this framework not in order to study the nature and structure of the Arabic language but of things and reality; accordingly, the principles on which his analysis is founded derive from his metaphysical preconceptions and his paraphrase and interpretation do not correspond in all ways to what one would find in the works of the grammarians.16 He says thus: The meaning of one's describing God as knowing (ma`nà l-wasfi* lil-lâhi bi-'annahû `âlimun) is a) the assertion of His reality ('itbatuhu*); b) that He is contrary to whatever cannot know; c) that he who says that He is ignorant states a false proposition; and d) an indication that there are things that He knows.

or, in another passage, "When we say `God is knowing,' we convey to you a knowledge of Him (`ilmun bihî) and that He is contrary to whatever cannot know...."17 Now in a further analysis, the predicate may be cast or paraphrased as a separate proposition having its own subject. Here again the grammatical patterns are clear. According to Sîbawayh (d. 177/793) the predicate of a nominal proposition must be something identical with the subject: ay'un huwa huwa.18 AI Mubarrad (d. 285/898) emends this (and also extends the formula to cover complex nominal sentences) to say that The predicate of a nominal subject must be something that is the subject in meaning (al-mubtada'u fî l-ma`nà), as for example, `Zayd is your brother' (Zaydun 'ahuka*) or `Zayd is standing' (Zaydun qâ'imun). The predicate, then, is the subject in meaning or else the predicate is other than the first term, in which case it contains an explicit reference to it. If it occurs in neither of these two modes, there is no sentence.19

The forms here parallel al-Gubba'i's* analysis of the propositions Allâhu `âlimun God is knowing) and Zaydun `âlimun (Zayd is knowing). In the initial positioning (ibtidâ') of Allâhu (nominative) as the subject for predication there is an implicit assertion ('itbat*) of His being as something known to the hearer, while the predicate `âlimun (knowing) expresses the "information conveyed" (al-fâ'ida, literally, "the benefit") or report (habar* or hadit*) concerning him20 and this al-Gubba'i* analyzes as "con-

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trary to whatever cannot know," etc. The predicate `âlimun, since God's knowing is an essential attribute, he takes to be equivalent to the subject; only the being denoted by the subject is asserted to have entitative reality and accordingly he will paraphrase the predicate only to the extent of making explicit the pronoun that the grammarians hold to be implicit (mudamman *, mudmar*) in the verbal adjective so used: Allâhu huwa `âlimun (God, He is knowing). It is thus that the predicate implicitly contains and so conveys "an assertion of His reality" (and thus "a knowledge of Him" in one sense); what is further conveyed, viz., the fâ'ida or "meaning" ("a knowledge of Him" in a second sense), then, al-Gubba'i* specifies through a semantic analysis: knowing is contrary to not-knowing and to ignorance and, since the proposition is true, the contrary proposition is false and also, since it is true, there must be at least one object that He knows. To know the truth of the proposition, then, is to know God (that He is: He could not be knowing if He were nonexistent) and to know something about Him. Now since the corporeal knower, according to al-Gubba'i* and the rest of the Basrians, knows by virtue of an entitative act of knowing (bi`ilmin), his analysis and paraphrase of the proposition Zaydun `âlimun (Zayd is knowing) differs from that of Allahu `âlimun. He does not, in this instance, paraphrase the predicate as the simple equivalent of the subject but rather through a complex form in which the predicate becomes, in al-Mubarrad's terms, something other than the subject, sc., a sentence having another entity as its subject and containing a reference to the first subject: Zaydun lahû `ilmun (Zayd, an act of knowing belongs to him). What is primarily asserted in the predicate in this case is not the reality of the being of the knower but that of the entitative act of knowing.21 To understand the meaning of the statement `Zayd is knowing' is, thus, not primarily to know the being of Zayd but rather to know that of the entitative act of knowing that belongs to him. It is on this basis, i.e., on the basis of a rigid interpretation of the principles and presuppositions underlying these analyses, that al-Gubba'i* rejects abû l-Hudhayl's formulation and paraphrase of the proposition `Allâhu `âlimun' which was cited earlier. To analyze the predicate `âlimun, when used of God, as lahû `ilmun (an act of knowing belongs to Him) is, if taken strictly, to assert that there is an entitative act of knowing belonging to God that can be known as such and distinguished from His essence. To qualify the paraphrase, as abû l-Hudhayl does, by adding that this act of knowing "is God" does not, from al-Gubba'i's* standpoint, solve the problem but only adds to the difficulty, since if one pursues the analysis consistently in treating the other essential predicates, he will have to say not merely that God is an act of knowing (something that abu l-Hudhayl, in fact, denied)

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but also that He is life (al-hayah *), and is the power of autonomous action (al-qudra), etc., and so that life, knowing, the power of autonomous action, etc., are identical in their identity with God. To do this, however, one will, within the principles of the system and the analysis, have to affirm that the entities denoted by these nouns are everywhere identical. Otherwise one will have to allow that what is really understood concerning God's being knowing and what one means, therefore, to say is not expressed strictly (fî l-haqiqa*) in this formulation. If, however, the expression is fundamentally metaphorical (magaz*), then it can be reduced to a strict, nonmetaphorical expression (haqiqa*). The reduction to a strict form is, indeed, necessary if we are to have a fully intelligible statement of what it is we understand concerning God's being and if what is understood and expressed in the formulation is to be examined and judged critically. It is as such a formally strict formulation that al-Gubba'i* sets his own paraphrase and analysis of Allâhu `âlimun in opposition to that of abû lHudhayl.22 In the example, al-Gubba'i's* question is basically what does it mean to say that God is knowing and what does it mean to say that Zayd is knowing and his reply is that for God to be knowing is that He be Himself-that the divine essence be itselfand that for Zayd to be knowing is that there exist in him a contingent act of knowing that is an entity other than and separable from him. Though explicating what being is asserted in each case implicitly or explicitly to have entitative reality, this method of analysis gives only a partial and inadequate answer to the question precisely because al-Gubba'i* remains always consistent with his principles. What we know can be formulated in a proposition of which the nominal subject refers to the entity that is the object of our knowing (al-ma`lûm), but since what is not an entity cannot be made the subject of a proposition, the attribute remains largely opaque, either kept at one remove in the predicate or paraphrased out altogether. Having taken a radical stance against the reification of attributes or qualities, he must return always and in every case to talking about essences and entities. In the case of God's being knowing, the predicate, in al-Gubba'i's* analysis, is taken to assert only the reality of the subject in its simple identity with itself. Al-Gubba'i* is unable to discuss ontologically the difference between being knowing and being as such and how, in the otherness that is indicated in the statements, they are one in God. In the case of the created (i.e., corporeal) knower, on the other hand, one has the contrary problem: Zayd is entitatively other than his act of knowing and the analysis tends to absolutize the dichotomy of being Zayd and being knowing and so affords no way of understanding how it is that it is Zayd who is knowing and how his being, as expressed in the proposition Zaydun `âlimun, is a

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being knowing. There is, in short, no way to talk about the attributes as such, i.e., as real qualifications of the being that one knows as being so qualified. Al-Gubba'i *> attempted to avoid this problem through explicating the fâ'ida (the meaning of ``âlim' etc.), but the kalâm and his own analysis focussed principally on the 'itbat*the referential assertion of being implicit in the predicate (wasf*, sifa*)and herein lay the difficulty. Since attributes cannot, within the conceptual framework of the system, be made the subject of a proposition, one is reduced to treating them simply as predications. That is to say, if an attribute is not an entity of which something can be said and therefore cannot be formally treated and discussed as somehow beingas having itself some kind of being and realityit can be validly reified as a linguistic entity. Quite simply put, ``âlimun' as sifa* ('knowing' as verbal adjective or qualifier) can become the subject of a proposition when taken as a linguistic entity; the attribute becomes a reality and is an entity in the strict sense as understood within the terms of the system, as it is objectified in the expression that signifies it in the verbal formulation of the mind's understanding of the thing in its being so qualified and distinguished. As a linguistic entity it can be formally discussed and analysed in terms of its semantic content, i.e., of the fâ'ida as opposed to the 'itbat*. Though the descriptive predicate (sifa*) thus understood does not refer to any entity strictly speaking, it does, nevertheless, as a word within the convention of the language and within the particular context of its use, reflect the mind's grasp of the thing (as mawsuf*) and so has a significance and meaning that is understood and can be critically examined.23 It is in this context that one can see why so great a part of al-Gubba'i's* teaching took the form of lexical and semantic analyses and that his work in this area became definitive for the later school. Of his works, in fact, it is the Kitâb al-'asmâ' was-sifat* (On the Names and Descriptive Predicates [that are said of God]) that the later masters of the school cite most frequently by title.24 How strictly he insisted on speaking not of attributes but only of predications is witnessed in the report of his pupil al-A'arî: [Al-Gubba'i*] held that the act of attributing is the attribute (al-wasfu* huwa s-sifa*) and that the naming is the name, i.e., the statement `God is knowing and endowed with autonomous power'. When one would say to him, "You say that knowing (al-'ilm) is an attribute," he would reply, "We do not [in speaking of God] affirm a knowing in the strict sense so as to be able to say that it is an attribute or not, nor do we affirm a knowing in the strict sense so as to be able to say that it is eternal or temporal or that it is God or is other than He." When one would say, "'the Eternal' is an attribute," he would say, "That is

Page 19 wrong, for the Eternal is the thing described (al-mawsuf *), while the attribute (sifa*) is our saying 'God' and our saying 'the Eternal'."25

Al-Gubba'i*, it is plain, was quite aware of the implications of the system's conceptual framework and exploited its possibilities with considerable insight. It had, however, certain serious limitations which were, within the overall context, particularly conspicuous. One paramount aim of the kalâm was to elaborate a speculative understanding of God's attributes and this, as well as other central concerns of the science, required a systematic theory and understanding of the attributes of being in general. The principles of the system, however, had been so structured and construed that one was virtually forced to treat the attributes formally as linguistic phenomena and no more. Further, al-Gubba'i's* notion of the nature of language and its relationship to human understanding excluded any retreat into a position where, mystifying language itself (and that of the Koran most especially), one might view the revelation as somehow the direct, and, even if only partial, undiluted embodiment and expression of the being of the divine speaker and creator articulating Himself in Arabic words and phrases and in meaning that is somehow prior to creation and to the human understanding of being and the use of language in human discourse so that God's being were preeminently manifested and revealed in language and His attributes as nouns and qualifiers ('âsmâ'un wa-sifat*) syntactically ordered in the divinely instituted reality of speech and the revelation. The aim of the Basrian masters of the Mu`tazila was, in short, to elaborate a rationally critical ontology and the evident need was to formulate a conception of the attributes as having some form and mode of being. Though recognizing that beings have reality and intelligibility only as qualified and distinguished by their attributes, al-Gubba'i* had, nevertheless, systematically backed himself into an ontological corner in which being was to be taken in only one sense, viz., that of the reality of essential entities as such. What was required, thus, was somehow from within the system itself to extend its conceptual base; one had formally to conceptualise the reality of the attributes as such and to distinguish the various ways of a being's being: its being itself (sc., its being the essential entity that it is in itself), its being existent, its being living, its being knowing, its being in motion, its being good, etc. It was to accomplish this that al-Gubba'i's* son, abû Hâim 'Abd as-Salâm ibn Muhammad* al-Gubba'i* (277/890-321/933) reformulated his conception of the attributes as conditions or states ('ahwal*, sg., hal*) of the being of the entity of which they are attributes. In order to do this he turned to the grammarians and grammatical theory. That the concept of

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the hal * and the term were introduced into the Basrian kalâm from grammar has long been recognized.26 The grammarians' understanding of the hal*, however, has not been examined specifically in terms of abû Hâim's formulation of it as an ontological concept and since this is clearly pertinent to the understanding of his adaptation of the notion and to the relation of the kalâm to the linguistic sciences, it will be useful to outline the matter here. The term hal* (situation, circumstance, state, moment) in grammar is used chiefly to denote the function of several nominal forms that occur in the accusative in a variety of situations only one of which need concern us here, viz., that involving a verb, expressed or implied, and an indefinite verbal adjective or participle. Such an adjective is taken to be governed by the verb and to specify or explicate the situation or state of the subject or object of the verb at the moment of the occurrence of the event signified by the verb. Thus, for example, alMubarrad says: When you say `ga'ani* Zaydun mâiyan (Zayd came to me walking), you do not intend that it be primarily understood that he was walking, but rather you state the proposition that his coming took place in this situation (hal*) and your statement does not indicate what was his situation (mâ huwa fîhî) before or after this moment (hal*). The hal*, thus, is that wherein the act is performed (al-maf'ûlu fîhî). You state simply that his coming occurred in the situation (hal*) of walking. It is the same with 'I passed Zayd laughing' and 'I met your brother riding'.27

The same phenomenon occurs not uncommonly with the verb kâna, yakûnu (to become, to come to be, to be, to exist), particularly when it is taken as having a predicate distinct from the hal* adjective, as for example in the sentence (Koran 19.29), "How shall we speak to one who is in the cradle, a child."28 In none of these cases, however, does one have to do with what is grammatically in any sense a simple predicate. Now abû Hâim and his followers consistently paraphrase the hal* (i.e., the attribute conceived as a "state"), when it must be formulated nominally, as the subject's being so; i.e., they take the predicate of the proposition 'Zaydun `âlimun', for example, to assert ('atbata*) and referentially to indicate (dalla 'alà) his being knowing (kawnuhû `âliman). We need, therefore, to examine how grammarians analyze the use of the verb kâna, yakûnu with a following accusative. According to the Kufan analysis, the verb kâna cannot be grammatically transitive; nor can the following accusative, therefore, be taken as its object, since in contrast to verbs that are truly transitive, the word in the accusative that follows kâna and "its sisters" as a predicate is re-

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stricted to the number and gender of the subject. Consequently they say that the accusative predicate following kâna must be an accusative of circumstance (hal *).29 The grammatical form of the sentence kâna Zaydun `âliman (Zayd was knowing) will, then, be "Zayd was, knowing." The notion conveyed in this analysis represents, essentially, abû Hâim's point of departure. The Kufan position, however, is unqualifiedthey will follow the same analysis when the predicate is definiteand the more commonly accepted Basrian account, which is somewhat more nuanced, would seem to shed more light on the background of abû Hâim's formulation of the hal* as an ontological concept. The verb kâna, yakûnu, according to the grammarians of the Basrian tradition, has a number of distinct uses, two of which are significant here. In the one it is said to be a "complete verb" (fi`lun tâamm) having the meaning "to come to be," or "to be," or "to exist." In this use, 'kâna Zaydun' is a complete sentence: Zayd was, i.e., he came to be or existed. In the other use it is said to be incomplete (naqisa*), i.e., it requires a compliment, viz., a predicate, in order that the sentence be complete and meaningful (mufîd). In this use, they say, it is grammatically transitive, governing the predicate as an accusative object. According to this view, the verb kâna, though effecting the grammatical form and structure of the sentence when thus introduced into a simple predicative proposition, does not alter or introduce anything new into the intentional relationship between the subject and the predicate as such. In the common doctrine of the Basrians, indeed, the kâna in such cases implies in and of itself no notion of "action'' or of "occurrence" (nor, though we translate it so, of "being"), but only of time, wherefore a few authorities would class it, when so used, not as a verb (fi'l) properly speaking, but as a particle (harfu* ma`nan).30 There are some instances, however, in which an apparent predicate must be interpreted as a hal* qualifier following "the complete kâna." To take a standard example, in the sentence ''Abdullâhi, 'ahsanu* mâ yakûnu qâiman' (literally: 'Abdâllah, the best he is [is] standing) the term qâ'iman (standing) is a quasi predicate but must strictly be understood as hal*. The Basrian grammarians state the implied form of the sentence as 'ahsanu* mâ yakûnu 'ida* kâna qâ'iman ("the best he is [is] when he is standing"); that is, the understood predicate of 'ahsanu* mâ yakûnu ("the best he is") is the temporal clause "when he is standing" and the accusative qâ'iman follows the implicit kâna. Sîbawayh further analyzes this saying that the implied sentence is 'ahsanu* 'ahwalihi* 'idâ kâna qâ'irnan ("The best of his states is when he is standing") and insists that the term 'standing' (qâ'iman) cannot be taken as a predicate to kâna but must be understood as hal* and the kâna, therefore, as "complete." The sense of

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the analysis and paraphrase, thus, must be rendered as "the best of his states is when he exists, standing," for, as abû Sa`îd as-Sîrâfî puts it in his commentary on the passage, "his states are not he." 31 The 'standing,' that is to say, is not simply the equivalent of the subject and so cannot be made definite as would be the case if it were a simple predication. One can, for example, alter Zaydun qâ'imun to Zayduni lqâ'imu ("Zayd is standing" to "Zayd is the one who is standing'') or kâna Zaydun qâ'iman to kâna Zayduni l-qâ'ima ("Zayd was standing" to "Zayd was the one who was standing") and also invert the order to give al-qâ'imu Zaydun ("the one who is standing is Zayd"), etc. As hal*, in short, it expresses the circumstance or situation of the occurrence that is expressed in the verb, in this instance, the state or situation of the is or was of Zayd or, if you will, the state or situation of Zayd in the is that is asserted in this proposition. In this way the otherness of the subject from the predicate and its sameness with it may be construed grammatically and so may be conceived and understood ontologically. One might be tempted to suggest that what abû Hâim did, in effect, was simply to insert an is into the Arabic form of simple predication. The situation is somewhat more subtle than this, however. Although not expressed in Arabic, the simple notion of "copula" ( or if you wish) is inherent and implied in the "nominal sentence." This is universally recognized by the grammarians; it is plain in the terminology: "the constructed" (al-mabnî, i.e., the predicate) and "that on which something is constructed" (al-mabnî 'alayhî, i.e., the subject), "the attributed" [or "the rested"] (al-musnad) and "that to which something is attributed" [or "that upon which something is rested"] (al-musnadu 'ilayhi), and it is more or less explicitly treated in the analysis of the governance of the inflections of the subject and the predicate terms.32 The problem of what is implied when one predicates something of something is, that is to say, equally present and pressing whether the language one employs has a copulative verb (or particle) or does not. What abû Hâim did was to consider and, against his father's analysis, to reexamine the sense of the assertion ('itbdt*) that is made in simple predications and to reinterpret some instances (not all) as conveying the sense ('afâda) of a state or qualification of the being of the subject, a state that may be expressed through a paraphrase that employs the verb kâna, yakûnu and grammatically understands the predicate, not as the simple equivalent of the subject but as hal*.33 Existence (wugud*), though secondarily implied in such cases (see later), is not directly expressed or primarily implied, since a thing's being existent (kawnuhû mawgudan*) is itself a state of being which is indicated in the proposition Zaydun mawgudun*. The later masters of the Basrian Mu`tazila continue to cite the gram-

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marians and lexicographers to the effect that the term sifa *, like wasf*, is properly and strictly used only to denote our utterance (qawlunâ), i.e., our describing (wasfuna*) a thing by descriptive term and 'Abd al-Gabbar*, for example, thus cites the grammarians to say that the sifa* is an adjectival expression used to qualify a noun.34 He notes, however, that despite this, i.e., despite what is most correct according to the 'ahl al-luga*, the mutakallimîn nonetheless commonly employ the word to designate "the states by which the object described is specifically qualified in its being, so that one says 'it is 'alà sifatin*, meaning that by virtue of which it is distinguished from something else."35 The thing (ay') or the "essence"/ thing-itself (dat*) of which the attribute is said to be an attribute is, as we have seen, most often defined as that which may be known (i.e., a true object of our knowing) and of which something may be predicated: al-ma'lûmu l-muhbaru* `anhû. This definition is essentially that of the grammarians and lexicographers, however, and the connotation of the term "as it is taken by the mutakallimîn is `that which is capable of being specifically qualified in its being by attributes (sifat*) by which it is distinguished from something else.'"36 That is to say, the contextual sense of the word as used in the kalâm, as opposed to its contextual sense in the linguistic sciences, involves the ontological implications of what it means to be ma'lûm, muhbar* 'anhû. The term sifa*, thus, is employed in the writings of the Basrian Mu`tazila in several distinct senses. They sometimes use it, as the grammarians do, simply to denote a qualification or predicate and so, in a broad sense, of whatever is said of something, whether merely as the verbal expression that one utters (al-'ibâra) or the meaning of the term (al-ma`nà). Used in this general sense, the sifa* may be any kind of predicate, including those that are not, strictly speaking, descriptive of the object but indicate, rather, relations or other states of affairs involving it, as for example, when one says of a thing that it is known (ma'lûm) or of an act that it is commanded (ma'mûr). Abû Hâim and his followers, however, use the term sifa*, as a formal, technical expression, most often and most strictly as the equivalent of hal* to denote the real ontological property or attribute of the being of a thing.37 In reinterpreting the attribute (sifa*) as a state (hal*), then, what abû Hâim understands is this: the statement 'Zaydun 'âlimun' asserts that Zayd is (thus an 'itbat*assertion of reality as in the citation of al-Gubba'i* earlier) and that his is, insofar as is stated in this proposition, is a being knowing. That he have an attribute (lahû sifatun*) is that he be qualified in his being by an attribute (that he be 'alà sifatin*), i.e., that he be in some state ('alà halin*). In opposition, then, to the position of al-Gubba'i*, according to which what is known and affirmed in the statement 'Zaydun '`àlimun' is the reality of the act of

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knowing that is the ground of his being knowing, the position of abû Hâim and his followers is that since it is true that he has a state (hal *) in his being knowing, the knowledge that he is knowing is a knowledge of the thing itself [i.e., the subject as] in this state rather than a knowledge of the act of knowing or of the thing-itself as abû 'Alî [al-Gubba'i*] says (i.e., that the knowledge of it is a knowledge of that by virtue of which the knower is knowing), for the latter is not correct in our view.38

Similarly, in dealing with the act of willing (al-'irâda), Ibn Mattawayh reports that abû Hâim refutes the position he cites from abû 'Alî, for since he [i.e., al-Gubba'i*] will not allow one to speak of states ('ahwal*) in any context, he makes the correlate of our knowing the act of willing. We have shown, however, that he has in his being willing (li-kawnihî murîdan) a state and the correlate is simply the thingitself as qualified by it (ad-datu* 'alayhâ) and not the act of willing itself.39

That is to say, the attribute and its ontological ground are here distinguished and the simple proposition "he is knowing" or "he is living" is taken to assert only the attribute, not the ground; we can recognize that the knower is knowing without knowing the ground of his being knowing and it is this simple and primary fact that is recognized and grasped ('uqila) prior to any question of how the knower's being knowing is related to his being as he is in himself that is stated in the proposition "he is knowing." Taken in this way, the statement "he is knowing" may be understood univocally of all knowers.40 Insofar as the ground of the knower's being knowing differs in the eternal and in the created knower, the attributes may be divided and categorized according to the ontological structure of the being of the knower in his being knowing, but our inquiry and understanding concerning these differences remain, nevertheless, posterior to and derivative of our grasp and understanding of the attribute as such, sc., of our knowledge that he is knowing.41 From the outline here sketched it becomes apparent that as the conception of the attribute underwent modification from abû l-Hudhayl to abû Hâim, so also the conception of the "accidents"the formal role of the "accident" and its position in the teaching of the schoolmanifested a parallel, though less radical, evolution as the overall conceptual framework of the system was altered and refined. As was noted on pp. 12 f. the accidents were originally taken to be "things," most probably through a simple reification of certain attributes, i.e., of the qualities attributed to things. Influential, if not primarily determinant, in reinforcing and sys-

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tematizing this conception was the influence of certain notions borrowed and adapted from the science of grammar, chiefly a) the idea of the primacy of the noun and that verbs and verbal adjectives (one should keep in mind that Arab grammarians conceived the verbal adjective more broadly than did Western tradition)sifat * in the broadest senseare derived from and rooted in the corresponding verbal nouns, and b) the identification of "thing" (entity) with whatever is "an object of knowing of which something can be predicated" (alma`lûmu l-muhbaru* `anhû). Though still somewhat unrefined and in certain respects awkwardly handled, the concept is firmly and formally established already in the teaching of abû 1-Hudhayl as also in that of Ibn Kullâb. In the following generation, as abû 1-Hudhayl's disciples and others in the Basrian Mu`tazila endeavored to perfect this metaphysics of atoms and accidents in discussing and elaborating the nature of the various "accidents" and their properties and characteristics, the conception of the accident as an entity and the distinction between the entitative character of the accident and the nonentitative character of the attribute became more sharply defined. Al-Gubba'i's* treatment of the accidents in the early stage of his career appears, in the few reports we have of it, to follow the pattern of abû l-Hudhayl's teaching rather closely. Subsequently, however, in conjunction with his elaboration of the principles we have outlined he began to introduce a more systematic order into the school's understanding of the "accidents." As he drew a radical distinction between entity and what is not, taking being in a narrow and univocal sense, the accidents fell definitively and unequivocally into the category of the former, while the attributes were formally conceived to have beingi.e., to become objects validly regarded as "things''only as linguistic entities. The accidents, that is, are strictly conceived as beings ('ayâ) whose properties are given, directly or indirectly, to the mind's understanding and may be critically examined in the analysis of the linguistic expressions that objectify this understanding. Again, as we have seen, al-Gubba'i* took the position that language does not, in and of itself, simply and immediately furnish a precise and unambiguous paradigm of reality, but only as it expresses the reflected judgment of understanding; and since beings are understood and distinguished only in their attributes, semantics becomes of paramount importance in the system. What the mind knows and recognizes in the examination of its object, it names and describes by appropriate terms, formally defined. No longer, then, is each of the sifatu* l-ma'ânî (i.e., each of the descriptive expressions which, according to the theoretical system, is understood to imply the reality of an entitative accident) taken to indicate the reality of a distinct and separate accident. The complex multitude of accidents recognised in the teaching of abû 1-Hudhayl and in that

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of al-Gubba'i * himself in an earlier period comes thus to be systematically reduced. For example, knowing (al-'ilm) is recognized as a form of conviction (i`tiqâd) and separation (al-iftirâq) and motion (al-haraka*) as forms of presence in space (al-kawn). When finally, with abû Hâim, the attribute comes to be conceived as an ontologically real perfection or attribute of the being that is qualified by it (al-mawsûf)note the shift in the sense of the passive) the primary focus of the system falls explicitly on the attributes as suchon being as given in its attributesand their grounds. The accidents, then, are viewed as the cause of the actuality of certain attributes, i.e., of those attributes that are classed as sifatu* l-ma`ânî (taking sifa* in abû Hâim's sense). As entities, however, the accidents have their own attributes and characteristics and these are identified, examined, and discussed both in themselves and in terms of the various attributes and characteristics which they effect (attara*) in their subjects. As the understanding of the attributes is progressively refined, the treatment of the accidents, grouped under four main types according to certain generic characteristics of their effects, is further systematised; a number of accidents coalesce, while others, as the attributes formerly associated with them are reclassified, are simply eliminated altogether. Some examples of this process we shall have occasion to examine in concrete detail in the following chapters. The strict dichotomy of entity and attribute is reflected in the basic technical vocabulary of the system. As the atoms and the separate accidents are considered true entities ('ayâ') or "essences"/things-themselves (dawat*), they may properly be said to be existent (mawguda*) or nonexistent (ma`dûma),42 but the attributes and states, in that they are not true entities but rather attributes and characteristics of entities, cannot be said to exist. One says of the existent rather that it is qualified by an attribute (is 'alà sifatin*) or by being in a state ('alà halin*) or has an attribute or state (lahû sifatun*, halun*) by which it is specifically qualified (muhtass*) and described (mawsuf*). Accordingly one may not use of the attributes, states, or characteristics any of the terms that refer to or imply existence; one does not say of them that they exist (wugida*) or that they come to be (hadata*), for the latter signifies "the becoming of existence" (tagaddudu* l-wugud*),43 nor that they endure (baqiya), since this signifies "the continuance of existence" (istimrâru lwugud*).44 Rather, one says of them that they have or come to have actuality (hasala*)45 or that they arise or ''become" (tagaddada*)46 and that they continue (istarnarra).47 Again, since it is the thing (ay') or "essence"/thing-itself (dat*) that strictly speaking is the object of our knowing and the subject of our predications, abû Hâim and his followers insist that the state is not itself known (ma`lûm), i.e., it is not properly speaking the object of our know-

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ing; "they are not, in our opinion, known separately and in themselves but it is the thing-itself rather that is known as being-so, the one being thus distinguished from the other." 48 If, however, the attribute or state is not, within the distinctions of the terminology, strictly speaking "known" (ma`luma), i.e., is not the object of our knowing, it is nevertheless intelligible and grasped by the mind (ma`qûla) in its distinguishing characteristics (ahkam*), for the thing (ay') or "essence" (dat*) which is the object of our knowing "is intelligible only through its attributes and characteristics."49 In sum, to know something, for the masters of the Basrian Mu`tazila, is to know something about it. Knowing is not the simple intuition of forms or essences but is an analytic knowing that is (may be) formulated in propositions. The thing or ''essence"/thing-itself is given to our knowing as being in some state (`alà halin*, sifatin*) by which it is known and distinguished through particular characteristics (ahkam*), and our descriptions of the object known by the given attribute expresses and conveys the state (yufîdu l-hal*) or characteristic,50 as our predication reflects the known (ma`lûm) as it is grasped by the mind (ma`qûl). The "essence"/thing-itself, as the object of our knowing, is known as having a certain attribute by which it is qualified (mawsuf*, thus, in two senses), and the attribute (sifa* and wasf*) is that which is known about itthat as being which it is known or as specifically qualified by which it is known to beand predicated of it. These attributes which are predicated of things as ontologically real attributes of their being are divided by abû Hâim and his followers in the Basrian school51 into several categories according to the source or ground that is to be assigned to the actuality of the particular attribute. The basic categories are five:52 1. The attribute of the Essence (sifatu* d-dat*), 2. The essential attributes, i.e., those attributes that a thing has by virtue of the way it is in itself (li-mâ huwa `alayhî fî datihi*) when it exists, 3. Those attributes that belong to it through the determinant effect of an entitative accident (li-ma`nà), 4. Those attributes that belong to it through the action of an agent (bil-fâ'il), and 5. Those attributes that belong to it neither by virtue of its essence as such nor by virtue of an entitative accident (lâ lid-dati* wa-lâ li-ma`nà).

Before systematically examining the several categories of attributes, however, it will be well to look briefly at the background of abû Hâim's thought from another perspective in order to locate in a general way

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several of the system's principal concepts and structures; this should help to establish the overall context for the problems treated under the separate categories of attributes. Notes to Chapter 1 1. S. D. Goiten, Studies in Islamic History and Institutions (Leiden, 1966), p. 7, q.v. 2. Fad1u * kalâmi liâhi 'alà sâ'iri l.kalâmi ka-fad1i* llâhi 'alâ halqihi*; reported in ad-Dârimî (d. 282/895), ar-Radd `alâ l-gahmiya*, edited by G. Vitestam (Lurid/Leiden, 1960), 74, 4 ff.; cf. also Concordances VI, 62. 3. Cf. H. Fleisch, "Esquisse d'un historique de la grammaire arabe," Arabica 4 (1957): 4 ff., where he notes (p. 6): "munis de ces concepts initiaux aristotéliciens, que la simple ambience a pu leur fournir, les grammariens arabes ont travail1é avec leur mentalité arabe; l'agencement en un système est arabe, si bien que l'on peut dire que, de toutes les sciences islamiques, la grammaire est peut-être celle qui a le moins subi d'influences extérieurs et eat restée la plus purement arabe.... La connaissance de sa méthode reste un des moyens les plus importants pour pénétrer et connaître la structure spirituelle de l'Islam." 4. Cf. J. van Ess, "Dirar* b. `Amr und die 'Cahmîya," der Islam 43 (1967): 241 ff. and 44 (1968): 1 ff., esp. §§ 4 ff. 5. Cf., e.g., for Ibn Kullâb, Maq, 169 and 546 and for abû l-Hudhayl, ibid., 165, 177, 188, and 484; see also J. van Ess, "Ibn Kullab* und die Mihna*," Oriens 18-19 (1967): 109 ff. and my "The Divine Attributes according to abû l-Hudhayl al-`Allâf," le Muséon 82 (1969): 451 ff. 6. When the matter is phrased in this way, the close parallelism in the use of these two terms in the early kalâm and in law becomes more apparent: one has to do with the explanation or "cause" (`illa) or "reason" (ma`nà) for the hukm*, i.e., for the judgment that the thing is so: the juridical qualification (law) or the "characteristic" or attribute (kalâm); concerning the sense and use of these words as technical terms in the kalâm, see Ch. 5, n. 3. I do not here, in listing these categories, mean to imply that these were the sole categories recognized for the attributes. 7. Cf., e.g., Maq, 169, 13 and 546, 9. Ibn Kullâb's explanation and qualification of these formulae we need not deal with here. Note, however, that in the case of the predicates ay' (entity) and mawgud* (existent) he says "He is existent not through an existing and is an entity not by virtue of a causal ground through which He is an entity" (Maq, 170, 1: 'innahû mawgudun* lâ bi-wugudin* wa-ay'un lâ bima`nan huwa lahû kâna ay'an); concerning the argument for this thesis, of. al-Mutahhar* al-Maqdisî, al-Bad' wat-ta'rih*, vol, 1, edited by M. Huart (Paris, 1899), 102 f. 8. The notion that the verbal forms ('amtila*) and (verbal) adjectives (sifat*) are derived from the noun for the event or act (ismu lhadat*, ismu l-fi'l) probably contributed to this. The concept that the conjugated forms of the verb and the verbal adjectives are derived from the nomina actionis, it should be noted however, is purely a grammatical concept and the Basrian grammarians, to whose doctrine this thesis belongs, were extremely meticulous in maintaining the grammatical integrity of their thought; their consideration of grammatical phenomena is almost nowhere contaminated or clouded by a confusion of the linguistic reality of nouns and verbs with the concrete reality of things and events. If there is any confusion or contamination, that is to say, it is on the part of the theologians. Explicit discussion of the difference of object and method

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in the kalâm and in grammar is not, at least insofar as I am aware, reported for the Mu'tazila prior to al'Gubba'i *, though the matter must have been discussed quite early. For the grammarians' distinctions between the nature of "rules" and "causes" ('ilal) in grammar and kalâm, cf. e.g., as-Zaggagi* (d. 337/948), al-'idah* 64-66 and particularly Ibn Ginnî (d. 392/1002), al-Hasd'is* (Cairo, 1347/1955) 1, 48 ff. and cp. Sarh* al-Kitâb 1, fol. 2rº, 3 ff.; note also as-Zaggagi's* discussion of the appropriateness of calling nouns "names" ('asmâ') and verbs "acts" ('af``âl), al-Idah*, 42-44. 9. Maq, 525, 4-6; cf. also M 5, 180, 6 ff. (which cannot be a verbatim citation because of the occurrence of the expression 'ahwal*; cf., e.g., the text cited n. 39); 1, 17, 6-12 (where read wagid* for wahid* in line 9 and yagidu* for yhd* in line 10). Note that the sense of the expression "the meaning" (al-ma'naà) in the passage cited by al-A`arî refers to what is meant (the mind's articulate grasp of the thing's being so) as opposed to the word or expression (al-'ibâra) (cf. Ch. 4, n. 5 and Ch. 7, n. 7). On the laqab, sc., the expression that has no semantic connection within the convention of the language to that of which it is used (e.g., most personal names), see Ch. 4, nn. 101 f., Ch. 6, n. 34, and Ch. 7, n. 20; and that one should not use alqâb of God, cf., e.g., M 5, 186 ff. and 198 ff. and Tad 67rº f. On the name Allâh, see Ch. 3, n. 2. 10. Usul* ad-dîn (Istanbul, 1346/1928), 115 f. Note also that although al-Bagdadi* does introduce the issue in this citation, al-Gubba'i's* position on the application of names to God is not intrinsically related to, and is, in fact, fully independent of, the thesis that the origin of language lies in humanly established convention (muwada'a*). This thesis seems first to have been introduced into Islam by Ibn ar-Râwandî (whose death is reported variously as having occurred in 245/859, 258/864, and 298/910; G. Vajda suggests that the earlier dates are more plausible, cf. his article in EI2, s.v.); (cf. P. Kraus in RSO 14 (1933), 127). Though Ibn ar-Râwandî is commonly reckoned as a Mu'tazilite, his teaching is in almost every aspect in violent opposition to that of the more prevalent authorities of the Mu'tazila. The position concerning the origin and nature of language held by abû l-Hudhayl and those of the Basrian School who generally follow his teaching up to the time of al-Gubba'i* is not reported directly in the sources I have examined. There is only the report that 'Abbâd b. Sulaymân (d. ca. 250/864), a disciple of Hiâm al-Fuwati*, held that the relation between nouns and the things they signify is absolute so that "to change the name would entail the change of the thing named into something else" (qalbu l-ismi yaqtadi* qalba l-musammà: Mas, 75rº; cf also as-Suyuti*, alMuzhir fî `ulûm al-luga* wa-'anwâ'ihâ, edited by M. Jad al-Mawla (Cairo, n.d.), 1, 17. These reports are fully consistent with the statement attributed to him in Tad, 68rº, 17 ff., but his rigidity in this question did not, evidently, restrain him from a rather blithesome attitude towards grammatical forms; cf. the report in M 7, 210). It is doubtful that anybody followed him in this rather preposterous notion and, for the Mu'tazila at least, abû Raî (Mss, 75rº) says without qualification that "our masters consider him an ignoramus for holding this." Concerning al-Gubba'i's* position Ibn Mattawayh reports that "he allowed (gawwaza*) that its origin may be by human convention (muwada'a*) or may be through divine guidance (tawqîfan), though what he says in his Tafsîr is that it is by divine guidance" (Tad, 71vº 10 f.). 'Abd al-Gabbar* states simply that he held the origin of language ('aslu* l-luga*) to be tawqîf (M 15, 105). This latter is the position of Ibn Kullâb and the A`arites as well as of abû l-Qâsim al-Ka'bî of the Bagdad* Mu'tazila, who holds that a word may not be altered from its established use and meaning save by revelation (ld yaguzu* l-'asmâ'i 'illâ bi-wahy*: Mas, 75rº; cf. also Tad, 71vº). The thesis that language must originate in human convention, though 'Abd al-Gabbar*, during a rather lengthy discussion of the question (M 5, 160 ff.), cites none of his predecessors,

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was clearly introduced into the common teaching of the Basrian Mu'tazila by abû Hâasim, as this proposition is attributed to him by abû Raîd (Mas, 73rº; cf. also as-Suyuti *. al-Muzhir 1, 17) and 'Abd al-Gabbar* reports his reasoning against the validity of the thesis of the tawqîf (M 15, 106, 1 ff.). The concerns that led abû Hâim adopt this position were, however, originally theological, arising from his conception of the requirements and prerequisites of the taklîf (moral or religious obligation involving punishment and reward). Since the doctrine of the human origin of language gained general acceptance in a significant element of the intellectual community thus only at a relatively late date and on the basis of theological rather than linguistic considerations, it becomes clear why the discussion of the problem occurs earlier in the theological texts than in the writings of the grammarians and philologians (cf. H. Loucel, "l'Origine du langage d'après les grammariens arabes,"Arabica 10 (1968): 188 ff.). The thesis of al-Gubba'i* with which we are here concerned requires ('Abbâd's position aside) in this regard no more than the assumption of the presence of commonly established usage. For a general discussion of the question of the origin of language, cf. M 5, 160 ff., Tad, 66vº ff.; Mas, 73rº ff.; Ibn Ginni*, al-Hasa'is*, 1, 40 ff. and esp. 44 ff.; as-Suyuti*, al-Muzhir l, 17 and M. Mahdi, "Language and Logic in Classical Islam" in Logic in Classical Islamic Culture, pp. 50-58 and the references there cited. 11. The following outline is based in some part on inference, since the sources are in-adequate to show the detail of al-Gubba'i's* thought. In that the primary aim of the present study is to investigate not the doctrine of al-Gubba'i* but that of his successors in the Basrian School, I shall not here argue the detail of this sketch of al-Gubba'i's* analysis; its conformity to the evidence of the sources and its general validity should, in any event, be reasonably evident to those who have a fair acquaintance with the texts and the problem. It should be remarked also that al-Gubba'i's* thought, as is plain from a number of reports, some of which will be cited in the chapters that follow, underwent considerable modification during the course of his career as he refined his teaching both in its general conception and in particular questions. The outline here offered does not attempt to sort out the chronology of his thought, however, but merely seeks to set out certain fundamental elements of his understanding of the attributes as these formed the point of departure for the innovations of abû Hâim. 12. l'tiqâdu -ay'i 'alà mâ huwa bihî; cf., e.g., Maq, 523, 14; M 12, 13, 17 f.; al-Bagdadi*, Usul* ad-Dîn, 4; âamil (ms), 237rº 4. 13. With this one may compare the statement of az-Zaggagi* (al-idah*, p. 42) that "We know that God (the Mighty, the Glorious) made speech in order that humans might express (yu'abbir) the thoughts that occur in their souls. People address one another concerning what is in their minds (dama'ir*) which cannot be made clear by pointing or by gesturing or by moving the eyebrows or by any device (hila*). Since this is obvious and unchallengeable, it is plain that the person addressed and the one who speaks and that about which something is said and that by means of which it is said are bodies and accidents whose names stand for them in the verbal expression concerning them (fî l-'ibârati 'anhâ What is said about a thing (al-habar*) is other than the statement made and other than that about which it is made (the latter two falling under the category of the noun)...."The notion that oral speech is one of several means of expressing the mind's thought and intention is common and held by the Basrian Mu'tazila (to some of whose teachings az-Zaggagi* adhered); cf., e.g., SU5 529, 17 ff. (and with the citation of abû Hâsim there given cp. Tad, 65vº 22 f.) and M 17, 12 (spoken language is "one of the means by which we can come to know another's intention": qasd*). Al-Gahiz* (d. 255/869) lists speech as one of the five means

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of expressing intention (al-Bayân wat-tabyîn, edited by A.M. Harun [Cairo 1367/1948], I, 76, 9 ff.); of the five, two are linguistic, viz., oral speech and writing, and three are nonverbal, viz., al-isara * (pointing or gesticulating, or the like), al-'aqd (reckoning and indicating sums with the fingers), and an-nusba* (setting up "an indicative situation": halun* dâ (Note that although the notion of God's erecting signsnasbu* l-'adillathat point to Him is frequent and common in the kalâm and is used by al-Gahiz* here [p. 81] as the example of an-nusba*, the concept of the "indicative situation" is much broader and is commonly employed by the grammarians to explain particularly instances of radical ellipsis where one of the major elements of a sentence is omitted, as, e.g., "if [the thing or event] has not been previously mentioned and there is no indicative situation, then the explicit expression ('izhar*) is altogether necessary": alMuqtadab* 3, 267.) The list of the five means of communicating meaning and intention probably originated amongst the grammarians and philologians by whom it continues to be used in later periods (cf., e.g., Ibn Fâris, as-Sahibi* fî fiqh al-luga*, edited by M. Chouémi (Beirut, 1383/1964), 190 and Ibn Ya'î 1, 19, 4 f.) but occurs also in other contexts where exegesis is involved (cf., e.g., al-Gassas*, Usul* al-fiqh, cited by N. Chehaby in The Cultural Context of Medieval Learning, edited by J. Murdoch and E. Sylla (Cambridge, 1975), 61. 14. Thus al-Gubba'i*: mâ summiya bihi -ay'u li-'annahû yurnkinu 'an yudkara* wa-yuhbara* 'anhû, fa-huwa musamman bi-dalika* qabla kawnihî, kal-qawli "ay'un", fa-'inna 'ahla l-lugati* sammaw bil-qawli "ay'un" kulla mâ 'amkanahum 'an yadkuruhu* wa-yuhbiru* 'anhû: Maq, 161, 8-11, following Sîbawayh (l, 7, 4: 'inna -aya yaqi'u 'alà kulli mâ 'uhbira* 'anhû). The term ay, thus, is most commonly defined as alma'lûmu l-muhbaru* 'anhû; cf., e.g., Maq, 519, 6f. (citing al-Gubba'i*); M 5, 251, 3 f.; Mas (B), 19, 12 f.; Tad, 11rº 3 f. and al-Bad' wat-ta'rih* 1, 37. Thus also az-Zaggag*, Mâ yansarif* wa-mâ lâ yansarif* (Cairo, 1971), 3: wa-yaqûlu fî kulli ma'lûrnin huwa ay'un (cp. also al-Gubba'i* in Maq, 522 f.); for citations of later grammarians, cf. N. Rescher, Studies in Arabic Philosophy (Pittsburgh, 1967), 70, n. 1. For the qualification of this definition by the later masters of the Basrian Mu'tazila, see pp. 23 f. and on the connotations of the term, n.b. Ch. 4, nn. 102 ff. 15. The word sifa* in this sense is plainly adapted from its use by the grammarians as M. Allard has suggested (le Problème des attributs divins dans la doctrine d'al-A'ari et ses premiers grands disciples [Beirut, 1965], 2 f.). It is the expression (al-qawl) employed in describing (wasafa*) something, i.e., in formulating the sentence in which the particular word is predicated of a subject noun which is taken to denote some concrete entity (ay'). Sometimes, however, it refers to the meaning of the descriptive term (al-rna'nà, thus, as opposed to the word or material utterance: al-'ibâra, al-lafz*) and so as signified by any of several expressions ('awsaf*, 'asmâ') that are held to be synonymous as said of a particular entity (e.g., 'qâdir'='qawî'="azîz' as said of God) (cf, e.g., Muh*,172, 3-12). For the relevant use of the term by the grammarians, cf., for example, Ibn Ya'î (l, 24) who says that predication (al-'isnâd; on the term see n. 32) is a wasf* and azZaggagi* (Idah*, 42, 11 ff.), in a discussion of the primacy of the noun, classes the verb as a qualifier (sifa*), i.e., as something that is said of a noun. Concerning the question of the primacy of the noun, cf. also ibid., 100 f., Sîibawayh 1, 6; Sarh* al-Kitâ l, 2rº f. and 67rº and Ibn Ya'î, 1.24. 16. Thus, for example, "in making a statement about the predicate" the grammarians will simply insert a particle and invert the proposition so that "God is knowing" or "Zayd is knowing" becomes "the one who is knowing/knows is God/Zayd" (al-`âlimu/al-ladi* ya'lamu Allâhu/Zaydun) (cf., e.g., al-Muqtadab* 3, 89 f.), whereas al-Gubba'is* procedure, since he wants to explicate the 'itbat* of the predicate as such,

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is to leave the first subject and paraphrase the predicate as predicate into a sentence. He cannot make the predicate definite or use it as the subject of a proposition because the sifa * would thus become mawsuf* the qualifier, that is, would become the qualified. That the predicate cannot be taken as the simple equivalent of the subject may be seen, from one perspective, as conducive to abû Hâim's interpretation of it as hal*; see pp. 21 f. 17. Maq, 524 and 167; n.b. also M 5, 205, cited n. 21 and see Ch. 4, n. 2. Al-Gubba'i's*, formulation here is to be compared with that of abû l-Hudhayl cited earlier. 18. Al-Kitâb 1, 287; "they are one thing": ibid., 22, 5. 19. Al-Muqtadab* 4, 127 f. In the present discussion we are not concerned with simple propositions in which the predicate is taken as a pure noun (ismun mahd*), i.e., with such forms as Zaydun 'ahuka*. It is worth noting that some authorities, viz., the Kufans and, of the Basrians, 'Alî b. Ïsà ar-Rummânî, who recorded the famous debate between abû Sa'îd as-Sîrâfî and abû Bir b. Yûnus concerning the value and validity of the Aristotelian logic as translated and taught, take 'ahuka* in the sentence Zaydun 'ahuka* not as a pure noun but as an adjectival expression indicating kinship (qirâba); cf., e.g., al-Insaf* § 7 (PP. 55 ff.) and Ibn Ya'î 1, 88. The Basrian grammarians on the whole, however, allow that it can be used as an adjectival qualifier denoting kinship (cf., e.g., Sîbawayh 1, 223) but insist that it is not to be taken so in the example cited. 20. Cf. generally Sîbawayh 1, 278 and 22; al-Muqtadab* 4, 126 ff.; al-Gumal*, 48 f.; Ibn Kaysân, al-Kitâb al-Muwaffaqî fî n-nahw*, edited by A. al-Fathi and H. T. Shalash in at-Mawrid 4/2, (1975), l08 f. and 113b; al-Insaf*, §5 (pp. 44 ff.); and Ibn Ya'î 1, 83 ff. That the fâ'ida in such propositions is identified with the predicate, cf., e.g., al-Muqtadab* 4, 126, 6 f. and 88, 4 f., and Ibn Ya'â 1, 87, 13-21. AlGubba'i* distinguishes the fâ'ida from the 'itbat*, the former being the meaning conveyed by the word and the latter the reference, i.e., the implicit or explicit reference of the predicate (sifa*) as such to some entity which is asserted to exist. 21. It is thus that al-Gubba'i* says that there is no implication of similarity (tabîh) between God and creatures in such predications "simply because what is asserted to have entitative reality (al-mutbat*) in our describing God as having the power of autonomous action ('annahû qâdirun) is His essence (datuhu*) whereas what is asserted in our describing Zayd as having the power of autonomous action is the qudra; since what is asserted differs in the two predications, no assertion of similarity is implied": M 5, 205, 11 ff. On this question, see also Ch. 4, n. 35 and also the citations of Ibn Mattawayh in nn. 38 ff. 22. Al-A'arî says that abû 1-Hudhayl took from Aristotle the thesis that God's act of knowing is He (Maq, 485, 7-10). Whether or not abû l-Hudhayl's doctrinehis formulation and his understanding of its meaninghas any genuine relationship to the source al-A`arî cites must remain a matter of speculation (see le Musèon 82/1969/454 ff.). One thing that is clear, however, is that al-A`arî senses that abû lHudhayl's formulation, if not his meaning (for 'Abd al-Gabbar* says that he and al-Gubba'i* were in essential agreement on what they meant to say) was incompatible with and alien in spirit to the more Islamic form and conception found in the teaching of his successors in the Basrian School. Leaving aside the nebulous question of abû l'Hudhayl's sources, one sees rather clearly in the evolution of the school's treatment of this issue from abû l'Hudhayl to al-Gubba'i* a development from a beginning in which the Basrian Mu'tazila were yet seeking to adapt some general concepts and formulae originating in older, non-Islamic intellectual milieux to the emergent patterns of Islamic thinking until a point at which all elements were fully assimilated into a consistent and integrated Muslim form.

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23. Cf. the statement of az-Zaggagi * translated in n. 13. 24. The work is cited a number of times in 'Abd al-Gabbar*, e.g., M 4, 166; 5, 233; 6/2, 61 and 81; 12, 138 and 512; 14, 42. The number of citations is significant in that the writings of al-Gubba'i* are seldom cited by title; only a few titles are recorded in the sources that I have examined and save for this one work none of them more than once or twice. For other examples of his concern with semantics, cf., e.g., Maq, 167 f., 522 ff., and 526 ff.; M 5, 179 ff.,188 f., and 204 ff. passim; 6/1, 33 and 40; 6/2, 56, 59, 318 ff. and 397 f.; 8, 232; et alibi passim. The strong linguistic bias of his thought is plain to see in many contexts that do not have directly to do with the interpretation of particular "names" and expressions that are applied to God but also in contexts involving a wide variety of questions. 25. Maq, 529 f; cf. also ibid., 357, 6-11. (Note that one has to do in this passage with two distinct senses of the word and sifa2*,=ma'nà as defined in Ch. 5, n. 3; the second is never employed by the Mu'tazila.) That the term al-qadîm (the eternal) is taken to denote God's essence as such, see Ch. 3, n. 2 and Ch. 4, n. 57 and for al-Gubba'i's* classification of the kinds of predications cf. Maq, 161 f. and 522 f. 26. Cf., e.g., L. Massignon, la Passion d'al-Hallaj* (Paris, 1922) 555 and L. Gardet, art. Hal* in El2. 27. Al-Muqtadab 4, 300; cf. also ibid., 166 f., 174, and 299 ff. and also 3, 261 and Sîbawayh 1, 241. It would seem clear that for the grammariansespecially those of the later periodthe term hal* has primarily the connotation of "moment" or "instant" (sc., of the occurrence of the event) rather than of "state" or "situation." Thus, for example, as-Strâfî, who also emphasizes that the hal* expression qualifies the subject or object, says (sarh* al-Kitâb 1, 131 vº f.): "The hal* is simply one of the qualifications ('awsaf*) of the agent at the moment (waqt) of the occurrence of the action as in the statement 'Zayd stood up laughing', [i.e.,] his act occurred in the moment (hal*) in which he is qualified as laughing, and 'Zayd struck Hind standing', i.e., the act of striking occurred in the moment in which she is qualified as standing.'' Cf. also Ibn Ya'î 2, 55. 28. Cited by al-Anbârî, Asrâr al-'arabîya, edited by G. F. Saybold (Leiden, 1886), 55; cf. also Ibn Kathîr, Tafsîr, ad loc. and Ibn alGawzi*, Zâd al-Masîr 5 (Cairo, 1385/1965), 227. Al-Mubarrad (al-Muqtadab* 4, 117) and al-Baydawi* (Tafsîr, ad loc.) take the k* fîhî ta'tirun*, lâ budda min 'an yakûna min sarti* dalika* l-gawazu*, wa-'in lam yug'al* hada* haddan* lahû; cf. also the texts cited in nn. 17 f., 43, et alibi. The expression bi-hasbi* 'ahwali* l-fî`il, used in relation to the occurrence of the act, refers to those states that effectively determine (tu'attiru*) some attribute of the act (its existence or one of the other attributes and characteristics that are bil-fâ'il) as these are subject to his free choice. Thus one says that our knowledge of what we perceive occurs "in accord with the actuality of the possibility of our seeing" (bi-hasbi* sihhati* basarina*) and not "in accord with our states" (bi-hasbi* 'ahwalina*) since, although it does occur in accord with our being living, it is not an act that may be freely chosen or rejected (cf. M 9, 38 f. and also ibid., p. 21, 12 ff.). 3. Thus, e.g., Tad, 14rº 12-14: . . . sifatu* l-fâ'ili l-mu'attiratu*, wa-hiya kawnuhâ qâdiran wa-`âliman wa-murâdan wa-kârihan wamutafakkiran, fa-'ammâ kawnuhû qâdiran, fa-lâ yata'addà tariqata* l-ihdati* wa-kawnuhû `âliman yu'attiru*. . .; for the divisions, see later. 4. M 8, 65, 11-15: 'alimnâ 'anna l-ladi* yahsulu* min 'awsafih>* bi-hasbi* qasdihi* wa-dawâ'îthî huwa hudutuhu* lâ gayr*. . . fakadalika* s-sifatu* l-mufâriqatu lil-huduti* yagibu* 'an yakûna 'alayhâ bihî (adding lâ before yakâna in line 15); cf. also Tad, 80vº 25 ff. That which is fully distinct from its coming to be is strictly that which is neither the existence of the thing, nor directly derivative from its coming to be (tâbi'un> lil-hudut*).

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5. M 8, 270, 2-6 (reading tu'attiru * for yu'attiru* in lines 5 and 6 and al-fâ`il for al-fi`l in line 6); cf. also, e.g., ibid., 281, 7-14 and later. 6. Muh*, 353, 4 f.: mâ kâna mina s-sifati* wal-'ahkami* mimmd yu'addu fî l-wagibati*, ka-nahwi* sifati* d-dawati* wal-muqtada* 'anhâ, wa-mâ kâna mina s-sifati* t-tâbi`ati lil-`ilali, fa-lan tasihha* 'idafatuha* 'ilà l-fâ`il. That it is not existence (sc., the existence of the thing-itself) that effectively determines the actuality of the essential attributes but rather the Attribute of the Essence, cf. Muh*, 142, translated p. 60. For the arguments (against the A`arites) that the essential attributes cannot be determined by the agent, cf., e.g., M 8, 64 ff. (esp. 68 ff.); 15, 152 f.; Tad, 13rº ff.; et alibi. Ibn Ginni* (al-Hasa'is* 1, 174, 5-7) takes the Mu`tazilite position as the position of the 'ahl an-nazar*. 7. Hasala* lahû halun* zâ'idatun `alà mugarradi* l-wugudi* l-ladî bihî yahrugu* main `an yakûna fî hukmi* l-ma`dûm: M 6/1, 59, 1-4 (reading bibâ for bihâ in line 4); cf. also M 14, 242, 16-18. Thus "one says that the act has actuality in being qualified by characteristics (yahsulu* `alayhâ) through the action of the agent only when it is confirmed as really belonging to the act and the act's being qualified by it is plainly apparent to the mind (`uqila kawnuhû `alayhâ), for to ascribe the ground of an attribute to the agent (ta`lilu s-sifati* bil-fâ`il) and to assert its dependence upon him is like ascribing the ground of an attribute to a determinant accident (ma`nà) and cause (`illa) in that the ascription is based on its [i.e., the attribute's] being plainly recognized and distinguished by the mind" (far`un `alà kawnihâ ma`qûlatan): M 8, 74, 4-6. That it is plainly recognized as a distinct and positive attribute that is not a mere negation, cf. e.g., M 5, 230, 11-14; 6/1, 9 f. (where read bi-'an lâ yakûna for wa-'in lain yakun in 9 ult. and taqûlûna, etc. for yaqûlûna, etc., ibid. ff.); concerning negative attributes, see Ch. 7. 8. Cf., e.g., ZS, 404, 9-11: dalika* l-hukmu* huwa t-tâbi`u lil-huduti* wa-kat-tariqati* fîhî wal-kayfîyati 'id* laysa yanfasilu* 'ani lhuduti*, fa-kâna yagibu* 'an yakûna rnuta`alliqan bi-fâ`ili l-hudut*; see also the references later. 9. E.g., Muh*, 182, 19; cf. also at-tâbi`atu lil-'ilal, ibid., 353 5; for the expression sadara* `an ma`nan, cf. Ch. 5, n. 3. The expression is used in a number of contexts; one says, e.g., that the attributes or acts of "looking," "smelling," "tasting," etc., are "derivative of the senses'' (tatba`u l-hawass*) in that they are grounded in the functioning of the organs of sense (e.g., Muh*, 215 f., on which see Ch. 7) and that the act of willing is "derivative of conviction or belief" (tatba`u l-i`tiqâd; e.g., M 6/2, 73, 9) in that it is realized on the basis of conviction (not necessarily correct) that the realization of the action is possible. By contrast, one says that the atom's occupying space is not derivative of something else (is not `alà sabîli t-tab`i li-gayrihi*: ZS, 408, 12 f.). 10. ZS, 228, 9; see Ch. 4, nn. 18 f. 11. M 8, 198, 10. 12. Mas (B), 21, 5 ff.; cf. also SU5, 314. l3. Muh*, 315, 15 f.: sâ'iru l-awsafi* l-latî tatba`u l-fi`lîyata yakfî fî sihhatiha* kawnuhû ta`âlà qâdiran `alayhâ; (cp, e.g., M 7, 45, 5 fand SU5, 310). The expression fi`lîya refers to a thing insofar as it is an action or act dependent upon and correlated to the will and intention of the agent; al-fi`lîya, thus, "lâ tu`qalu 'illâ `alà l-ginsi* l-ladi* nadkuruhu* min wugubi* wuqû`i l-fi`li bi-hasbi* qasdihi* wadawâ`ihî wa-wugubi* ntifâ'ihî bi-hasbi* kirâhatihî wa-sarifihi*: Mas, 58rº 7 ff. 14. M 8, 109, 12 f.: qad yu'attiru* l-'ilmu wal-'irâdatu fî maqdûrihî `alà sabîli t-taba`. 15. M 6/2, 76, 16. Concerning the concept wagh* in this context, see pp. 131 f. 16. Cf., e.g., Muh*, 157 f. 17. Min haytu* yatba`u sifata* yu'attiru* fîhâ l-qâdiru wa-mâ huwa `alayhî mina l-'ahwali*, qad yudafu* 'ilà l-fâ`il: Muh*, 354, 4-6, q.v. et sqq.

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18. Thus, lâ yahtagu * 'ilà halin* zâ'idatin 'alà kawni fâ``ilihî qâdiran 'illâ fî sifatin* zâ'idatin `alà wugudihi*: M 8, 277, 18 ff., q.v. (where read al-habari* habaran* for al-hayri* hayran* in line 19); cf. also ibid., 70, 1-3 (where read habaran* for gabran* in line 3) and 71, 4 ff. Note also M 8, 65 f. (where read wa-habaran* for wa-gabran* at 66, 1), esp. 66, 1-3: 'inna dalika* 'agma`a* yatba`u l-huduta* fa-yakûnu l-fi`lu `alayhâ bil-fâ'ili, wa-'in lam yakun min haytu* kâna qâdiran, bal li-sifâtin zâ'idatin `alà kawnihî qâdiran, li-'anna gihati* li-fi'li 'innamâ yahsulu* `alayhâ li-sifati* 1-qâdir . . . ; n.b. also M 15, 154, 8 ff.; 4, 259 f. (where read al-habari* habaran* for al-hayri* hayran* in line 14 and habaran* for hayran* in line 15) especially p. 259; 16, 54 f.; SU5, 72, 14 ff. and ZS, 79, 8 ff.; see also Tad, 80vº 25-27 and 81rº 3. Thus it is that the only act that has no characteristic over and above its existence and those attributes that are necessary given its existence is that which is produced by an agent who is unaware or unconscious (sâhî) of what he is doing, sc., where knowledge, will, etc., are excluded; cf., e.g., M 6/1, 7, 3-6. This is the position of most authorities; abû `Abdallâh and `Abd al-Gabbar*. however, hold that some acts are intrinsically bad and so have ethical qualification even when performed by one who is totally unaware of what he is doing; cf., e.g., M 6/l, 11 f. and 32 f. and n. 47. 19. Cf., e.g., ZS, 507 f. (where add bihî following huwa at 507, 17.). 20. Cf. M 11, 372, 10 ff.; ZS, 493 f. and 506 ff.; as well as M 16, 191 and 207; and Muh, 352, 24 ff. Note that kayfîya in this context means no more than the way one goes about doing the thing or making it. It is thus knowing (`ilm) may be defined as the basis of the wellwrought or skillful act, since to perform such an act is distinctive of one who is knowing; see the references Ch. 4, n. 32. 21. Mas, 141rº. 22. On the 'aqsâmu l-kalâm, see the references given in Bibliotheca Orientalis 29 (1972) 356; to be included among those there mentioned is also that an utterance be a reproof or casting of blame (damm) (cf. M 6/2, 73 f.), a threat, request, etc. (see later). The 'aqsâm al-kalâm listed by the grammarians generally differ from those given by the mutakallimîn; cf., e.g., Ibn Fâris. 179 ff. 23. Mas, 203rº 2-5; cf. also ibid., 77rº f., where the same formula is given and the contrary position of al-Ka`bî (on which see M 6/2, 12, 1 ff. and Tad, 70rº) is also discussed. Cf. generally also M 15, 323 ff. and Tad, 69rº ff. Concerning command (al-'amr) cf., e.g., alMu`tamad 1. 58. 6 ff. According to abû Hasim* in his Masâ'il it is only through the will and intention of the speaker that the utterance is addressed to some one and so becomes hitab* (M 6/2, 49). 24. M 6/2, 18, q.v. For this question generally, cf. M 6/2, 10 ff. 18, 3 ff., 49 f., 91 ff. and 94 ff.; Tad, 68vº ff. and especially 70rº ff.: et alibi. 25. Cf. Tad, 142vº 5 f.: wa-qad nafsilu bayna l-'irâdati wal-`ilmi min haytu* kâna ta'tîru l-'irâdati 'alà haddi* l-'igabi* dûna l-`ilmi fayuaâlu 'inna t-ta'tira* fî kawni l-kalâmi habaran* huwa l-'irâdaîu wa-kawnuhû qâdiran sartun*. 26. Cf., e.g., M 6/2, 94 f. 27. M 6/2, 96, 3-9 (reading fa-yasiru* for fa-tasîru in line 5); cf. generally ibid., pp. 95 ff. and also M 13, 538 f., Mas, 202rº ff., et alibi. 28. Cf. M 6/2, 84-88 and Mas, 199vº ff. (Question 138) and cf., e.g., also ZS, 474, 2 ff. That is the will may have as its object something whose existence the one who wills is incapable of effecting; if. however, the act is accomplished by the one who wills, the will necessitates its coming to be qualified by the particular characteristic that is "derivative of the way it comes to be." 29. Tad, 177vº 3 ff.; for al-Gubba'i's* position, cf. also M 6/2, 97, 12 f. and 214, 12 ff.

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Ibn Mattawayh, following the passage translated, discusses "command" ('amr) in a like manner; concerning this, see the detailed discussion in al-Mu`tamad 1, 50 ff. 30. Cf., e.g., M 7, 7, 15 ff.; Muh *, 307, 1 ff. and 327, 14 ff.; Tad, 64rº 20 ff. The identification of the words with the consonants (huruf*) follows the analysis of the grammarians. 31. The former alternative would appear the more plausible and consistent. This would be corroborated if abû Raîd's assertion that the thesis set out at n. 23 is that "of our masters" may be taken as validly including al-Gubba'i*. M 11, 305 f. may also be pertinent. Most reports concerning al-Gubba'i's* teaching regarding the nature of speech (e.g., M 7, 187 and 191, 11 ff.; 16, 54, 1 ff. [where read wabefore ga`ala* in line 3]; Muh*, 327, 14 ff.; and Maq, 192, 1 ff. and 598 f.) are of little aid elucidating the present problem. 32. Cf. generally M 7, 6 ff.; Muh*, 306 ff.; SU5, 528 ff. (where read `addûhû for `arrawhû at 529, 18); and Tad, 65vº ff. Contrary to the position taken by abû Hâim in his Bagdadiyat* (cited in Tad, 65vº 20 ff.), his successors held that included in speech are articulations that are not employed normally in the given language (al-muhmal as opposed to al-musta`mal), whether sounds or words, i.e., "those that arc not established in conventional usage although it is possible that they be so" (Tad, 67rº 19 f.), as well as those articulations that do not in fact convey any meaning; cf. Tad, 65vº 16 ff.; SU5, 529, 17 ff.; and Muh*, 307, 20 ff.; Mas, 73rº 1 ff. and al-Mu`tamad 1, 16, 7 f. Cp. Ibn Fâris, 82, 1 ff. and Ibn Ya`î 1, 18. 33. Cf., e.g., M 15, 323, 3 ff.; 6/2, 95, 1 ff. (and cp. ibid., p. 18, 3 ff); M 17, 14 f.; 13, 538 f.; and al-Mu`tamad 1, 49 ff. On the requirement that there be an established convention of usage, cf. generally M 5, 160 ff.; Tad, 66vº ff. and 71vº f.; and Mas, 73rº and see also Ch. 1, n. 10. 34. Cf., e.g., al-Muqtadab* 4, 126 ff. The speaker "wills to inform Zayd of what is in the predicate" (al-Mu`tamad 1, 52, 16 f.). The defined noun (al-ma`rifa) is, by definition, that noun the particular referent of which is taken to be known to the hearer. Thus in the discussion of the degrees of definition in nouns (marâtibu 1-ma`ârif) the question is one of which are more and which less clearly and immediately recognized and known to the person addressed as designating their individual and particular referents; cf., e.g., al-Insaf*, § 101 (2, 707 ff.), al-Muqtadab* 4, 276 ff. and esp. 280 ff., al-Gumal*, 191 f., and Sîbawayh 1, 219 f. Some words, however, that in this context are among the most defined ('a`raf), e.g., the demonstrative pronouns and personal names ('alqâb) which "distinguish the individual from the whole class" (besides the foregoing references, cf. also al-Muqtadab* 4, 17), are, from another standpoint, fully nonspecific (mubham) and are said to convey no meaning (lâ tufîd) in that some specific designation or ostension ('iâra) or qualification is required for them to have specific meaning (fâ'ida). Those that do not have specific meaning are divided into two classes, viz., those whose references is altogether arbitrary within the convention of the language (al-'alqâbu l-mahda*), such as personal names, and those that are simply nonspecific (mubham), e.g., ay' and the demonstrative pronouns (al-'asmâ'u l-mubhama); cf. Tad, 67rº 19 ff. (where read al-'asmâ' for al'ayâ' at 67vº 9: qad ga`alu* qawlahum ay'un min 'abhami l-'asmâ'i wa-'a`ammihâ) and see the references cited in Ch. 4, n. 101. 35. See the discussion in Sîbawayh 1, 278, al-Muqtadab* 4, 126 ff., al-Insaf* § 5 (1, 44, ff.), and Ibn Ya`î 1, 83 ff., cited Ch. 1, n. 20. That there can be a predicate when the subject is understood as intended but not expressed, cf., e.g., Sîbawayh 1, 279 and Ibn Ya`î 1. 94 f. A word has no reference apart from the intention of the speaker (M 5, 160, 5 ff.).

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36. Cf. M 17, 38; see also M 11, 191, 3 ff., where the utterly pointless act (al-`abat *) is described as "any act in which the agent intends no intelligible manner (waghun* ma`qûl), so that it is like the idle nonsense that we sometimes utter and anything else in which the agent has no purpose though he knows and expressly intends [the act]." (On what he means by "intelligible manner," see n. 38 and concerning the idle or pointless act, see the references in n. 48.) Similarily the utterance that has the grammatical form of a command cannot be a command or request or whatever when it is kalâmu s-sâhî wal-`abit*; cf. al-Mu`tamad 1, 52, 2-4. 37. Concerning the predicative statement, see generally M 15, 323 ff. and concerning commands, see al-Mu`tamad 1, 43 ff., where the general issue of will and intention is discussed in detail, as well as M 6/2, 73 f. where reproof (ad-damm*) is also discussed. These distinctions are also recognized by the grammarians; cf., e.g., concerning a reproof that has the grammatical form of a question, alMuqtadab* 3, 228 f. and 264. 38. M 14, 22, 3-10 (on the same page read al-`aql for al-fi`l in line 9); cf. also M 11, 529 f. (where read as-sifat* for the editor's al'innîyât at 529, 13; al-'innîya not only would make no sense in the context but is originally a translation term that, to my knowledge, never occurs in the writings of the Basrian Mu`tazila of the classical period). Thus one speaks of waghun* mahsus* as belonging to the act (e.g., M 11, 191, 7) just as of sifatun* mahsusa* or halun* mahsusa* as belonging to the thing-itself or corporeal whole (gumla*). In the strict use of the terminology, then, one does not speak of the tagaddud* or husul* of the wash or of the attribute that may be derived from it but speaks rather of the act's occurrence in a manner (wuqû`uhû `alà waghin*) and of the thing's coming to actuality or having actuality as qualified by the particular attribute (husuluhu* 'alayhâ); cf., e.g., the passages cited in nn. 1 and 5 and cp. those cited in Ch. 1, nn. 44 f. and M 8, 65, 15 ff. (where add lâ before yagib* in line 15). The term wagh* may also be used to denote the circumstance of an action as this may be chosen by the agent and so involve the ethical qualification of the act; cf., e.g., SU5, 313, 1-6 and 314, 10-12 and cp. the juridical use of wasf* for circumstances (cited in Ch. 1, n. 37). 39. Cr., e.g., M 11, 196, 18-20, 267, 13-15, and 529 (cited in the following note) and 8, 74, 3-6. The ethical qualification of an act is most commonly referred to as a "characteristic" (hukm*). Though this use corresponds to and may probably be based on the juridical use of the words, it nonetheless accords with the formal conception of the attributes and their 'ahkam* in that the ethical characteristic is grounded in another attribute, viz., the thing's existence in the manner of its coming to exist. Though it is not, thus, a hal* (cf., e.g., SU5, 374, 9 f.) the term hal* is used of the ethical qualification in a loose sense in some passages (cf., e.g., M 6/1, 52, 10 f. and 59, 1 ff., where insert al-ladi* after al-wugud* in line 3). 40. That not all wuguhu* l-wuqû` are subject to determination by the will of the human agent, cf., e.g., M 8, 270, 2 ff. (cited in n. 5). Thus, e.g., knowing (al-`ilm) is distinguished from simple conviction (al-i`tiqâd) or from taqlîd or tabhit*, not by its gins* but by being "a conviction that occurs in a particular way" (wâqi`un `alà waghin* mahsus*; cf., e.g., M 12, 213, 15 f.; Tad, 187rº ult.; and generally SU5, 188 ff.; Mas, 155vº., where, note, there is at least one leaf missing between foll. 156 and 157; Tad, 189rº ff.) such that it causes authentic confidence on the part of the knower that the thing really is as he is convinced it is (see Ch. 4, nn. 87 ff.). That conviction occur as an act of knowing is not, however, subject to the free determination of the agent in the way that, for example, a particular utterance may, through an act of willing, occur as a command or a threat, etc.; cf., e.g., SU5, 191; Mas, 156rº f. and 174rº 11-14; and Tad, 189vº 13 ff. To explain fully the argument set forth in these texts would require too detailed an examination of the Basrians' epistemology.

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41. Cf., e.g., M 6/2, 70 f.; al-'irâdatu 'innamâ tata`allaqu bil-murâdi `alà gihati * l-hudut*; cf. generally M 6/2, 68-77 and M 8, 22 f. and the references in the following notes. 42. Qad tata`allaqu bi-ay'i `alà waghin* yatba`u l-hudut*; cf., M 6/2, 76 f. 43. M 6/2, 294 f.: wasfu* l-murîdi bi-'annahû murîdun yufîdu htisasahu* bi-halin* li-kawnihî `alayhâ taqi`u l-'af`âlu minhû `alà waghin* mina l-wuguhi* dûna waghin*; cf. also M l1, 131, 12 f.; Muh*, 165, 9 ff.; and ZS, 450, 9 ff.; and Mas, 202vº f. (Question 141: 'inna l'irâdata tu'attiru* fî wuqû'i l-fi`li `alà waghin*). (The concept of the will and its role in action is, in this way, altogther different in the doctrine of the Basrian Mu`tazila from that found in the schools of al-A`ari and al-Mâturîdî.) That the agent is, thus, responsible for the thing's realization or actuality in being qualified by this specific character (husuluhu* `alà l-wagh*), cf., e.g., ZS, 403, 12-15 and that the agent's being knowing may also effect the wuguh*, as in the well-wrought act, cf. ZS, 507 f., cited n.19; n.b. also Muh*, 155, 1 ff. and generally ibid., 153-155. Abû Raîd says (Mas, 202rº f.) that there arc two kinds (darbân) of will, viz., that which has a determinant effect on its object in terms of its occurrence with one wash rather than another and that which does not. The former, he notes, cannot precede the act or the first part or element (guz'*) of the act (cf. also M 13, 72, 7: lâ yaguzu* fî l-'irâdati l-mu'attirati* 'an tataqad-dama l-fi'l and for the expression `al-'irâdatu l-mu'attira'*, cf. also Tad, 14rº 12, cited in n. 3) while the latter may. This second kind, however, is of no concern to the present context. 44. This is the position of the Basrian Mu`tazila against that of al-Ka`bî and the Baghdad School, who, just as they hold that what exists as a command is a command per se (li-`aynihî) and cannot exist save as a command (cf., e.g., al-Mu`tamad 1, 50, 4 ff. and Mas, 77rº and n. 23), insist also that the act that is bad is bad per se (e.g., SU5, 309 f.) and cannot exist as good, so that a given motion (haraka*) that is morally bad (qabiha*) cannot exist and be good; cf. Mas, 198rº f., 107vº ff. and 126rº f. Cf. also G. Hourani, Rationalism, 64 f. 45. Cf., e.g., M 6/1, 52 f., where he says that the immediate ground of a thing's being bad cannot be ascribed to something else, for whatever is described by a predicate the immediate basis of which is ascribed to another (e.g., a thing's being known or mentioned) has, as such, no ontologically real characteristic, "whereas we know that the bad action has characteristics by which it is specifically qualified, wherefore that which entails these characteristics must perforce be the way the thing is" (lâ budda rain 'an yakûna l-muqtadi* li-tilka l'ahkami* mâ huwa `'alayhî). 46. M 6/1, l0 f. (note that the presence of gahl* in this list is inconsistent with the distinction made in M 8, 171 f.; see n. 48); cf. generally M 6/1, 9 ff. (for which note the emendations suggested in n. 7 and that there seems to be something missing on p. 9, possibly following qabîh in line 13); M 6/1, 54 f.; 11, 528 f.; SU5, 309 ff. (where read lin-nahy for lir-ra'y at 310, 2 and `illa for `lyt at 311, ult.) and the references earlier. Several remarks concerning the terminology may conveniently be made here. Al-kadib* should not be rendered in these texts as "lie," since "lie" implies the speaker's knowingly and willingly making a false statement; kadib*, on the contrary, in the technical usage of the kalâm, is used of any statement that affirms what is not factually no or denies what is factually so, whether uttered knowingly or unwittingly (see later). The use of the wordi.e., without any connotation of speaker's knowing the statement to be untrueis common in literary Arabic; cf., e.g., abû l-Farag* al-Isfahânî, K. al-Agani* (Bulaq, 1285) 5, 42, 12 ff.; cf. also the citation of al-Gubba'i* in Ch. 1, n. 17. I have preferred to render qabih* as `bad' (sometimes `wrong') rather than `evil,' since the latter would seem to have too heavy a connotation for some contexts

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(e.g., that a false statement is "bad" even when made unintentionally); on the term qabih *, see Hourani, Rationalism, § 16, p. 49. Finally, concerning the notion that the ethical qualities of acts are objectively present in the acts, see ibid., pp. 52 ff. et alibi and also later. Since the sole aim of the present inquiry is to show how in some (most) instances the ethical characteristic (hukm*) that belongs objectively to the act is said to be grounded in the agent (bil-fâ'il)i.e., grounded in his actionthere is no need to enter here into a discussion of ethical values as such or of the source and nature of moral valuation and how our knowledge of ethical principles in general or how the valuation of the individual act is had; all this has been treated by Hourani. 47. M 8, 171 f.; cf. also M 6/2, 78 f. and 6/1, 83 f. and the references nn. 22 ff. In the same passage (M 8, 172, 5 ff., where omit wabefore bi-htiyarihi* in line 7 and read muta'alliq for m'lq in line 9) the author distinguishes those acts whose moral qualification does not belong to them through the state or action of the agent but rather belongs to them necessarily when they exist, e.g., ignorance (al-gahl*); cf. also M 8, 66, 16 ff. (where read wa-habaran* for wa-gabran* in lines 1 and 13) and 324, 5 ff. (where there is evidently something missing following 'alà waghin* in line 6); for the same distinction, see also M 6/1, 83, 8 ff.; 6/2, 94 ff.; Muh*, 354, 4 ff.; and, in regard to the present context, see also M 12, 213, 16 f. Ignorance may be regarded as the conviction (i'tiqâd) that affirms an untrue proposition or denies a true proposition (cf. Muh*, 196 15 f.) and that the autonomous agent (al-qâdir) may produce on the basis of erroneous or misleading evidence or reasoning (ubha) that he ought to doubt (cf., e.g., M 11, 168, 15 f. and 16, 290, 16 f.). The act is bad in itself; it is bad, that is to say, in its being the particular act of conviction with its specific content. Its being bad, therefore, involves its essential attribute and is not subject to determination through the will and intention of the agent but on the contrary is necessary given its existence. The agent's moral responsibility, sc., that he rightly deserves blame for having produced the act, lies simply in the fact that he need not (and should not) have performed that act at all (cf. M 8, 172 and also 12, 280). So also the act of willing what is bad (al-'irâdatu lil-qabih*) is essentially bad (cf., e.g., M 6/1, 85, 11); it is bad by its essential correlation to its specific object and so cannot become good. 'Abd alGabbar*, following abû 'Abdallûh against al-Gubba'i* and abû Hâîim, classes "oppression" or "injustice" (zulm*, on which see Hourani, Rationalism, index s. wrongdoing) as intrinsically bad (cf., e.g., M 6/1, 83, 11 and also ibid. pp. 11 f., 71 f. et alibi).Zulm* is quite too complex a concept to deal with here. What is most important to note is that in the doctrine of 'Abd al-Gabbar* and abû, 'Abdallâh acts which are thus essentially bad cannot under any circumstances occur as neutral; i.e., because they are essentially bad, the manners of their being bad are present even when the agent is totally unaware of what he is doing. 48. 'Inna l-'abata* huwa l-fi'lu l-wâqi'u mina l-'âlimi bi-halihi* 'aw-fî hukmi* 1-'`âlimi bihî 'ida* lam yaqsud* bihî waghan* ma`a sihhati* dalika* fîhî ; wa-mâ hadihi* haluhu* qad hasala* lahû hukmun* zâ'idun 'alà wugudihi*, wa-dalika* lâ yata'attâ fî fi'li s-sâhî wan--nâ'imi fa-lâ yasihha* kawnuhû qabihan*: M 6/1, 11 (where read 'abatan* for gny'* in line 5; lil-'abat* for llgyb* in line 6; and al'abat* for 'lgyb* in line 8); n. b. also M 11, 101, 3 ff. and cf. also ibid., 64, 7 f. and 13, 126, 3 ff. 49. The nature of the act, in brief (all other things being equal), is indifferent to the moral qualification of the act in this instance; the basis of the act's being bad is simple, that is, and the qualification, consequently, grounded immediately in the state (hal*) of the agent. 'Abd alGabbar* offers a number of examples, several of which may be mentioned: e.g., (M 11, 191), that of altogether aimless or idle talk (alhadayan*). The same act (utterance) which is bad because of its being utterly pointless could be-

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come good though the action and intention of the same agent. In is important, in terms of the present context, however, to note that whereas the basis of the act's being bad because it is pointless is altogether simple, that of its being good, like that of its becoming bad on other grounds (see later) is not simple in its relation to the states of the agent. To take the example of an utterance that in grammatical form is a predicative statement, the agent's intention to convey some however useful or beneficial information concerning the subject of the proposition would make it an authentic predicative statement (habar *) (and so interpretable as true or false) and, given this qualification (hukm*) of the act as a thing-itself and the presence of some "manner" of its being good, e.g., its conveying some benefit on the one to whom it is addressed (on the wuguhu* l-husn*, see later) and the absence of any "manner" or circumstance that would entail its being bad (e.g., its being false) it will be good. Similarly in the case of a pointless command (e.g., "a command the fulfillment of which is beyond the capacity of the one commanded, even though [the one who commands] has the ability to empower him to carry it out, so that it would then cease to be bad'': M 8, 171, cited earlier) the example is essentially simple. The qualifier ('ida* 'amkanahû 'an yumakkinahû minhû) means only to indicate that the same agent could have performed the selfsame act in a manner (under circumstances) occurring in which it would be good. Though again the elements required for the act to be good or to be bad on other grounds are complex, its being bad because of its being pointless derives from a "manner" that has nothing to do with the nature of the act but is correlated simply to the state of the agent in his knowingly performing it as a pointless act. Hourani (Rationalism, § 24, pp. 75 f.) wants to find some further and ultimate ground for such an act's being bad, but it is dear from the texts that no other is to be sought. The "manners" that would allow its being qualified as good are plainly absent, but the manner that entails (iqtada*) its being bad is grounded in the absence of aim or purpose, as is explicitly stated in M 6/1, 11, cited in the previous note. Thus the Basrian Mu'tazila hold that God's creation of a universe in which there were no living (sc., perceiving) creature would be pointless and so morally bad; cf. M 11, 69 ff. 50. Cf. M 6/1, 83 f. (where read mâ lâ for lâ mâ at 83, ult.), 6/2, 78 f., 8, 171 f.: and Mas, 174rº. That to utter false statement is morally bad regardless of the circumstances, cf. M 11, 206, 10 ff,; 13, 351 and 353 f.; 14, 241, 4 ff.; thus abû Raîâ says (Mas, 173rº) that abû Hâim and the rest of the masters of the Basrian School hold that "one knows by an immediate intuition that to utter a false statement which in no way involves the attainment of benefit or the avoidance of harm is bad; that uttering a false statement through which one obtains some benefit or avoids some harm is bad is known. however, through reasoning; they have made the ways of reasoning [to this conclusion] clear." On the "manner of being ethically bad" in general, cf. M 6/1, 52-69 et alibi. 51. Cf., e.g., M 6/1, 70 ff. and 59, 1 ff. (where read al-ladi* yahrugu* bihî for yahrugu* hihâ in lines 3f.); 11, 84 f. (where read alqabih* for al-qubh* at 84, 10); and 13, 316 f. See also Hourani, Rationalism, 103 f. 52. M 6/1, 11, 1 f.: 'innahû 'innamâ yahsunu* li-waghin* ma`qûlin yahsulu* `alayhî, matà ntafat wuguhu* l-qubhi 'anhû: cf. also the formulation of abû Hâim and the citation of abû 'Abdaliâh al-Basri*, ibid., 71, 11 ff. 53. M 11, 84, q.v. Thus it is that the Qadi* says (M 13, 316, 13 f.) that the sense conveyed (al-fâ'ida) in one's saying that an act is good contains an implicit negation (tatadammanu* n-nafy), viz., of the manners of being ethically bad, while that of one's saying that it is bad contains only an affirmation, in that in the former case one must

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enquire concerning the validity of the implied negation. Its being good, however, is not strictly speaking a negative attribute, for though its condition is the absence of the wuguhu * l-qubh*, it is grounded in a positive wagh*. 54. Thus, for example, 'irma l-fâ`ila laysa lahû bi-kawnihî fâ'ilan halun*, wa-'innarnâ yulâdu bi-dalika* 'annahû 'ahdata* l-fi`'la wa'awgadahu*: M 8, 157, 4 f.; cf. also M 7, 82, 3 f. and the references later. 55. Cf. M 6/2, 47, 5 f.: 'inna l-fâ'ila laysa lahû bi-kawnihî fâ`'ilan halun* li'annahû law kâna lahû halun* bi-kawnihî fâ`ilan la-wagaba* kawnuhû ma'qûlan; cf. also Muh*, 310, 3 ff. (where note that the expression tugadu* in line 3 and mawguda* in line 5 refer not to the state as existenta notion that is excluded from the conceptbut to its being grasped in immediate experience: wigdan*). Connected with this is the argument over whether the act of reflective thinking (an-nazar*) is atributed to the one who is reflecting (an-nazir*) simply as an action or whether to be reflecting is a state (hal*). The former position is taken by abû Hâim in his Bagdadiyat* and by Ibn 'Ayyâ, while the latter is given by abû Hâim in his Naqd* al-ma'rifa and is adopted by 'Abd al-Gabbar* (cf. M 12, 6 and 7, 45, 5 f.). Thus it is argued in a number of places (e.g., M 6/2, 49 f. that though the act of willing is an act produced by the agent through his autonomous power of efficient causality, it does not effect the state of his being willing (kawnuhû rnurîdan) as an action but as an essential characteristic of its own being as an accident (ma'nà); cf. also Ch. 2, n. 38. It is also argued (e.g., M 6/2, 47 ff.) that an act does not entail a state on the part of the agent, since such a state, in that it would qualify the agent as a whole and totality, would thus exclude the possibility of the simultaneous realization of a contrary act. 56. SU5, 536 f.; cf. also ibid., 205, 13 ff.; 207, 16 ff. (cited n. 67) and generally in regard to speaking as an "attribute" of action, see M 7, 48 ff.; Muh*, 309 ff.; and Tad, 72vº ff. Concerning the argument of the passage here translated, we may note again that it is thus that in the case of all accidents which are not directly perceptible, one recognizes first the attribute or characteristic of which the accident is the cause and then knows the accident as its cause only through inference and reasoning. 57. M 7, 48, 3-6. For the sense of al-fi'lîya, see n. 13. 58. Muh*, 194, 24-27. 59. Thus, lâ hala* lil-fâ'lili bi-fi'lihî wa-'innamâ yudafu* 'ilayhî min haytu* kâna qâdiran 'alayhî: M 14, 293, 19; cf. also Tad, 161vº 19: 'al-fâ'ilu,' ma'nâhû man qad wugida* rnâ kâna qâdiran ' `alayhî. 60. Tad, 171vº 15 f. 61. M 7, 58, 3-7. For the background in al-Gubba'l*, cf., e.g., Maq, 528, 8 ff. and 551, 7 ff. 62. Cf., e.g., the passages cited in the preceding note and M 8, 238, 20-22: 'inna z-zalima* 'innamâ yusafu* bi'annahtû zalimun* min haytu* fa'ala z-zulma*, 'alà mâ qad-damnâhû, fa-yagibu* wasfuhu* (ta'ûlà) bi-dalika* law kâna fâ`ilan liz-zulmi* ; wa-kadalika* fî sâ'iri l-'awsafi* l-mutaqqati; cf also, e.g., M 1l, 125, 19f.; SU5, 370, 11-16 and 349 f.; and the references in the following notes. Note, however, that the expression sifatun* mutaqqa is not restricted simply to predicates "derived" from and referring to actions performed by the one of whom they are predicated; cf. n. 68. The expression sifatu* l-fi'l (sifatu* l-'af'âl)common in the A'arite textsis found only infrequently in the Mu'tazilite texts (e.g., M 6/2, 147, 7). 63. Cf. Tad, 74rº 1. 64. Cf., e.g., M 7, 48, 7 ff. and 157 f.; 8, 35, 10 ff. and 233, 9-21; SUS, 349 ff.; Muh*, 190 1 ff.; and Tad, 66rº ff. as well as the references in the following notes. For the general question, n.b. Tad, 73vº-78vº, where the opinions of a number of authorities in the

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school from al-Gubba'i