Trinitarianism’s Impact on Salafism’s Humanoid Deity

In this post, I will be quoting from Harry Austryn Wolfson’s monumental work titled Philosophy of Kalam, published by Harvard University Press in 1976, pp. 112-143. Muslim scholars have praised Wolfson’s book due to his depth of research on the subject of the rise of Islamic philosophical speculation and the negative reaction it received from the so-called proto-orthodox.

The work can be accessed here: Harry Austryn Wolfson The Philosophy Of The Kalam.

The author conclusively demonstrates how Trinitarian theology influenced the doctrinal development of Sunni Islam, particularly those who uphold a very anthropomorphic notion of the Muslim deity. All emphasis will be mine.

CHAPTER II

ATTRIBUTES

I. THE MUSLIM ATTRIBUTES AND THE CHRISTIAN TRINITY *

As early as the first part of the eighth century, as one may judge from the reports of teachings to which Wasil (d. 748) was opposed,¹ there arose in Islam the belief that certain terms which are attributed to God in the Koran stand for real incorporeal beings which exist in God from eternity. There is nothing in the Koran to warrant such a belief. Nor is there any warrant that at that early stage in the history of Islam the belief originated spontaneously by that kind of reasoning by which later Muslim theologians tried to defend it against opposition. The appearance of that belief at that time can be explained only on the ground of some external influence. Such an external influence could be either Greek philosophy or Judaism or Christianity. Greek philosophy is to be eliminated, for we have the testimony of Shahrastani that it was not until later, among the followers of Wasil, that the problem of attributes came under the influence of Greek philosophy.² And so also must Judaism be eliminated, for the kind of Judaism with which Islam was in direct contact at that time contained nothing in its teachings which could have inspired that new belief. By a process of elimination it is to be assumed that Christianity was that external influence.

A suggestion as to the Christian origin of the belief in the reality of divine attributes is to be found in the discussion of that problem in the literature of the time when the problem was still a vital issue. The belief in the reality of divine attributes was characterized by those who were opposed to it as being analogous to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Abul- Faraj, also known as Bar Hebraeus, speaking of the Muttazilites, who denied the reality of divine attributes, says that thereby they steered clear of “the persons (akanim) of the Christians,”³ the implication being that the belief in the reality of divine attributes indirectly steers one into the belief of the Christian Trinity. ‘Adad al-Din al-Iji similarly reports that the Mu'tazilites accused those who believed in the reality of divine attributes of having fallen into the error of the Christian belief in the Trinity.⁴ And prior to both of them, among the Jews, David al-Mukammas,⁵ Saadia,⁶ Joseph al-Basir,⁷ and Maimonides,⁸ evidently reflecting still earlier Muslim sources, whenever they happen to mention the Muslim doctrine of the reality of divine attributes, compare it to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. It is thus in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity that we must look for the origin of the Muslim doctrine of divine attributes.

But the words of opponents cannot always be taken at their face value, for opponents, especially in matters of religion, are in the habit of accusing one another of things which are not necessarily so. If we are to assume, on the basis of what its opponents said about it, that the Muslim doctrine of attributes had its origin in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, we shall have to find some external evidence in support of that assumption. We shall especially have to find some logical reason, or at least some psychological motive, to explain how the Muslims, who had started with an outspoken negation of the Christian Trinity on the ground of its incompatibility with the unity of God, happened to substitute for it a doctrine which involved the very same difficulty contained in the doctrine of the ‘Trinity. To say that they did it only as an imitation of the Christian doctrine would not be sufficient. Imitation could be used as an explanation in a case when some peculiarly Christian belief, the like of which existed also in Islam or which at least was not directly rejected by Islam, happened to find its way into Islam. It cannot be used as an explanation in the present case, when nothing resembling the doctrine of the Trinity existed in Islam and, moreover, when that doctrine itself was openly rejected. Then also, ideas always ride on the back of terms, and so, whenever there is a transmission of an idea from one language to another, we should expect the transmission also of some fundamental terms either by translation or by transliteration or, as sometimes happens, by mistranslation. Can we, therefore, find any term used in the Muslim doctrine of attributes which is traceable to some term in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity?

Starting therefore with the assumption that the Muslim doctrine of attributes might have originated in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, we shall try to find first some external evidence for that assumption and then some logical explanation for the transition from the Christian doctrine of the Trinity to the Muslim doctrine of attributes.

We shall take up first the evidence of terminology.

From the very beginning of the history of the problem of divine attributes in Islam two Arabic terms are used for what we call attribute, namely, (1) ma‘na and (2) sifah. Thus in the report of the earliest occurrence of the problem, it is said that Wasil maintained, in opposition to those who believed in the reality of attributes, that “he who posits a ma‘na and sifah as eternal posits two gods.”⁹ Now if there is any truth in the a priori assumption that the doctrine of attributes originated in the doctrine of the Trinity, we should have a right to expect that these two fundamental terms used in the doctrine of attributes would reflect similar fundamental terms in the doctrine of the Trinity, terms which were perhaps used haphazardly by Arabic-speaking Christians in their discussions with Muslims and perhaps not the best chosen terms, but still terms which can be traced to corresponding Greek terms of good usage in the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity.

The Arabic term ma‘na, among its various meanings,’¹⁰ has also the general meaning of “thing,” and it is used as the equivalent of the term shay. Thus both ma‘na and shay are used as translations of the Greek term pragma, “thing,” in Aristotle’s works — ma‘na by Ishak ibn Hunayn¹¹ and shay by other translators, among them perhaps also the same Ishak ibn Hunayn.¹² Now it happens that in Christianity, the term “things” (pragmata, res) is used, in addition to the terms “hypostases” (hypostasis) and “persons” (prosopa, personae), as a description of the three persons of the Trinity, in order to emphasize their reality. Thus of the two Church Fathers who for the first time tried to formulate the doctrine of the Trinity in philosophic language, Origen, writing in Greek, describes the Father and Son as “two things (pragmata) by hypostases,”¹³ and Tertullian, writing in Latin, argues that the Word is not “a voice and sound of the mouth” but rather a “thing (res) and a person,”¹⁴ whence he describes each of the three persons as a “substantive thing” (res substantiva).¹⁵ Though the term pragma did not succeed in establishing itself as a technical term for the members of the Trinity, its use did not altogether disappear. It occurs in the Formula Prolixa of the Council of Antioch in 343 as the equivalent of the term prosopon,¹⁶ and it is similarly used by Athanasius as the equivalent of prosopon.¹⁷ Basil uses it in place of hypostasis,¹⁸ and Cyril of Alexandria uses it as the equivalent of hypostasis.¹⁹ But what is especially important for our purpose here is that Theodore Abucara, in a work originally written in Arabic but extant only in Greek, describes each of the three persons of the ‘Trinity as pragma,”²⁰ which quite evidently reflects either shay or ma‘na as the underlying Arabic term. We have, therefore, reason to believe that during the early part of the ninth century, at about the time of the rise of Mu‘tazilism, Christians under Muslim rule used the term pragmata instead of, or by the side of, the terms hypostaseis and prosopa as a description of the members of the Trinity and that the term pragmata was translated by them into Arabic by ashya or ma‘ani. Accordingly it is also reasonable to assume that when under the influence of the Christian Trinity orthodox Muslims advanced the doctrine of the reality of attributes and described each attribute by the term ma‘na, the term was used by them as the equivalent of shay in the sense of “thing.”

Corroborative evidence that ma‘na in the Muslim doctrine of attributes is used in the sense of shay and that its use in that sense goes back to the use of pragma in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity may be found in the following two sets of statements. First, with regard to attributes, Ash‘ari in his Majalis, as quoted by Ibn Hazm, refers to attributes as ashya,²¹ whereas in his Luwza‘ he refers to an attribute as mana.”²² Second, with regard to the Trinity, Yahya Ibn ‘Adi first describes its three members by the commonly used technical Arabic term akanim, “hypostases,”²³ but then refers to them as “ashya”²⁴ and “ma‘ani,²⁵ that is, “things.” So also Saadia²⁶ and Ibn Hazm²⁷ refer to the Son and the Holy Spirit of the Trinity as “two things” (shay’ani), and Ibn Hazm refers to all the three members of the Trinity as “three things” (ashya).²⁸ In fact, it would seem that ma‘na and shay and sifah all became interchangeable terms used as a description of anything existing in a subject. It is thus reported by Ash‘ari that ‘Abdallah Ibn Kullab used to call the ma'an that exist in bodies accidents and he used to call them things (ashya) and he used to call them attributes (sifat).”²⁹

It can similarly be shown that the term sifah, which together with the term ma‘na is used by Wasil as a description of any of those real attributes which are rejected by him, goes back also to the Christian terminology of the Trinity. The term sifah comes from the verb wasaf, “to describe, which as a verb occurs in the Koran thirteen times and of which the substantive form wasf, “description,” occurs once; the form sifah never occurs in the Koran, While in most cases in the Koran, the verb wasaf is used with reference to what people say about God, in all these cases its usage is always with reference to something unlaudable which impious people say about God;³⁰ it never occurs with reference to something laudable said about God. The laudable terms by which God is described in the Koran are never referred to in the Koran by any form of the verb wasaf; they are referred to as “the most beautiful names” (al-asma’ al-husna, 7:179; 17: 110; 20:7), and Muslim tradition, quoting Muhammad, speaks of ninety-nine such “most beautiful names.” The term sifah, which, through the Latin translation of Maimonides’ Moreh Nebukim in the thirteenth century, came to be translated by the term “attribute,”³¹ was thus a technical term coined to take the place of the Koranic term ism, “name.” When that term was coined and by whom is not known. The earliest mention of the term sifah, as well as of the term ma‘na as its equivalent, occurs in the report of the teaching of the founder of Muttazilism Wasil b. ‘Ata’ (d. 748), quoted above. Evidently the term sifah was immediately adopted by all Attributists. Thus Hisham b. al-Hakam (d. 814), an Attributist of the Rafidite subsect of Shi'ites, is quoted by Ash‘ari in the name of Abi al-Kasim al-Balhi as saying that “the knowledge of God is His attribute (sifah).”³² The first Sunnite Attributist to use the term sifah, as far as I could find out, is Ibn Kullab (d. 854), who is reported by Ash‘ari as using the expressions “the names (asma’) of God are His attributes (sifat)”³³ and “the names and attributes of God,”³⁴ which sound as an expression of approval of the use of the term sifah for the term ism, According to Ibn Hazm, “the term sifah was devised by the Mu'tazilites and by Hisham [b. al-Hakam] and other leaders of the Rafidites like him, and in their way they followed some people from among the masters of the Kalam, thus deviating from the right way of the early Muslims, for in them there is nothing to serve as a pattern and model for this newly devised term.”³⁵ Still, despite this statement of Ibn Hazm, the manner in which Wasil b. ‘Ata’ introduces the term sifah gives the impression that the term had been used before, in which case it must have been coined by the Attributists. But, be that as it may, we shall try to show that, like the term ma‘na, the term sifah is also derived from the vocabulary of the Christian Trinity.   

In Christianity with the assumption that the three “things” or “persons” or “hypostases,” though immaterial, are still distinct from each other and each of them an individual being, the question came up as to what was the “principle of differentiation” (logos diaphoras)³⁶ between them to take the place of matter which ordinarily serves as a principle of differentiation between material individual beings. Such a principle of differentiation was found by the Church Fathers in certain properties which characterize each of the persons and distinguish them from each other — distinguishing properties which do not imply matter and which, while distinguishing one person from another, are identical with the respective essences of the persons of which they serve as descriptions. Various Greek terms and phrases are used by the Fathers in designating these distinguishing properties. But in John of Damascus, who may always be taken as the connecting link between the Church Fathers and early Islam,³⁷ the following two expressions occur as a description of these distinguishing properties: (1) “hypostatic properties” (hypostatikai idiotetes); (2) “that which is characteristic of the proper hypostasis” (to charakteristikon tes idias hypostaseos).³⁸

Thus each of the three persons has a “property” or a “characteristic” which makes it a “thing” distinguished from the two other persons. Now it can be shown that the Greek verb charakterizo and noun charakter or to charakteristikon were used as translations respectively of the Arabic verb wasaf and noun sifah or wasf. Thus Theodore Abucara in those works which were written in Arabic and exist only in Greek speaks of Paul as being described (charackterizetai) by “properties” (idiotetes)³⁹ and of gold, which was minted into coins, as being “qua gold” a “thing” which has not “the description (charakter) of coin.”⁴⁰ In both these places, the Greek verb quite evidently represents the Arabic wasaf, and the Greek noun quite evidently represents the Arabic sifah or wasf. We may therefore assume that the term sifah, which is made use of by Wasil as a description of the realistic conception of attributes rejected by him, represents the Greek to charakteristikon. Corroborative evidence for this is to be found in Yahya Ibn ‘Adi (893-974) who, in his representation of the Christian Trinity, says that according to the opinions of the Christians the three persons (akanim) are hawass and sifat.⁴¹ Of these two terms, the first, hawass, is the established Arabic translation of the Greek idiotetes, “properties,” one of the terms used by John of Damascus for the “principle of differentiation.” The term sifat here undoubtedly represents the plural of the Greek to charakteristikon which is the other term used by John of Damascus for the principle of differentiation.

But more than that. When we try to find what these properties and characteristics of the three persons of the Trinity were, we shall find that they correspond exactly to the attributes which at first in Islam were held to be real things existing in God. Ordinarily among the Greek Fathers the properties or characteristics are the ungeneratedness of the Father, the generatedness of the Son from the Father, and the proceedingness of the Holy Spirit either again from the Father or from the Father through the Son or from both the Father and the Son. In the doctrine of the Christian Trinity which became known to the Muslims, these characteristics are indeed reproduced. But in addition to these a set of three other characteristics appears in the literature from the earliest time. This set of three characteristics is said to be “existence” or “essence” or “generosity” for the Father, “life” or “wisdom” (or its equivalent “knowledge” or “reason”) for the Son, and “wisdom” (or its equivalent “knowledge”) or “life” or “power” for the Holy Spirit. Thus Yahya Ibn ‘Adi says that the property or characteristic of the Father is “generosity” (jad), that of the Son is “wisdom” (hikmah), and that of the Holy Spirit is “power” kudrah).⁴² Saadia describes them as (1) essence (dhat), (2) life (hayah), and (3) knowledge (‘alm),⁴³ al-Mukammas describes the Son or Logos as wisdom (hokmah) and the Spirit as life (hayyim),⁴⁴ and Kirkisani describes the three persons of the Trinity respectively as substance (jahuar) and living (hayy) and knowing (‘alim).⁴⁵ Eliyyah of Nisibis describes the Father as essence (dhat) or self-existent (kaim bi-nafsihi) and the Son as life (hayah) and the Holy Spirit as wisdom (hikmah).⁴⁶ Shahrastani in one place describes the three persons as (1) “existence” (wujud), (2) life (hayah) and (4) knowledge (‘ilm),⁴⁷ and in another place describes them as (1) existence, (2) knowledge, and (3) life.⁴⁸ Ibn Hazm speaks of some Christians who call the Holy Spirit life and the Son knowledge.⁴⁹ Juwayni reports that by existence the Christians understand the Father, by knowledge the Word, called by them also Son, and by life the Holy Spirit.⁵⁰ Paul Rahib of Antioch describes the Father as essence and the Son as reason (nutk = Logos) and the Holy Spirit as life.⁵¹

The origin of these sets of characteristics has so far not been established, for while the term “life” is applied in the New Testament to the Son⁵² and “power” is applied in the New Testament to both the Son⁵³ and the Holy Spirit⁵⁴ and the term “wisdom” is applied in the New Testament to the Son⁵⁵ and by some Church Fathers also to the Holy Spirit,⁵⁶ no Greek Father has so far been discovered who characterized the three persons by those properties by which they are characterized in the passages quoted from Arabic sources. About eighty years ago, David Kaufmann, commenting upon the passage quoted above from Saadia, made the assertion that Saadia’s identification of the three persons with “essence,” “life,” and “knowedge” has no parallel in the history of Christian doctrine, and this assertion was corroborated by Professor Hermann Reuter of Breslau, though Professor Franz Delitzsch of Leipzig suggested two irrelevant passages, one from Augustine and the other from Gregory of Nyssa.⁵⁷ I myself, in the course of my reading, have come across only one Christian Church Father, and him writing in Latin, who uses terms like those quoted above from Arabic authors in connection with the three persons of the Trinity. That Latin Father is Marius Victorinus who in one place explains the unity of the three persons in God after the analogy of the soul in which existence (esse), life (vita), and intelligence (intelligentia), though distinct, are still united by their relation to each other,⁵⁸ and in another place says that the three persons are three powers, namely, existence (esse), life (vivere), and intelligence (intelligere).⁵⁹ [t is probably under the influence of this statement of Marius Victorinus that John Scotus Erigena says that “those who inquired into the truth have handed down that by essence (essentiam) is to be understood the Father, by wisdom (sapientiam) the Son, and by life (vitam) the Holy Spirit.”⁶⁰ While Marius Victorinus cannot be considered as the source of the descriptions of the Trinity known to the Muslims — for the Muslim contact with Christianity was with its Greek and not with its Latin branch — still from Victorinus as well as Erigena we may get some clue as to how that description of the Trinity may have reached the Muslims. Marius Victorinus as well as John Scotus Erigena were under the influence of Neoplatonism. Moreover Erigena’s words “those who inquired into the truth have handed down” (inquisitores veritatis tradiderunt) would seem to indicate that this description of the Trinity was not something that could be found in the standard works of the Fathers but rather something that only “those who inquired into the truth,” namely, those who like himself searched for the truth in the writings of the Neoplatonists, “have handed down” as a sort of esoteric knowledge, which he was divulging. Now Neoplatonism is characterized by triads which were not unlike the Trinity of Christianity. Let us then study these Neoplatonic triads⁶¹ to see whether they might not furnish us with some information.

The Neoplatonists whom we shall bring into play in this connection are Jamblichus, Theodore of Asine, and Proclus.

Jamblichus, as quoted by Damascius, describes his triad as (1) Father or subsistence (hyparxeis), (2) power (dynamis), and (3) intellect (nous) or intelligence (noesis).⁶² Theodore of Asine, as quoted by Proclus, describes his triad as (1) existence (to einai), (2) intelligence (to noesin), and (3) life (to zen)⁶³. Proclus himself has several descriptions of the triad. In three passages, which we shall combine and treat together, his triad is described as follows: (1) essence (ousia)⁶⁴ or the existent (to on)⁶⁶ or subsistence (hyparxeis)⁶⁷ or existence (to on);⁶⁸ (2) life (zoe) or power (dynamis);⁶⁹ (3) intellect (nous)⁷⁰ or intelligence (to noein).⁷¹ In another passage, he describes his triad as goodness (agathotes), power (dynamis), and knowledge (gnosis).⁷² This last triad, it will be noticed, corresponds to Yahya Ibn ‘Adi’s Trinity of “generosity” (= goodness), “wisdom” (= knowledge), and “power,” quoted above.

It is in these Neoplatonic triads that we may find the origin of the sifat of the Christian Trinity as it became known to the Muslims as well as the origin of the descriptions of the Trinity which we have quoted from Victorinus and Erigena. The Arabic goodness (j#d) and essence (dhat) and self-existent (kitim bi-nafsihi) and existence (wujud) used as a description of the first person of the Trinity reflect the Greek agathotes, ousia, to on and to einai or hyparxis used as a description of the first member of the Neoplatonic triad. The Arabic life (hayat) and wisdom (hikmah) or reason (nutk) or knowledge (‘ilm) used as a description of either the second or the third person of the Trinity reflect the Greek to zoe and nous or noesis, or gnosis used as a description of either the second or the third member of the Neoplatonic triad. Again, the Arabic power (kudrah) used as a description of the third person of the Trinity reflects the Greek dynamis used as a description of the second member of the Neoplatonic triad.

But whether we are right or not in our explanation of the origin of the sifat of the three persons of the Christian Trinity which occurs in Arabic literature, it is quite evident that in these Arabic restatements of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity the term “self-existent” or “existence” or “essence” or “goodness” was used as a description of the Father, and the term “life” or “wisdom” or “knowledge” was used as a description either of the Son or of the Holy Spirit, and the term “power” was used as a description of the Holy Spirit.

Now when we study the reports of the teachings of the earliest individual opponents of real attributes, we shall find that they contain, in various twofold or threefold combinations, only the terms “life,” “wisdom” or “knowledge,” and “power,” those very same terms which we have met with as descriptions of the second and third persons of the Trinity.

In his report of Wasil, Shahrastani at first simply states that he denied the existence of real attributes, without mentioning what these attributes were, but then he goes on to say that the followers of Wasil, under the influence of philosophy, not only denied the existence of real attributes but also undertook to explain how the terms “knowledge” and “power,” which are predicated of God in the Koran, should be understood.⁷³ The inference to be drawn from this statement is that “knowledge” and “power” were the only terms which formed the subject of controversy between Wasil and the Attributists. Indeed, prior to his restatement of the individual view of Wasil and of the particular view of his immediate followers, Shahrastani says of the Wasilites in general that they were for “the denial of the attributes of God, such as knowledge, power, will, and life.”⁷⁴ But when he immediately adds that “this view was at first not fully developed,”⁷⁵ he indicates that the four terms he mentioned belonged to a later period when, we know, a list of four terms existed. Dirar, as reported by al-Ash‘ari, stated his antirealistic explanation of attributes only with regard to the terms “knowledge,” “power,” and “life,”⁷⁶ or only with regard to the terms “knowledge” and “power.”⁷⁷ It is quite evident that in the passage in which three attributes are mentioned, “power” and “life” are used as alternative terms. Similarly Abu-al-Hudhayl is reported to have stated his antirealistic conception of attributes either only with regard to the terms “knowledge,” “power,” and “life,”⁷⁸ or only with regard to the terms “knowledge” and “power.”⁷⁹ Al-Mukammas in the statement of his antirealistic conception of attributes, reflecting the Mu‘tazilite influence, concentrates on the terms “living” and “wise,” even though in the course of his discussion he introduces from the lists current in his own time such terms as “seeing” and “hearing.”⁸⁰ Similarly Saadia in the statement of his antirealistic conception of attributes, again reflecting the influence of the Mu'tazilites, mentions only the terms “living,” “powerful,” and “knowing.”⁸¹ Here, too, “living” and “powerful” are to be taken as alternative terms. It is to be noted that Jahm b. Safwan, who has arrived at his denial of attributes independently, on the ground of the Koranic prohibition of likening God to other beings, does not confine himself to the terms “life,” “knowledge,” and “power.”⁸² Still Shahrastani, after quoting him as saying that “it is not permissible that the Creator should be described by terms by which His creatures are described, for this would constitute an act of likening [God to other beings],” concludes in his own words: “He therefore denies that He is living and knowing.”⁸³ These concluding words of Shahrastani would seem to be an echo of the early discussion of attributes among the Mu'tazilites, when the controversy turned only on the terms “life” and “knowledge.”

That the original controversy about attributes turned only on the terms “knowledge,” “power,” and “life” may be also gathered from Shahrastani’s general statement about the Muttazilites. Wishing to explain how the Muttazilites, who “deny eternal attributes altogether,” interpret the terms predicated of God in the Koran, he mentions only the terms “knowledge,” “power,” and “life.”⁸⁴ The fact that at the time of Shahrastani lists of more than three terms, a list of four terms and a list of seven terms, formed the subject of controversy between the Muttazilites and Attributists, and still in his restatement of the Muttazilite view he mentions only these three terms, shows that originally only these three terms formed the subject of controversy on the problem of attributes and that only these three terms were claimed by = the Attributists to represent eternal real beings in God. Indeed, in another place Shahrastani says that the Muttazilites deny the attributes of knowledge, power, will, life, hearing, and seeing,⁸⁵ but these six attributes are quite evidently taken from the list of seven attributes current in his own time and do not represent the original list of attributes which formed the subject of discussion in the early stage of the problem. Similarly, when Ghazali says that the Mu'tazilites, in agreement with the philosophers, denied the attributes of knowledge (‘ilm), power (kudrah), and will (iradah),⁸⁶ we may assume that only the mention of “three” represents the original view of the Mu'tazilites, whereas the term “will” is taken from the later list of four or seven, current at the time of Ghazali, and substituted for “life” of the original list.

Comparing the list of terms in the earliest statements of the problem of attributes and the list of terms in the statements of the doctrine of the Trinity as known to Muslims, we find that both of them contain the terms “life,” “power,” and “knowledge,” or also “wisdom” and “reason” as the equivalents of “knowledge.” Quite evidently there is some kind of relation between the Muslim belief in attributes and the Christian belief in the Trinity. Moreover, when we scrutinize the list of these terms in the Christian Trinity, we find that it is the Son and the Holy Spirit that are described respectively either as “life” and “knowledge” or as “knowledge” and “‘life” or as “knowledge” and “power.” Quite evidently it is these two persons of the Trinity, the Son and the Holy Spirit, that were transformed into Muslim attributes, for, as we have seen, in the earliest discussion of the problem of attributes the attributes mentioned are either “life” and “knowledge” or “knowledge” and “life” or “life,” “knowledge,” and “power.” The question now is, how was the transformation effected? What was the reason that has led the Muslims to adopt a Christian doctrine, which is explicitly rejected in the Koran, and transform it into a Muslim doctrine?

Let us then reconstruct the logical situation which could have led to the substitution in Muslim theology of divine attributes for the Christian Trinity.

From the passages quoted, as well as from other passages, we may gather some of the main features of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity as it was presented to the Muslims. These main features were four. First, there was the orthodox Christian belief in the equality of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, each of them being God.⁸⁷ Second, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are each a hypostasis or person (aknim) or a thing (ma‘na); that which is common to all three is called their common essence or substance.⁸⁸ Third, the “principle of differentiation” between these three persons or things is that the Father is “goodness” or “essence” or “self-existence” or “existence”; the Son is “life” or “wisdom” or “knowledge” or “reason”; the Holy Spirit is “life” or “‘wisdom” or “knowledge” or “power.”⁸⁹ Fourth, these three sets of terms by which the three persons or things are described are called “properties” (hawass) or characteristics (sifat).⁹⁰

Now from the Disputatio Christiani et Saraceni by John of Damascus (d. ca. 754) we learn that in Syria, after its conquest by the Muslims in 635, there were debates between Christians and Muslims on the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Let us then sketch some such typical debate between a Christian and a Muslim. In such a debate the Christian presumably begins by explaining that of the three hypostases in the Trinitarian formula, namely, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, by Father is meant what is generally referred to by both Christians and Muslims as God and by Son and Holy Spirit are meant the properties life and knowledge or life and power or knowledge and power. Turning then to the Muslim, the Christian asks him if he has any objection to the Christian application of these properties to God. Immediately the Muslim answers that he has no objection, adding that the Koran explicitly describes God as “the living” (al-hayy), as “the knowing” (al-'alim),⁹¹ and as “the powerful” (al-kadir).⁹²

The Christian then goes on to report how among the Christians there is a difference of opinion with regard to the nature of the second and third hypostases, by which, as he has already explained, are meant various combinations of the properties life, knowledge, and power. Some Christians, branded as heretics,⁹³ maintain that these two hypostases are mere names of God. Most Christians, however, and they are the people of right belief, regard these two hypostases as real things which, while distinct from the essence of God, are inseparable from it. Turning again to the Muslim, the Christian asks him whether he has any objection to the view that life, knowledge, and power, as properties of God, are real things inseparable from the essence of God. After some deliberation the Muslim answers that there is nothing in the Koran which could be taken to mean opposition to such a view and consequently he is willing to agree with the people of right belief among the Christians that life, knowledge, and power as properties of God are real things.⁹⁵

The Christian continues by reporting that among those Christians who regard the second and third hypostases as real things there are some, again branded as heretics,⁹⁶ who maintain that these two hypostases are created, whereas all the others, and they are again the people of right belief, maintain that the second and third hypostases are coeternal with the first hypostasis. Turning once more to the Muslim, the Christian asks him what his view is with regard to the origin of life, knowledge, and power as properties of God. Immediately the Muslim answers that, inasmuch as Muslims believe that God is eternally living and eternally knowing and eternally powerful,⁹⁷ these three properties, already admitted by him to be real things, are also admitted by him to be coeternal with God.

The Christian is then about to conclude his argument. First, he says, inasmuch as Christians believe that anything eternal is to be called God, the second and third hypostases are each to be called God,⁹⁸ thus the three hypostases are to be called three Gods. Second, he says, he is going to prove by arguments that these three Gods are really one God. But at this point the Muslim interrupts him by saying: Spare your arguments, for whatever they may be, the Prophet has warned us against them by his statement that “they surely are infidels who say, God is the third of three, for there is no God but one God.⁹⁹

Thus gradually in the course of such debates Muslims came to admit that life, knowledge, and power as properties of God are real things but to deny that they are to be called Gods, which admission and denial constitute the Muslim belief in real attributes as distinguished from the Christian belief in the Trinity.

This is how the doctrine of real attributes was introduced into Islam.

Originally, as we have seen, only three terms, variously arranged in lists of two terms, were declared to be real attributes, and this because these three terms in various combinations were, to the knowledge of the Muslims, used by Christians, in their formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity, as designations of the second and the third persons, namely, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Two other terms, speech (or word) and will, were soon added, as we shall see,¹⁰⁰ to the original list of real attributes, and this, again, because these terms were used by Christians as designations of one of the persons of the Trinity, the Son, and were thus brought into play in the debates between Muslims and Christians. Gradually other new terms were added and various lists of attributes were drawn up, all of them based, as says Maimonides, upon “the text of some book,”¹⁰¹ that is to say, some text of the Koran or of the Sunnah as recorded in a Sahih. From Baghdadi we may further gather that while the orthodox Attributists confined their lists of attributes to those terms by which God is described in the Koran and the Sunnah — and any term so used in them could be included in a list of attributes —- the Basra Muttazilites allowed description of God by terms not found in the Koran and the Sunnah, and one of them, al-Fuwati, on the other hand, forbade description of God even by some terms found in these two sources.¹⁰²

Thus the orthodox Muslim belief in the reality of attributes is traceable to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Should we then say that, just as the orthodox Muslim belief in attributes is traceable to the orthodox Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the Muttazilite denial of the reality of attributes is similarly traceable to heretical Christian views which denied the reality of the second and third persons of the Trinity? This is a question which we shall discuss in the next section.  

II. DENIAL OF THE REALITY OF ATTRIBUTES

The orthodox Muslim view of the reality and eternity of attributes, as we have seen, had its origin in the conciliar Christian doctrine of the reality of the second and third persons of the Trinity, the Word and the Spirit, and hence it must have arisen during the early encounter of Islam with Christianity. The denial of attributes arose during the first half of the eighth century and it is generally ascribed to Wasil b. ‘Ata’ of Basra, the founder of Mu‘tazilism.¹ The fact, however, that the denial of the eternity of the Koran (which, as we shall see, arose in consequence of the denial of attributes)² is ascribed to two non-Mu'tazilite and non-Basraite contemporaries of Wasil (to one of whom is also ascribed the denial of attributes)³ would seem to show that the founder of Mu‘tazilism was not the first to deny attributes. Still, the formal argument for the denial of attributes comes to us from the Muttazilites.

The Mu'tazilite argument against the existence of eternal real attributes in God falls into two parts. First, it assumes that anything eternal must be a God. Second, it assumes that the unity of God excludes any internal plurality in God, even if these plural parts are inseparably united from eternity. As briefly stated by Wasil, the argument reads as follows: “He who posits a thing and attribute as eternal posits two gods.”⁴ More fully is the argument restated as follows: “God is eternal (kadim) and eternity is the most peculiar description of His essence and consequently the Mu'tazilites deny eternal attributes altogether . . . for if the attributes shared with God in eternity, which is the most peculiar of His descriptions, they would also have a share in divinity (al-ilahiyyah).”⁵ And so, in order to safeguard that unity, the Mu‘tazilites denied the reality of attributes, regarding them either as mere names or as modes. It is because of this rigid conception of the unity of God that they are called “the partisans of unity” (ashab al-taubid).⁶

Both parts of the argument have their historical background in Philo through the intermediacy of the Church Fathers.

The background of the first part of the argument is the principle laid down by Philo that God “alone is eternal,”⁷ with the implication that if anything is described as eternal it must be God. It is this principle that John of Damascus, in his fictitious disputation between a Christian and a Muslim, after proving that the Word must be uncreated, uses to prove that it is God, for, he says, “everything that is not created, but uncreated, is God.”⁸ It is also this Philonic principle that is used by the Church Fathers, in various ways, as an argument against the eternity of matter. Typical examples of the use of this argument by the Greek Church Fathers are to be found in Justin Martyr’s statement that “God alone is unbegotten and uncorruptible and therefore He is God, but all other things after Him are created and corruptible,”⁹ in Theophilus’ statement with regard to those who believe in an eternal matter that, “nor, so far as their opinions hold, is the monarchy of God established,”¹⁰ and in Basil’s statement that “if matter were uncreated, then it would be equal to God and would deserve the same veneration.”¹¹ Among the Latin Fathers it is found in Tertullian’s argument against the eternity of matter, which reads that “since this [that is, eternity] is a property of God, it will belong to God alone.”¹²

The background of the second part of the Mu'tazilite argument is, again, a principle laid down by Philo to the effect that the unity of God is an absolute kind of unity, which excludes any kind of composition, even a composition of parts which are inseparably united from eternity.¹³ Here, again, this principle must have reached the Mu'tazilites through the intermediacy of Christianity, but in this case it was through the intermediacy of those heretics in Christianity who were opposed to the orthodox belief in the reality of the second and third persons of the Trinity — the latter belief, as we have seen, was the origin of the orthodox Muslim belief in the reality of attributes.

The argument of those Christian heretics¹⁴ who were. opposed to what ultimately became the orthodox Christian belief, as reproduced by Origen, reads as follows: “Now there is that which disturbs many who sincerely profess to be lovers of God. They are afraid that they may be proclaiming two gods.”¹⁵ This fear, continues Origen, has driven those professedly sincere lovers of God “into doctrines which are false and wicked: either (a) they deny that the hypostasis of the Son is different from that of the Father, and make him whom they call the Son God in all but the name; or (b) they deny the divinity of the Son, giving his hypostasis and essence a sphere of existence which falls outside of the Father.¹⁶ In other words, either (a) they denied any reality to the Son, identifying him completely with God and reducing the difference between them to a difference in names only; or (b) they denied that he was eternal like God and hence denied that he was God, making him only a creature of God. The first of these views, which Origen describes as false and wicked, has many exponents, chief among them Sabellius, who is reported to have maintained that “the Father is Son and the Son Father, in hypostasis one, in name two.”¹⁷ The second of these views is that which came to be known as Arianism, which taught that the second person of the Trinity, the Son or Word, was only a creature of God.”¹⁸

Both these Christian heresies were known to the Muslims. The first was known to them either under the name of Sabellius, who is described as asserting that “the Eternal is a single substance, a single hypostasis, having three properties,’¹⁹ or under the name of Paul of Samosata, whose doctrine is described as “absolute and genuine unity.”²⁰ The second heresy was known to them correctly as having been founded by Arius, who is described as maintaining that “God is one” and that the pre-existent Christ who is “the Word of God . was created before the creation of the world”²¹ or that he “was a created servant and was the Word of God by whom He created the heavens and the earth.”²²

It is by the same insistence upon the absolute unity of God by which Sabellianism and Arianism denied the reality or the eternity of the second and third persons of the Trinity that the Mu'tazilites denied the reality and eternity of attributes. In their positive conception of attributes, however, the Muttazilites, on the whole, arrived at a view which corresponds to that of Sabellianism rather than to that of Arianism. The attributes, on the whole, were taken by them to be not created real things distinct from God but rather mere names of God.”²³ The exception made by most of the Mu‘tazilites with regard to the Word of God in the sense of the pre-existent Koran, on which their view corresponds to that of Arianism on the Word of God in the sense of the pre-existent Christ, will be discussed later in a section of the chapter on the Koran.

Since the arguments used by the Mu'tazilites for the denial of the reality of attributes were based upon their own particular conception of the meaning of “eternity” and of the meaning of the “unity of God,” the Attributists, in their refutation of the Muttazilites, attack the Mu'tazilite conception of the meaning of these two terms.

First, they reject the Mu'tazilite claim that eternity means deity. To quote: “Your argument that if a real attribute is eternal it must be God is a bare assertion and is subject to dispute, and your assertion that eternity is a description most peculiar to God is an assertion for which there is no demonstration.”²⁴ This exchange of opinion between the Mu'tazilites and the Attributists with regard to eternity is, in its historical context, a debate over the question whether to accept the established Christian view, inherited from Philo, that eternity spells deity. For the Church Fathers, as we have seen, without any recorded opposition, adopted this Philonic view, so that John of Damascus, in a debate supposed to be held between a Christian and a Muslim, makes the Christian force the Muslim to admit that the Word of God is uncreated, that is, eternal, and then, on the basis of this admission, forces him to admit that the Word of God is God, on the ground that “everything that is not created, but uncreated, is God.”²⁵ The Muttazilites accept this Christian principle and hence argue that the attributes of the Attributists must be Gods, whereas the Attributists reject this Christian conception of eternity and hence refute the Mu‘tazilite argument. It must, however, be remarked that while the orthodox, on the basis of their denial of the identity of eternity with deity, admit the existence of eternal attributes which are adjoined to the essence of God and inseparable therefrom, they do not thereby admit the existence of an antemundane eternal matter conceived as something apart from God.²⁶ Similarly, while the Muttazilites, on the basis of their identification of eternity with deity, do not admit the existence of eternal attributes which are inseparable from God,²⁷ they do admit the existence of an eternal antemundane matter which is separate from God and subject to His action upon it.²⁸

Second, they reject the Mu'tazilite rigid conception of the unity of God. On this point, there was no unanimity of opinion in Christianity. The heretical Christian Sabellians and Arians, as we have seen, insisted upon this Philonic conception of the absolute unity of God. Orthodox Christianity, however, rejected this Philonic principle. Now the Mu'tazilites, as we have seen, followed the heretical Sabellians and Arians on this point. Orthodox Islam, however, followed orthodox Christianity. Accordingly, just as the Mu'tazilites rejected the reality of attributes by arguments by which Christian heretics rejected the reality of the second and third persons of the Trinity, so the orthodox Muslims defended the reality of attributes by arguments by which Christian orthodoxy defended the reality of the second and third persons. The orthodox Christian defense of the reality of the second and third persons of the Trinity consisted in rejecting the Philonic conception of the absolute unity of God and by maintaining that the unity of God is only a relative kind of unity, a conception of unity which does not exclude from God, who is one, the composition of three elements which from eternity existed together and were never separated.”²⁹ So also the orthodox Muslim defense of the reality of attributes, as it was ultimately given expression by Ghazali, reduces itself to an insistence upon a relative conception of the unity of God, which does not exclude its being internally composed of real attributes which existed together from eternity and were never separated. Thus, starting out with his own view that the description of God as “the necessary of existence” means only a denial of the dependence of God upon some cause of His existence, Ghazali addresses himself to “the philosophers,” who deny the existence of eternal attributes in God, as follows: “If the expression ‘the necessary of existence’ is, as it should be, taken by you to mean that which _has no efficient cause, then what reason have you to derive therefrom that God has no attributes? Why should it be impossible to say that just as the essence of Him who is necessary of existence is eternal and has no efficient cause, so also His attribute exists with Him from eternity and has no efficient cause?”³⁰ and “just as the mind is capable of the conception of an eternal Being who has no cause for His existence, so it is also capable of the conception of an eternal Being endowed with attributes, who has no cause for the existence of both His essence and His attributes.”³¹ 

And so, the views of the orthodox, Muslims and the Mu‘tazilites on the problem of attributes, as well as the arguments employed by them, correspond exactly to the views of orthodox Christians and the heretical Sabellians on the question of the persons of the Word and the Holy Spirit in the Trinity. The issue between the Attributists and the Antiattributists was thus clearly defined. It was an issue whether the unity of God was absolute or only relative. To the Attributists the unity of God was a relative unity, and hence they assumed in God the existence from eternity of real attributes. To the Antiattributists the unity of God was an absolute unity, and hence the terms attributed to God were mere names. There were, however, some modified views among the Attributists as well as some modified views among the Antiattributists. Among the Attributists, there were some who, while believing in the reality of attributes, denied that they were uncreated. This we shall discuss later.³² Among the Antiattributists there were some who, while denying that attributes were real things, denied also that they were mere names and advanced a theory known as that of modes. This, too, we shall discuss later.³³ Others among the Antiattributists made an exception of certain terms predicated of God and treated them as things which are real and created. The terms treated by them in such an exceptional manner are (1) “knowledge,” (2) “will,” and (3) “word.” This we shall discuss now.

The exceptional nature of the term “knowledge” is ascribed to Jahm. On the problem of attributes in general, Jahm is said to agree with the Mu'tazilites in denying their existence.³⁴ But, with regard to knowledge, he is reported in several sources to have said that “God’s knowledge is originated (muhdath),’³⁵ or that it is “distinct from God and originated (muhdath) or created (mahluk),’³⁶ or that it is something “originated (hadith) not in an abode (la fi mahall).”³⁷ What he means by its being created not in an abode is that it is a created incorporeal being outside God. In contrast to this, as we shall see,³⁸ Jahm considers God’s created word, that is to say, the Koran, as having been created by God in an abode, where by “abode” is meant the Preserved Tablet in heaven.

The first about whom the exceptional nature of the term _ “will” is reported is Abu al-Hudhayl. On the problem of attributes in general, Abu al-Hudhayl held a view, which, according to Shahrastani, anticipated Abu Hashim’s theory of modes.³⁹ But with respect to “will,” it is reported in one source that “he assumes wills (iradat) without an abode, whereby God is a willing being.”⁴⁰ From other sources, we gather that any one of these wills is an “origination” (hudath)⁴¹: and that it does not exist in God.⁴²? The will of God is thus neither a mere word predicated of God nor an eternal real attribute within God; it rather exists as an incorporeal real being created by God outside himself. We are told that “Abu al-Hudhayl was the first to express this view, in which others later followed him.”⁴³ The same view is ascribed also to Jubba’l and his son Abu Hashim.⁴⁴ Baghdadi ascribes it to the Mu'tazilites of Basra.⁴⁵ Later, this view is ascribed by Murtada to the Mu'tazilites in general.⁴⁶

With regard to the third exceptional attribute, “word,” Abu al-Hudhayl, again, is the first to have dealt with it. It is reported of him that he divided the term “word” (kalam), attributed in the Koran to God, into two kinds. One kind is the word (kaul) “Be” which God says to a thing when he is about to create it. The other kind is the word in the sense of “command (amr), prohibition, narration, and inquiry,” which God through the Prophet in the Koran addresses to man. The first kind of word is described as “the creative command” (amr al-takwin); the second kind is described as “the obligative command” (amr al-taklif). While both these kinds of word or command are created, according to Abu al-Hudhayl, the creative word or command is created not in an abode, that is to say, it is a created incorporeal being, whereas the obligative word or command, that is to say, the Koran, is created in an abode, where by “abode” is again meant the Preserved Tablet in heaven.⁴⁷

How all those who denied the reality of attributes happen to make an exception of these three attributes of “knowledge,” “will,” and “word,” endowing them with an incorporeal, though created, reality, would seem to need an explanation, Certainly they could not have come by it on purely religious grounds, for on purely religious grounds there was no more reason to maintain a belief in a created real incorporeal “knowledge” or “will” or “word” than in that of the other attributes. They undoubtedly must have come by it on some other ground. What was that ground?

The ground, we should like to suggest, was a certain version of Neoplatonism which had drifted into Islam by that time, perhaps by mere hearsay, and was adopted by some of its thinkers and adjusted to their own particular religious beliefs.

It happens that among the early protagonists of Neoplatonism there were those who attempted to interpose between the One and the Intelligence of Plotinus some other hypostases or principles. Proclus interposes between them several hypostases,⁴⁸ each of which is said by him to possess a “divine knowledge”⁴⁹ (gnosis theia) as something peculiarly belonging to it as a property.⁵⁰ Amelius, as quoted by Proclus,⁵¹ distinguishes within the Intelligence itself three Intelligences,⁵² thus interposing between the One or God and the Intelligence in the system of Plotinus two other Intelligences. Of these two interposing Intelligences, one is described by him as creating by will (Boulesei) and the other as creating by command (epitaxei).⁵³ This interpretation of Plotinus by Proclus is reflected in the tradition reported later by Shahrastani that according to both Plato and Aristotle, that is to say, according to Neoplatonism, will (iradah) and production (f’il) are forms which have real existence (ka’imtan),⁵⁴ and that both of them come into existence from God without any intermediary.⁵⁵

Here, then, we have two philosophic views which maintain the existence of various real incorporeal beings described either as having “knowledge” or as creating “by will” or as creating “by command.” We may assume that when these two philosophic views reached the Arabs, the real incorporeal beings came to be described simply as “knowledge” (gnosis; Arabic: ‘ilm) and “will” (Boulesis, Arabic: iradah) and “command” (épitagma, Arabic: amr), the last of which in Arabic, as we have seen, is interchangeable with “word” (kalam). With this philosophic sanction, it can be easily seen how the view that the terms “knowledge” and “will” and “word” stand for three incorporeal beings which have real existence had penetrated even among those Muslim thinkers who on the whole denied the reality of attributes. But, inasmuch as these Muslim thinkers could not accept the eternity of these three attributes, for this would be against their contention that real attributes which are eternal mean a plurality of gods, they made them created incorporeal beings.