ʿAbd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbar al-Hamadani al-Asadabadi, Abu ʿl-Hasan (935 – 1025) was a

Mu'tazilite Muʿtazila ( ar, المعتزلة ', English: "Those Who Withdraw, or Stand Apart", and who called themselves ''Ahl al-ʿAdl wa al-Tawḥīd'', English: "Party of ivineJustice and Oneness f God); was an Islamic group that appeared in early Islamic ...

theologian, and a reported follower of the

Shafi‘i The Shafii ( ar, شَافِعِي, translit=Shāfiʿī, also spelled Shafei) school, also known as Madhhab al-Shāfiʿī, is one of the four major traditional schools of religious law (madhhab) in the Sunnī branch of Islam. It was founded by ...

school. Abd al-Jabbar means "servant of the powerful." He was born in Asadabad near

Hamadan Hamadan () or Hamedan ( fa, همدان, ''Hamedān'') (Old Persian: Haŋgmetana, Ecbatana) is the capital city of Hamadan Province of Iran. At the 2019 census, its population was 783,300 in 230,775 families. The majority of people living in Ham ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. He settled in

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...

, until he was invited to Rey in 367 AH/978 CE by its governor,

Sahib ibn Abbad Abu’l-Qāsim Ismāʿīl ibn-i ʿAbbād ibn-i ʿAbbās ( fa, ابوالقاسم اسماعیل بن عباد بن عباس; born 938 - died 30 March 995), better known as Ṣāḥib ibn-i ʿAbbād (), also known as Ṣāḥib (), was a Persian sc ...

, a staunch supporter of the

Mu'tazila Muʿtazila ( ar, المعتزلة ', English: "Those Who Withdraw, or Stand Apart", and who called themselves ''Ahl al-ʿAdl wa al-Tawḥīd'', English: "Party of ivineJustice and Oneness f God); was an Islamic group that appeared in early Islami ...

. He was appointed chief Qadi of the province. On the death of ibn 'Abbad in 995 CE, Abd al-Jabbar was deposed and arrested by the Buyid Amir, Fakhr al-Dawla, because of a slighting remark made by him about his deceased benefactor. He died later in 415 Anno Hegirae, AH/1025 CE. His comprehensive "summa" of speculative theology, the ''Mughni'', presented Mu`tazili thought under the two headings of God's oneness (tawhid) and his justice (adl). He argued that the Ashʿari, Ash'arite separation between the eternal speech of God and the created words of the Qur'an made God's will unknowable. He and his Mu’tazilite circle were contemporaries of Ibn Sina, better known in the West as Avicenna.

Works

He was the author of more than 70 books. * Kitāb Al-Mughnī Fī Abwāb Al-Tawḥīd wa Al-'Adl ( المغني في أبواب التوحيد والعدل ) * Sharḥ to Ibn Khallād's Kitāb al-Uṣūl (which is lost) * Sharḥ al-Uṣūl al-Khamsa (شرح الاصول الخمسة) ('The Explication of the Five Principles'). (While this is lost, this book received commentaries by two Zaydi authors, which have survived.)

''Tathbit Dala’il''

Abd Al-Jabbar produced an anti-Christian polemic text ''Tathbit Dala’il Nubuwwat Sayyidina Muhammad,'' (‘The Establishment of Proofs for the Prophethood of Our Master Mohammed’).'Abd al-Jabbar, Tathbit dalailal- nubuwwa, ed. 'A. 'Uthman, 2 vols., Beirut 1966

English translations

* ''Critique of Christian Origins: a parallel English-Arabic text'', edited, translated, and annotated by Gabriel Said Reynolds and Samir Khalil Samir, Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2010.

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Abd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad 935 births 1025 deaths Mu'tazilites Shafi'is 10th-century Muslim scholars of Islam People from Hamadan Province 10th-century jurists 11th-century jurists