Binyamin Abrahamov writes in the introduction to his translation and edition of al-Qāsim’s Kitāb al-Dalīl al-Kabīr (al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm, Al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm on the Proof of God’s Existence: The Kitāb al-Dalīl al-Kabīr). “This argument,” he continues to state its purpose, “proves the existence of God through the wonderful design observed all over the universe” (Abrahamov’s introduction in al-Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm, al-Dalīl, 1. Hans Daiber). In an article dealing with the same work, Abrahamov adds in more detail: [a]lready at the beginning of Kitāb al-Dalīl al-Kabīr he introduces one of the main arguments for the existence of God, namely the argument from design. In the world there are many signs attesting that the world and what is included in it are made and created. […] Every produced thing must have a producer, and every created thing must have a creator. Since the signs are perfect, they must have a creator and producer, who does things wisely and well, and such a one can only be God. In the first part of the argument, then al-Qāsim proves (or, rather, asserts) that according to evident signs of creation the world was created, and in the second part he proves that it is God who created the world, since the signs are perfect (Binyamin Abrahamov, “al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm’s Argument from Design,” Oriens 29/30 (1986): 259–284). In his monograph Der Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm und die Glaubenslehre der Zaiditen, Wilferd Madelung identifies al-Qāsim’s concern in al-Dalīl al-Kabīr as being to prove God’s existence on the basis of the order observed in this world (“Al-Qāsim verwendet hier den Gottesbeweis aus der Ordnung der Welt”) (Wilferd Madelung, Der Imam al-Qāsim ibn Ibrāhīm und die Glaubenslehre der Zaiditen, 106).
The proof of God’s existence is in fact absent from al-Qāsim’s work.
al-Qāsim rejects the Muʿtazilī doctrine that humans are the creators of their own deeds. On the different theories of causality proposed by Islamic thinkers and schools of thought, see:
Maria De Cillis, Free Will and Predestination in Islamic Thought: Theoretical Compromises in the Works of Avicenna, al-Ghazālī and Ibn ʿArabī (Abingdon, New York: Routledge, 2014), 10–16; Frank Griffel, Al-Ghazālī’s Philosophical Theology (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), Chapter 5 “Cosmology in Early Islam,” 123–146; David Bennett, “The Muʿtazilite Movement (II): The Early Muʿtazilites,” in The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. Sabine Schmidtke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 142–158.
His position, as well as his concern to correct the position held by his antagonists, become clear in his discussion of Q. 57:17. This verse reminds humans that {God revives the earth after it dies}. al-Qāsim reasons that everyone has to admit that there is no human being “who exerts an influence [and] arranges” and that the “trace of […] arrangement” to be found in things is “from God, not from humans” (al-Qāsim, al-Dalīl, 84). Jesus is mentioned who, according to the Qur’an, revived the dead, but al-Qāsim stresses that this miracle was given to him by God, thus invalidating the Muʿtazilī doctrine. Q. 75:36–40 is then invoked, which refers to God’s creation of humans from a drop of sperm as well as of His ability to bring the dead back to life. al-Qāsim reads these verses as supporting his view on God’s exclusive causal efficacy, noting that “this does not occur, unless due to God.” In the same vein, Q. 6:97 is adduced which states: {It is He who made the stars, so that they can guide you when land and sea are dark}.
- al-Qāsim eagerly emphasizes that the alternation of night and day is from none but God. “To God (Praised be He!) (li’llāh) belongs dominion over every star and celestial body,” he explains, and “from Him is the wondrous arrangement (minhu ʿajībal-tadbīr) [emphasis added].” Following the Qur’an’s mention of the purposeful and wise creation of the camel, the mountains, the heavens and the earth in Q. 88:17–22, al-Qāsim stresses that “the creation (ṣanʿ) of all these things has been established […] through the signs (dalāʾil) in creation and creation’s being arranged (tadbīri hi).” Asking about the creator of all these things, he remarks: “this is God, the lord (rabb) of the worlds and creator (ṣāniʿ) of creators.”
- Design as Proof of God’s rubūbiyya
- One such passage is where al-Qāsim refers to Q. 21:52–56. There he writes: “among the signs for Him (al-dalāʾil ʿalayhi) is Abraham’s speech.” The prophet was sent by God with a clear mission: “a dispute and quarrel took place between him and his people about God (fī Allāh),” al-Qāsim explains, because he found them worshipping idols (Al-Qāsim, al-Dalīl, 112) as well as the stars alongside their worship of God (kānū yaʿbudūna min al-nujūm maʿahu). Al-Qāsim states that Abraham admonished his people that “{Your true Lord is the Lord of the heavens and the earth, He who created them}” and he “reasoned on the basis of God’s signs in the heavens and the earth that belong to God that God is the creator of all this” (fa-istadalla […] bi-dalāʾil Allāh min samāwātihi wa-arḍihi ʿalā anna Allāh ṣāniʿ li-dhālika kullihi). Contrary to Abrahamov’s suggestion, as conveyed by his translation, that Abraham’s dispute with his people was “about the [existence] of God [sic],” al-Qāsim’s own remarks make it clear that Abraham sought to dissuade them from shirk and the worship of other beings alongside God (maʿahu)—an astonishing thing to do in al-Qāsim’s eyes as “they are God’s creation, made by Him.” The context provided by al-Qāsim clarifies that Abraham’s pointing to signs in creation does not have the purpose of proving to his people that God actually exists; they believed in God’s existence anyway as evident from their worshipping Him. Rather, Abraham presents the signs as evidence that God alone, none other, is creator and everything else is His creation. The reason al-Qāsim puts such emphasis on this insight is that it is made the foundation for the justification of God’s sole deservedness of worship.
- The polytheism of Abraham’s people (that is, their associating others in worship with God) is declared false on the basis that other entities belong to the realm of created things. Abrahamov, however, renders al-Qāsim’s concern an entirely different one when he translates “fa-istadalla ṣalā Allāh ʿalayhi wa-dalla […] ʿalā rabb al-ʿālamīn” as “[Abraham], [sic] may God bless him, brought proof of the existence of God and proved the existence of the Lord.”
- al-Fuwatī and al-Naẓẓām & the Proof of God’s Existence
Abrahamov has pointed out that “[al-Qāsim’s] argument [from design for the existence of God] was not uncommon in the first centuries of Islam in theological circles in general and in Muʿtazilite circles in particular” (Abrahamov, “al-Qāsim,” 259–260). Madelung (Der Imam, 106) believes, contra Abrahamov, that the argument from design is not the “traditional argument” employed by Muʿtazilī theologians who instead gave preference to the argument from the createdness of the world. Abrahamov argues, “uses the argument from design saying that bodies (ʾajsām) with their colours and their combination and separation prove that God is their Creator and Conductor” (Abrahamov, “al-Qāsim,” 270). Explaining al-Fuwatī’s argument in more detail, Abrahamov states: “[i]n his opinion accidents alone do not prove God’s existence, since the arguments for God’s existence must necessarily (bi-ʾiḍṭirār) be known, whereas the existence of accidents is known through inference (ʾistidlāl) and speculation. Bodies prove God’s existence, since their existence is known by the senses” (Abrahamov, “al-Qāsim,” 270–271). Josef van Ess likewise identifies al-Fuwatī as being concerned with the proof of God’s existence, and notes that his argument is reflective of his ontology, that is, the position that the world is made up of bodies and accidents.
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