Jahmiyyais a term used by Islamic scholars to refer to the followers of the doctrines ofJahm bin Safwan(d. 128/746).[1]The Jahmiyya particularly came to be remembered for advocating for the denial or negation ofGod's divine attributes(known as the doctrine oftaʿṭīl)[2]as a product of their extremelytranscendentalist views of God,potentially followinglate antiqueNeoplatonistcurrents.[3]
Jahm and those associated with histheological creedappear as prominent heretics inSunniheresiography,and to be called a Jahmi became an insult or polemic,[4]especially with respect to proponents ofAsh'arism,who were called Jahmiyya on account of their advocacy offatalism,a position they say originated with Jahm.[5]The term has also been used to pejoratively labelMu'tazilites.[3]
The views of Jahm and his followers are rejected by the fourschools of thoughtin Sunni Islam[6]and are not accepted across the spectrum of views in medieval Muslim theology, from theAhl al-Hadithto theMutazilites.At the same time, Jahm was also widely acknowledged as the figure who introduced the principle of intellect (ʿaql) into Islamic theological discourse, and the use of reasoning to derive opinions from propositions (raʾy).[7]
Main figures
editThe eponymous figure behind the Jahmiyya wasJahm ibn Safwan.Jahm was born inSamarkand.He lived and taught in northeasternIranand it is possibly that he never left the region ofGreater Khorasan.The second figure most commonly associated with the Jahmis was theKufanḌirār ibn ʻAmr. However, despite his association with the Jahmiyya, he may have never met Jahm and even criticized him in one of his works. No writings from either authors have survived, and information about their views relies on short summaries produced by other authors, primarily their opponents.[8]
Another famous preacher of Jahmi views wasBishr al-Marisi(d. 833), at the beginning of the 9th century, Jahmites acted inNehavend,but some of them were forced to accept the teachings of theAsharites.[9]
Beliefs
editJahm's understating of basic physics and ontology were predicated on his distinction between the corporeal,bodies,and the incorporeal, that which is not a body.[10]According to Jahm, God is incorporeal, and that which is incorporeal and does not have a body is present everywhere and in everything, and that which corporeal and has a body is present in a single location and in its own body.[10]According to Jahm, God, who is uncreated and necessarily exists, is the only incorporeal and immaterial cause. Furthermore, according to Jahm, composite incorporeal and immaterial things do not exist.[10]
In the matter ofpredestination,the Jahmis adhere to the belief that a person does not have free will and is forced into their actions.[11]The Jahmiyya believed this because they thought that human free will would entail a limitation on God's power, and so must be rejected.[11]On the question of the location of God, the Jahmis arepantheistsand say that he is everywhere and inside all things.[12]In addition, they deny the possibility of righteous Muslims seeing Allah in paradise.[13]
Jahm and the Jahmiyya also argued that God was not a ''thing'', this was not to say that God does not exist, but instead that God cannot be logically predicated on anything else or be described by a reference to a set of attributes.[14]The Jahmiyya believed that God was incomparable to anything, and so people should avoid ascribing any properties or qualities to God since this was beyond human knowledge and such claims, in fact, constitute innovation in religious matters (Bid'ah) and so should be rejected.[15]
Criticism
editSince the advent of Jahmiyya, this tendency has been the subject of criticism by many prominent representatives ofSunni Islam.Some of the most prominent critics includedAhmad ibn Hanbal,Ibn Qutayba,Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya,Abu Hamid al-Ghazali,Ibn Hajar al-AsqalaniandIbn Taymiyyah.For example, Ahmad ibn Hanbal composed a treatise titled theal-Radd ʿalā al-zanādiqa wa-l-jahmiyya( "Refutation of the heretics and the Jahmiyya" ).[16]
Yasir Qadhiwrote a lengthy dissertation (inArabic) entitled "The Theological Opinions of Jahm b. Ṣafwān and Their Effects on the Other Islamic Sects."[17]
Ibn al-Mubarakcriticized the Jahmiyya rejection of free will in his poetry, and his anti-Jahmi poetry was cited byal-Bukhari.[11]In particular, he argued that this rejection would imply that evil figures could not be blamed for the actions that they performed. Therefore, the actions of Pharaoh and Haman could not really be imputed onto them. Not only this, but their moral character and actions would have to be placed alongside figures such asMoses,since all of their actions have been predetermined.
Derogatory term
editThe label "Jahmiyya" came to be used as an insult due to its negative connotations. For example,Abu HanifaandMuhammad al-Shaybaniwere derogatorily labelled as Jahmis by their opponents.[18]Ibn Taymiyyaassigned the term to theAsh'ariMutakallimun(professionals in the field ofKalam) of his time.[19]Ibn Taymiyyah accusedAsh'arisof having adopted doctrines of the Jahmiyya and instead advocated for a theology based on what he considered as returning to the views of theSalaf as-Salihin(the first three generations of Muslims).[20]In later periods,Wahhabisalso adopted the term as a derogatory reference to practitioners ofKalamtheology, in order to contumely suggest that they, like Jahm, denied God's attributes.[21]In particular, this accusation was used by early Wahhabis againstMalikiMuslims living ineastern Arabia(sometimes singled out as being located inDubaiandAbu Dhabi), who they believed to interpret some of the attributes of God in a purely metaphorical sense.[21]
See also
editReferences
editCitations
edit- ^Hoover, J. (1 September 2004)."Perpetual Creativity in the Perfection of God: Ibn Taymiyya's Hadith Commentary on God's Creation of this World".Journal of Islamic Studies.15(3): 287–329.doi:10.1093/jis/15.3.287.
- ^Bunzel 2023,p. 100.
- ^abSuleiman 2024,p. 40–41.
- ^Bunzel 2023,p. 95.
- ^Holtzman 2016,p. 566n27.
- ^Crone 2016,p. 196–197.
- ^Schock 2016,p. 56.
- ^Schock 2015,p. 55.
- ^Prozorov, S.M. (1991).al-Jahmiyya // Islam: Encyclopedic Dictionary."Наука," Глав. ред. восточной лит-ры. p. 64.ISBN5-02-016941-2.
- ^abcMorris S. SealeMuslim Theology A study of Origins with Reference to the Church FathersGreat Russel Street, London 1964 p. 62
- ^abcSalem 2016,p. 29–30.
- ^admin (2021-03-08)."The Creed Of Imam Bukhari and the Salaf Quoted in Khalq Af'al al-Ibad - Darul Tahqiq".Retrieved2024-07-23.
- ^"Their Denial of the Attributes of Allah – Mahajjah".Retrieved2024-07-23.
- ^Schock 2015,p. 56–58.
- ^Mehregan 2017,p. 1552–1553.
- ^McLaren 2020.
- ^Yasir Qadhi (2005).مكتبة نور مقالات الجهم بن صفوان وأثرها في الفرق الإسلامية.
- ^Brown 2007,p. 364.
- ^Bunzel 2023,p. 104.
- ^Daniel LavRadical Islam and the Revival of Medieval TheologyCambridge University Press, 29.02.2012 p. 37
- ^abBunzel 2023,p. 299.
References
edit- Brown, Jonathan (2007).The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim.Brill.
- Bunzel, Cole (2023).Wahhābism: The History of a Militant Islamic Movement.Princeton University Press.
- Crone, Patricia (2016)."Al-Jāḥiẓ on Aṣḥāb al-Jahālāt and the Jahmiyya".The Iranian Reception of Islam: The Non-Traditionalist Strands.Brill. pp. 196–211.
- Holtzman, Livnat (2016)."Accused of Anthropomorphism: Ibn Taymiyya's Miḥan as Reflected in Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya's al-Kāfiya al-Shāfiya".The Muslim World.106(3): 561–587.doi:10.1111/muwo.12153.
- McLaren, Andrew G. (2020)."Ibn Ḥanbal's Refutation of the Jahmiyya: A Textual History".Journal of the American Oriental Society.140(4): 901–926.doi:10.7817/jameroriesoci.140.4.0901.JSTOR10.7817/jameroriesoci.140.4.0901.
- Mehregan, Abbas (2017). "Tashbih (Anthropomorphism)". In Çakmak, Cenap (ed.).Islam: A Worldwide Encyclopedia.ABC-CLIO.
- Salem, Feryal (2016).The Emergence of Early Sufi Piety and Sunnī Scholasticism.Brill.
- Schock, Cornelia (2016)."Jahm b. Ṣafwān (d. 128/745–6) and the 'Jahmiyya' and Ḍirār b. ʿAmr (d. 200/815)".In Schmidtke, Sabine (ed.).The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology.Oxford University Press. pp. 55–80.
- Suleiman, Farid (2024).Ibn Taymiyya and the Attributes of God.Brill.