The Ash'ari School in Brief

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

The founder of the Ash’ariyyah school, Imam Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali ibn Isma’il al-Ash’ari (r.a.), was one of the first to study under, but then quit, the Mu’taziliyyah.  The Ash’ari came to comprise the largest Ahl as-Sunnah wa al-Jama’ah group, including among its ranks such great scholarly giants as Imam al-Haramayn Dhiya’ ad-Din ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Yusuf al-Juwayni (r.a.), Imam Taj ad-Din Abu al-Fath Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Karim ash-Shahrastani (r.a.), and Imam Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali (r.a.). 

Like the Mu’taziliyyah, the Ash’ariyyah held that the Divine Essence was Transcendent and repudiated anthropomorphism.  However, they understood the Qur’anic verses whose apparent sense could yield similarities between Allah (s.w.t.) and human beings to employ conventional Arabic figures or metaphors, without subjecting them to further speculative or abstracting interpretation.  Hafizh Khathib al-Baghdadi Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn ‘Ali ash-Shafi’i (r.a.) attributed anthropomorphist interpretations to “renegades and radicals,” and Imam ash-Shahrastani (r.a.) considered the anthropomorphist Karramiyyah scholars to be “ignorant fools”.  Imam al-Ghazali (r.a.) insisted one must properly understand ostensibly anthropomorphic Qur’anic expressions such as those referring to “the Hand of Allah”, which, as an equivocal expression, includes the primary corporeal sense of a limb composed of flesh and bone but also includes a metaphorical sense that is not essentially corporeal. 

The Ash’ariyyah affirmed Divine Attributes as Distinct from the Divine Essence, including Divine Power, Will, Hearing, Sight, and Speech.  Imam al-Ash’ari (r.a.) held that human acts are the result of Allah’s (s.w.t.) Creation and kasb, human acquisition, which is the conjunction of human power and Divine Act.  An example to elucidate this relation is the movement of a hand wearing a ring, whereby the movement of the ring is conjoined to that of the hand.  Contra the Mu’taziliyyah, the Ash’ariyyah did not believe that acts are essentially good or bad, but that they receive their moral character through Divine Command or Prohibition.  Imam al-Ash’ari (r.a.) said that one who commits enormities is a sinning believer and relinquished to the Will of Allah (s.w.t.) as to whether He Forgive him and Enter him into Paradise or whether He first Requite him with Punishment for his sins.  He further affirmed the possibility of the beatific vision, in that every existent, including Allah (s.w.t.) Admits being seen.  The Ash’ariyyah posited that the Divine Attribute of Speech is Pre-Eternal in His Essence, but he divided the Divine Speech into two types: Kalam Nafsi, Unlettered Speech, which singularly abides with the Divine Essence; and Kalam Lafzi, Lettered Speech, which comprises contingent letters and sounds conforming to the meaning of the unlettered speech that comprehends every injunction and prohibition.  The Qur’an is, therefore, the Uncreated Speech of Allah (s.w.t.), but its disparate letters, coloured inks, inscriptions, and vocalisations are all Created in time.  Finally, the Ash’ariyyah held that the Acts of Allah (s.w.t.) are not bound to an underlying rationality, for that would restrict His Sovereign Will even in such questions as the requital of the obedient and transgressors.  Rather, they cite the Qur’anic verse: 

سُوۡرَةُ الاٴنبیَاء

لَا يُسۡـَٔلُ عَمَّا يَفۡعَلُ وَهُمۡ يُسۡـَٔلُونَ (٢٣) 

He cannot be questioned for His acts, but they will be Questioned (for theirs). (Surah al-Anbiya’:23) 

Various criticisms were advanced against these positions and formulations.  Imam Abu Muhammad ‘Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Hazm (r.a.) criticised the Ash’ariyyah conception of Godhead, arguing that their division of the Eternal Essence of Allah (s.w.t.) from His Abiding Attributes compromises His Absolute Oneness.  The Ash’ariyyah began soundly, establishing human actions as the result of Allah’s (s.w.t.) Creation and human acquisition; but their definition of acquisition as merely a conjunction effectively tended toward Determinism.  Imam al-Juwayni (r.a.) commented that denying human power and ability is refused both by rationality and lived experience, for affirming a power without effect, as in the definitions of certain Ash’ariyyah, is essentially denying that power as such.  The Ash’ariyyah position on the ethical status of acts in effect was said to undermine rationality, for by unreservedly refusing the possibility of independently discerning husn, good, or qubh, ill, they in turn deny the independent existence of khayr, good, and sharr, evil.  Likewise, their position that Allah’s (s.w.t.) Acts are not bound by Revelation in an absence of wisdom is a contradictory and inadequate conception inadmissible for Allah (s.w.t.), for His Works are Unreservedly Independent and in turn Complete.