154 | CHAPTER 5
tween the Greek and the Qurʾanic mind is to blame, along with neglect of
the Syriac intermediary.^124 From the First Millennium perspective, what now
remains is to assess not so much the continuing and already well- known role
of Syriac scholars in creating a Syro- Arabic philosophical vocabulary and
translating Aristotle (and other Greeks) first into Syriac and then Arabic,^125
but rather the impact Aristotle made on the intellectual maturation of Islam
up to Ibn Sīnā, who died in 1037.
The beginnings of this story lie in puzzlement experienced by thoughtful
auditors or readers of the Qurʾān. For example, since the holy book expresses
both views, it was reasonable to wonder whether God really has a face, hands,
eyes and speech like a human being, and sits on a throne; or is he entirely
transcendent?^126 Do the epithets the Qurʾān uses of Allāh, the ninety- nine
“beautiful” names, correspond to distinct qualities such as are predicated of
human beings? Or is God immune to verbal description?^127
Admittedly the earliest Muslims’ most pressing needs were to understand
the exact meaning of the Qurʾanic text, to decide how their community
should be governed, to put together a body of laws. Hence grammarians, ex-
perts in the sayings or hadīth (the singular form is customarily used in Eng-
lish) of the Prophet, or jurists were more prominent than theoretical theolo-
gians. But there was also a need to answer the community’s and its scripture’s
non- Muslim critics. The early apologists of Islam were known as mutakallimūn.
Their aim was to corroborate the Qurʾanic doctrines of divine unity, proph-
ecy, and so forth by adducing arguments and proofs. They were not philoso-
phers. They always started from revelation not reason; and that is what they
returned to as well. But they were the first Muslims who deployed reasoned
argument against doubt in order to define their faith in the service of the
community, in a situation where Islam, far from putting an end to religious
disputation, had given it new impetus. ʿIlm al- kalām, as this scholarly method
124 D. Gutas, “Geometry and the rebirth of philosophy in Arabic with al- Kindī,” in R. Arnzen and
J. Thielmann (eds), Words, texts and concepts cruising the Mediterranean Sea (Leuven 2004) 195–97, 209,
and id., in Pasnau (ed.), Cambridge history of medieval philosophy [5:72] 14–15, holds philosophy was
“dead” from c. 610 (Stephanus) to c. 830 (Kindī). While largely true of the Greek world, in the Syriac
sphere this judgment depends on a prejudice in favor of philosophical “creativity”/“praxis” (in other
words, research) and against teaching, also against philosophy turned to religious goals. By the former
criterion, Greek philosophy died before 610. By the latter, its long- standing revealed element (e.g., the
Chaldaean oracles) is disqualified. The project, whether Syriac or Greek, of expressing Christian doctrine
in philosophical terms was both creative and challenging, while the skill of the Abbasids’ Syriac transla-
tors into Syriac and Arabic suggests a mature relationship with the Greek legacy.
125 S. K. Samir, “Rôle des chrétiens dans la nahda abbasside en Irak et en Syrie (750–1050),” Mé-
langes de l’Université Saint- Joseph 58 (2005) 541–72; King, Earliest Syriac translation [5:52] 14–17.
126 Anthropomorphic attributes: Qurʾān 55.27, 5.64, 23.27, 2.253, 20.5 (respectively). Transcen-
dence: 6.102–3, 42.11, 112.4.
127 G. Böwering, “God and his attributes,” EQ 2.319–22; C. Gilliot, “Attributes of God,” EIs^3
2007–2.176–82; J. van Ess, “Tashbīh wa- tanzīh,” EIs^2 10.341–44.