Let me mention that my reading net has broadened to include Wikipedia as well. This is officially no longer a simple note-taking exercise while reading a book, but a full-fledged endeavor to understand as much as I can, using what few resources I have access to. I'm not going to be linking to Wikipedia since there are enough links as it is and a simple Google search will get you there anyway. I will, however, continue to cite my book sources as accurately as I can, out of respect for their authors' intellectual labor and in order to encourage you, gentle reader, to get your own hands on the books too!
I'd left off earlier with the overthrow of the Umayyad caliphs in 750 CE at the hands of the `Abbāsids, mentioning briefly that the latter had smartly articulated their message to appeal to disaffected Shī`ites (including Zaydites), Qadarites of different flavors, and the mawālis, who were mostly Persian converts to Islam. With this defeat, the caliphate officially passed to the hands of the `Abbāsids, and the remnants of the Umayyads fled to Spain to establish another kingdom there.
The major social players during the `Abbāsids
Lots of important things happen during the effective reign of the `Abbāsids (that is to say, during the period within which the `Abbāsids were not merely puppet caliphs but actual overlords), foremost among which are the hardening of the divide between the Sunnis and the Shī`ites, and what Watt describes as the "first wave" of Hellenic thought to influence Islamic theology, and the development of distinct approaches within Islamic philosophy, rational theology, and jurisprudence. The connections between these changes and the rise and fall of new social / political groups are also interesting.
From the social perspective, two groups acquired great importance. First, the old Arab patron - Persian client (mawāli) power dynamic that had been so important under the Umayyads changed in some important ways. The administration of the empire remained in the hands of the ethnically Persianate bureaucrats, descendants of the sophisticated Sassanid aristocratic administration, and they continued to resent the prominent positions held by Arabs in the Muslim empire. Watts notes that these bureaucrats had mostly been Zoroastrians under the Sassanids, with some Christians in the mix. During the Umayyad and early `Abbāsid periods, most of them converted to Islam; a cynic might observe that this would probably have been due to the universal tendency of bureaucrats to gravitate towards whatever is most likely to advance their careers. Whatever the reason, the `Abbāsid era saw the rise of the Shu`ūbite (from sha`ab, meaning "nation") movement in literature, where government officials began to produce works design to denigrate and insult all things Arab. One of the most important consequences of this movement was the redemption and revival of Persian literature, especially in far eastern Khorāsān, as `Abbāsid power waned.
Second, the mainstream religious intellectuals who had opposed the Umayyads and supported the `Abbāsid uprising began to organize themselves better into a class of scholars well versed in Islamic knowledge (`ilm), the `ulamā' (sing. `ālim). Watt argues that the struggle between the bureaucrats and the `ulamā' eventually hardened into the divide between Shī`ism and Sunnism, respectively, saying
"where the Shī`ites in difficulties sought a divinely-inspired leader, an imām, their opponents held that salvation came through carefully following the divine law as expressed in the Qur'ān and in the sunna or example of the Prophet. Since the ulema were accepted as the accredited interpreters of the divine law, the Sunnite position gave them great power." (p. 34)
Now I don't find this terribly convincing. Perhaps it's just the manner in which Watt has phrased it here, but I think this statement as it stands grossly oversimplifies the considerable diversity in positions held by the `ulamā'. To argue that scholars who held diametrically opposed views on, say, God's qadar or the (un)createdness of the Qur'ān, were all Sunni simply because this position gave them more "power" seems terribly weak to me. Moreover, it glosses over the ethnic dimension of the situation—surely not all `ulamā' were of pure Arab origin? There certainly seems to be much more scope for overlap between the Shu`ūbite movement and many theological questions than Watt seems to acknowledge.
The major intellectual players
Within the Islamic intellectual movement itself, a number of terms crop up that I want to list here, for their histories are so intertwined that I found Watt's normally clear, historically driven narrative somewhat confusing. The first is falāsifa (sing., faylasūf), the students of Hellenic philosophy who translated these works into Arabic; most, but not all of the, were Muslim, and not all of them chose to reconcile the tensions between their philosophical work and their religion. (This last is a sense I got from a preliminary skim, and may be inaccurate.) The second is kalām, literally, "speech" in Arabic. Wolfson states at the very beginning of his work that
"the term kalām, which literally means "speech" or "word," is used in Arabic translations of the works of Greek philosophers as a rendering of the term logos in its various senses of "word," "reason," and "argument." The term kalām is also used in those Arabic translations from the Greek in the sense of any special branch of learning, and the plural participle, mutakallimūn (singular: mutakallim), is used as a designation of the masters or exponents of any special branch of learning." (p. 1)
However, kalām also has a more restrictive sense, when it is applied to a particular school ("method" may make even better sense) of Islamic philosophical thought that is to be contrasted with the falāsifa. In this more restrictive sense, the mutakallimūn are Islamic theologians who explicitly see themselves as Muslim, and who embark upon the ambitious task of reconciling reason and revelation. The two great schools of kalām that flourished during the `Abbāsid period were the Mu`tazilites and the Ash`arites.
In addition to these two groups of philosophers, a number of schools (madhāhib) of jurisprudence (fiqh) grew up during the `Abbāsid period. Watt broadly refers to them as the Ahl al-Ḥadīth, since their primary motivation seemed to have been the desire to systematize the collection and study of the various ḥadīth of the Prophet along with their chains of transmission (isnāds), in order to justify and substantiate legal positions for which no direct Qur'ānic corroboration could be found. The fāqih al-Shāfi`ī first articulated the common principles of jurisprudence (usūl al-fiqh), which he arranged in the hierarchical order:
1) the Qur'ān
2) the Ḥadīth of the Prophet, systematized most prominently into the ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī and of Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj
3) qiyās, or analogy (and not all schools accepted this)
4) ijmā`, or the consensus (whether of scholars or of the active, devout community of Muslims)
The four most prominent Sunni schools, all founded during the `Abbāsid era and all surviving until today, are the Ḥanafite, the Shāfi`ite, the Mālikite, and the Ḥanbalite. The most important Shī`ite school is the Ja`farite.
It's important to note that theology and jurisprudence were distinct fields, and that in general a particular theological position did not necessarily bind a mutakallim to any madhhab, or vice versa. The one exception was the Ḥanbalite madhhab, which had its own small theological school. Broadly speaking, though, the "rational" study of the mutakallimūn was rejected by the fuqahā', who held that it was only through thorough study of the usūl al-fiqh that a Muslim could lead a good life. (This is an oversimplified, overgeneralized position, to some extent.)
Watt mentions one term as rising in use only much later, but whose referent is recognizable even during `Abbāsid times. This is the ahl al-Sunna, or the Sunnis, the term given to the mainstream of Islamic practice once certain concrete beliefs are generally agreed upon. These beliefs are positive statements that also serve to distinguish other groups as not being part of the "mainstream", and this "adversarial" sense of the components of the ahl al-Sunna is captured in Watt's prose here:
"Against the Khārijites (and with the Murji'ites) it was agreed that sinners whose intellectual belief was sound were not excluded from the community because of their sin. Against the Shī`ites it was agreed that the first four caliphs were genuine caliphs, and that the chronological order was the order of excellence. Against the Qadarites and Mu`tazilites it was agreed that all events are determined by God. It was also agreed that the Qur'ān was the uncreated word or speech of God, though there were differences about the human utterance of the Qur'ān." (p. 59)
The only other thing to note at this point is that the Shī`ite position is clarified during the `Abbāsid era largely along Imāmite (the so-called "Twelver" or ithnā`ashariyya) lines. The two other flavors of Shī`ite thought, the Ismā`īlite and the Zaydite, gain prominence under other dynasties (for the former, most prominently under the Fāṭimid caliphs of North Africa).
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