The Attributes of Allah

Authors

Abstract

It is a well known fact that there are many ambiguious points in the Koran and not a few sentences of the sacred book have the meanings contradicting each other. Since the first century of Hejira, these ambiguious and contradictory sentences have been utilized by the Moslems in various fields to defend their political or doctrinal standpoints and maintenances. Especially hot disputes had been developped around the questions of Allah, Koran, Caliph etc… Among them, the question of the attributes of Allah gave rise to the most fervent and complicated theological controversies because it is the most fundamental problem of Islamic teaching. The notion of Allah in primitive Islam has been challenged several times in the course of its development by various powerful currents of thought. When the simple conception of the nature of Allah was endangered by the challenge of rationalism of Greek philosophy, the Mu'tazilites made their efforts to save it. But when the influence of the Mu'tazilites become too rampant, al-Ash'ari, al-Maturidi and others rose to make safe the orthodox theology. When Mysticism became too influential, al-Ghazali succeeded to protect Sunnism. These defenders of orthodoxy used the weapons of their antagonists. Such a flexibility and adaptability of Sunni Islam seem to be its strong point which promises its long and ever growing future. I think this healthiness of Islam owes much to the Koran itself which has many ambiguious and contradictory sentences.

Publication Details

DOI

10.5356/jorient.6.2_45

Journal

Bulletin of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan

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Data Sources

• openalexW23355851092026-07-10T14:41:20.867510+03:00