510 Martin Riexinger
hence not be pre-eternal.^63 This idea which was commonly considered
as Ashʿarī by Indian Muslims at that time, was originally brought forth
by Abū al-Hudhayl (d. 841).^64 Mostly used to prove the necessity of a
non-contingent God for the creation of contingent beings, it was used
by al-Ghazālī, Thanāʾ Allāh’s big role model, to refute the philosphers’
concept of the eternity of matter.^65 Ibn Taymiyya^66 and Ibn al-Qayyim^67
on the contrary completely rejected this argument, insisting that if it
was impossible for something pre-eternal to acquire temporal attri-
butes then God could not have a confined body and he could not adopt
a specific spatial relation (jiha) to anything created like the throne.
This strong literalist tendency among the Ahl-i Ḥadīth which can be
traced back to their reception of Ibn Taymiyya, highlights one aspect
that is usually passed over, whenever puritan Islamic movements and
Protestantism, Calvinism in particular, are equated: the totally differ-
ent approach to secular learning with its consequences for the inter-
pretation of the sacred scripture. Calvin did not consider the Bible a
handbook of astronomy. Therefore he argued in favour of allegori-
cal interpretation when particular verses were at odds with astro-
nomical findings. Hence, he might rather be regarded as a counter-
part of al-Ghazālī than of Ibn Taymiyya in this respect. According to
Hooykaas this approach of Calvin facilitated, the reformer’s objection
to Copernicus notwithstanding, the reception and acceptance of helio-
centrism and enabled the countries where his theology flourished to
take the lead in the development of science in the West.^68
63 Amritsārī, Thanāʾ Allāh: Uṣūl-i Āryā, Amritsar 1929, pp. 8–15; Amritsārī, Thanāʾ
Allāh: Ḥaqq-i Prakāsh ba-jawāb-i satyārth prakāsh, Amritsar 1928, pp. 41–42.
64 Ess, Josef van: Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra.
Eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam, Berlin and New York
1991, vol. 3, p. 231.
65 Al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid: Tahāfut al-falāsifa, ed. by Sulaymān Dunyā, Cairo
1980, pp. 143–144.
66 Shāh Walī Allāh Dihlawī: al-Inṣāf fī bayān asbāb al-ikhtilāf, Cairo 1950, vol. 1,
p. 68, vol. 4, pp. 268–269.
67 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Shams al-Dīn: Ijtimāʿ al-juyūsh al-islāmiyya ʿalā
ghazw al-muʿaṭṭila wal-jahmiyya, Mecca and Riyadh 1996, pp. 68–69. This
book which is for the most part a listing of sayings of the ṣaḥāba, tābiʿūn and
atbāʿ al-tābiʿīn, takes a surprising turn in the last chapter where Ibn al-Qayyim
shows that Ibn Rushd al-Ḥafīd (al-Kashf ʿan manāhij al-adilla, in: Ibn Rushd,
Abū l-Walīd Muḥammad: Falsafat Ibn Rushd, Beirut 1982, pp. 83–84) has dem-
onstrated the impossibility of the existence of something without confinement.
68 Calvinus, Iohannes: Mosis libri V cum Iohannis Calvini Commentariis, Geneva
1558, p. 6; Hooykaas, Reijer: Religion and the Rise of Modern Science, Edin-
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