A Literary History of the ArabsNicholson, Reynold Alleyne
History
A Literary History of the Arabs
Nicholson, Reynold Alleyne
Arabic literature -- History and criticism
Ibn Qutayba, however, mentions the
names of twenty-seven persons who held the opinion that men's actions
are free.[421] Two among them, Ma‘bad al-Juhaní and Abú Marwán Ghaylán,
who were put to death by ‘Abdu ’l-Malik and his son Hishám, do not
appear to have been condemned as heretics, but rather as enemies of the
Umayyad Government.[422] The real founder of the Mu‘tazilites was Wáṣil
b. ‘Aṭá († 748 A.D.),[423] who added a second cardinal doctrine to that
of free-will. He denied the existence of the Divine attributes--Power,
Wisdom, Life, &c.--on the ground that such qualities, if conceived as
eternal, would destroy the Unity of God. Hence the Mu‘tazilites called
themselves 'the partisans of Unity and Justice' (_Ahlu’l-tawḥíd
wa-’l-‘adl_): of Unity for the reason which has been explained, and of
Justice, because they held that God was not the author of evil and that
He would not punish His creatures except for actions within their
control. The further development of these Rationalistic ideas belongs to
the ‘Abbásid period and will be discussed in a subsequent chapter.
[Sidenote: Growth of asceticism.]
[Sidenote: Ḥasan of Baṣra.]
The founder of Islam had too much human nature and common sense to
demand of his countrymen such mortifying austerities as were practised
by the Jewish Essenes and the Christian monks. His religion was not
without ascetic features, _e.g._, the Fast of Ramaḍán, the prohibition
of wine, and the ordinance of the pilgrimage, but these can scarcely be
called unreasonable. On the other hand Muḥammad condemned celibacy not
only by his personal example but also by precept. "There is no monkery
in Islam," he is reported to have said, and there was in fact nothing of
the kind for more than a century after his death. During this time,
however, asceticism made great strides. It was the inevitable outcome of
the Muḥammadan conception of Allah, in which the attributes of mercy and
love are overshadowed by those of majesty, awe, and vengeance. The
terrors of Judgment Day so powerfully described in the Koran were
realised with an intensity of conviction which it is difficult for us to
imagine. As Goldziher has observed, an exaggerated consciousness of sin
and the dread of Divine punishment gave the first impulse to Moslem
asceticism. Thus we read that Tamím al-Dárí, one of the Prophet's
Companions, who was formerly a Christian, passed the whole night until
daybreak, repeating a single verse of the Koran (xlv, 20)--"_Do those
who work evil think that We shall make them even as those who believe
and do good, so that their life and death shall be equal? Ill do they
judge!_"[424] Abu ’l-Dardá, another of the Companions, used to say: "If
ye knew what ye shall see after death, ye would not eat food nor drink
water from appetite, and I wish that I were a tree which is lopped and
then devoured."[425] There were many who shared these views, and their
determination to renounce the world and to live solely for God was
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