Explaining Kalam
بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Nur ad-Din Abu ‘Ubadah ‘Ali ibn Juma’ah explained, in the linguistic sense, “ kalam ”, “speech”, denotes a word indicating a certain meaning. In its technical sense, “ kalam ” denotes the theoretical consideration of matters of religious creed, or theology. Shaykh Wali ad-Din ‘Abd ar-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Khaldun ( r.a. ) said, “It is the discipline comprised of disputation over credal beliefs with rational proofs.” Imam al-‘Ayhi ( r.a. ) said, “ Kalam is the discipline that enables one to affirm credal beliefs by amassing arguments and repelling doubt.” Imam al-‘Ayhi ( r.a. ) recorded four types of etymologies for the name of the discipline, respectively claiming it is so called because of its linguistic sense of speech, kalam , yielding al-jadal , dialectical debate, which is the primary tool of the discipline, much like logic is the primary instrument or bulk of philosophy; its chapter-headings, ...