EXEGETICAL CULTURES 1 | 155was called, literally the science of discourse/controversy, owed a lot to earlier
Christian apologetic against heretics, Jews and pagans—but also in turn in-
fluenced contemporary Christian controversialists such as Theodore Abū
Qurra or Patriarch Timothy (see below).^128
Theological debates might affect high politics. Take the question of how
God deploys his power in relation to humans. Does he eavesdrop on their
private conversations and determine their every wish, as the Qurʾān states?^129
Or does he allow a measure of free will, as is both clearly stated,^130 and im-
plied by the scripture’s numerous accounts of disbelief and sin (unless God
determines that as well, as sometimes asserted^131 )? If God determines all ac-
tions, neither rulers nor rebels can be blamed for their behavior.^132
Notable among the mutakallimūn for their promotion of a more reasoned
understanding of Muslim theolog y—indeed, for the view that scripture and
reason cannot contradict each other—were the so- called Muʿtazilites.^133
Proclaiming God’s absolute unity and justice, they espoused a theolog y as
negative as could be reconciled with scripture, questioning whether God’s
nature can adequately be conveyed through the positive qualities enumer-
ated in the ninety- nine beautiful names, which were already mentioned in
one of the Umayyad inscriptions in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem c.
- Although the first mutakallimūn, up to the reign of Maʾmūn, seem not
to have been adepts of Greek philosophy, an early encounter between an-
cient and Qurʾanic thought occurred when one of the first systematic
Muʿtazilites, Dirār ibn ʿAmr of Kūfa (c. 728–96), composed a Refutation of
Aristotle on substances and accidents.^134 This is lost, but Dirār had apparently
got hold of some concepts from the Categories, probably among the first of
Aristotle’s works made available in Arabic—in summary, not full transla-
tion—by Ibn al- Muqaffaʿ in the 750s.^135 The Categories listed ten types of
128 J. van Ess, “The beginnings of Islamic theolog y,” in J. E. Murdoch and E. D. Sylla (eds), The
cultural context of medieval learning (Dordrecht 1975) 87–111; I. Zilio- Grandi, “Temi e figure dell’ apo-
logia musulmana,” SFIM 137–42; also M. Abdel- Haleem, “Early kalām,” in S. H. Nasr and O. Leaman
(eds), History of Islamic philosophy (London 1996) 71–88, for criticism of current non- Muslim views.
Christian debts: J. Tannous, “Between Christolog y and kalām?,” in G. A. Kiraz (ed.), Malphono w- Rabo
d- Malphone (Piscataway, N.J. 2008) 671–716.
129 Qurʾān 58.1, 76.30.
130 Qurʾān 18.29.
131 Qurʾān 2.6–7, 4.155.
132 P. Crone, Medieval Islamic political thought (Edinburgh 2004) 35; van Ess, in Murdoch and
Sylla (eds), Medieval learning [5:128] 97.
133 On Muʿtazilism, see Wensinck, Muslim creed [3:24] 58–85; K. Blankinship, “The early creed,”
in T. Winter (ed.), The Cambridge companion to classical Islamic theolog y (Cambridge 2008) 47–51.
134 J. van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra (Berlin 1991–97) 3.37–
38, 42; 5.229 no. 8, 240–41.
135 Van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft [5:134] 2.27; C. D’Ancona, “Le traduzioni di opere greche
e la formazione del corpus filosofico arabo,” SFIM 202 (reading “al- Mansūr” for “al- Maʾmūn”); Gutas, in
Pasnau (ed.), Cambridge history of medieval philosophy [5:72] 18–19.