Al-Ash'ari, Ali ibn Isma'il

Ali ibn Isma'il ibn Ishaq al-Ash'ari, a Basran theologian to whom a school of theology known as the Ash'aris is attributed. This source gives few details of his life. He was born around 260 AH (874 CE) and died around 324 AH (936 CE). Both dates rest on one source and need an additional source. ¹

This record appears to overlap with Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari; it needs to be reviewed for merging.

Abu 'l-Hasan 'Ali ibn Isma'il is said to have been born at Basra in 260 AH (873-874), and to have been the ninth in descent from the Companion Abu Musa al-Ash'ari. Little is known of his life. He was one of the best pupils of al-Jubba'i, head of the Mu'tazila at Basra, and might have succeeded him, but he left the Mu'tazila for the party of the orthodox traditionists in 300 AH (912-913). The conversion is told with many variations: three times in Ramadan he is said to have seen Muhammad in a vision commanding him to adhere to true tradition but not to abandon kalam. He later moved to Baghdad and died there in 324 AH (935-936). ²

Al-Ash'ari held that God has eternal attributes, such as knowledge, sight and speech, by which He knows, sees and speaks, against the Mu'tazila who denied attributes. He held that Qur'anic expressions such as God's hand and face are real attributes whose precise nature is unknown, and that God sits on the throne in the same way, while agreeing that nothing corporeal was meant. Against the view that the Qur'an was created, he held that it is God's speech, an eternal attribute. He held that God can be seen in the world to come, though we cannot understand how. He insisted on God's omnipotence, so that everything, good and evil, is willed by God, who creates the acts of men by creating in them the power to do each act; the doctrine of acquisition (kasb), later characteristic of the Ash'ariyya, is commonly attributed to him, though the entry doubts he held it. A grave sinner remained a believer, liable to punishment in the Fire, against the Mu'tazili position between two positions. He maintained the reality of the eschatological features, the Basin, the Bridge, the Balance and intercession by Muhammad, which the Mu'tazila denied or interpreted rationally. ³

He was not the first to apply kalam to the defence of orthodox doctrine; al-Harith ibn Asad al-Muhasibi had tried before him. He seems to have been the first to do so in a way acceptable to a large body of orthodox opinion, and he knew the views of the Mu'tazila intimately, as his Maqalat al-Islamiyyin shows. Many of his proofs depend on the interpretation of the Qur'an and Tradition, so that at first sight his argument differs little from that of the ultra-conservatives. His many followers, the Ash'ariyya or Ash'ira, mostly departed from him on points. The entry, signed by W. Montgomery Watt, concludes that theology in later centuries became thoroughly intellectualistic, which was far from the temper of al-Ash'ari himself. ³