Ash'aris are those who adhere to Imam Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari in his school of theology. Ashʿarism or Ashʿarī theology[1] (/æʃəˈr/;[2] Arabic: الأشعرية: al-ʾAshʿarīyah)[3] is one of the main Sunnī schools of Islamic theology, founded by the Arab Muslim scholar, Shāfiʿī jurist, and scholastic theologian Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī in the 9th–10th century.[1][3][4] It established an orthodox guideline[5][6] based on scriptural authority,[7] rationality.[8][9][10]

Al-Ashʿarī established a middle way between the doctrines of the Atharī and Muʿtazila schools of Islamic theology, based both on reliance on the sacred scriptures of Islam and theological rationalism concerning the agency and attributes of God.[1][4][7] Ashʿarism eventually became the predominant school of theological thought within Sunnī Islam,[3][4][11] and is regarded as the single most important school of Islamic theology in the history of Islam.[3]

Two popular sources for Asharism creeds are Maqalat al-Islamiyyin and Ibana'an Usul al-Diyana.[12] Asharism adheres to Theological voluntarism (Divine command theory), thus right and wrong can not be determined intuitively or naturally, since they are not objective realities, but God commands – as revealed in the Quran and the ḥadīth — what is right and wrong.[13] Good is what God commands and is by definition just; evil is what God forbids and is likewise unjust.[14]

Some of the Hanafis follow the Ash'ari school of thought, such as:

Ash'ari leaders

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (2006). "Part 3: Islamic Philosophy in History – Dimensions of the Islamic Intellectual Tradition: Kalām, Philosophy, and Spirituality". Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present: Philosophy in the Land of Prophecy. New York: SUNY Press. pp. 124–126. ISBN 978-0-7914-6800-5. LCCN 2005023943.
  2. ^ "al-Ashʿari". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
  3. ^ a b c d Javad Anvari, Mohammad (2015). "al-Ashʿarī". In Madelung, Wilferd; Daftary, Farhad (eds.). Encyclopaedia Islamica. Translated by Melvin-Koushki, Matthew. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. doi:10.1163/1875-9831_isla_COM_0300. ISSN 1875-9823.
  4. ^ a b c Thiele, Jan (2016) [2014]. "Part I: Islamic Theologies during the Formative and the Early Middle period – Between Cordoba and Nīsābūr: The Emergence and Consolidation of Ashʿarism (Fourth–Fifth/Tenth–Eleventh Century)". In Schmidtke, Sabine (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 225–241. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199696703.013.45. ISBN 978-0-19-969670-3. LCCN 2016935488.
  5. ^ Frank, Richard M. (January–March 1989). "Knowledge and Taqlîd: The Foundations of Religious Belief in Classical Ashʿarism". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 109 (1). American Oriental Society: 37–62. doi:10.2307/604336. ISSN 0003-0279. JSTOR 604336. LCCN 12032032.
  6. ^ Glassé, Cyril, ed. (2003) [1989]. "Ashʿarī". The New Encyclopedia of Islam (3rd Revised ed.). California and Maryland: AltaMira Press. pp. 61–63. ISBN 978-0-7591-0190-6. OCLC 1291928025.
  7. ^ a b Frank, Richard M. (2020) [2007]. "Al-Ashʿarī's conception of the nature and role of speculative reasoning in theology". In Frank, Richard M.; Gutas, Dimitri (eds.). Early Islamic Theology: The Muʿtazilites and al-Ashʿarī. Texts and Studies on the Development and History of Kalām. Vol. II (1st ed.). London and New York: Routledge. pp. 136–154. doi:10.4324/9781003110385. ISBN 978-0-86078-978-9. LCCN 2006935669. S2CID 169898034.
  8. ^ Hoover, John (2020). "Early Mamlūk Ashʿarism against Ibn Taymiyya on the Nonliteral Reinterpretation (taʾwīl) of God's Attributes". In Shihadeh, Ayman; Thiele, Jan (eds.). Philosophical Theology in Islam: Later Ashʿarism East and West. Islamicate Intellectual History. Vol. 5. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. 195–230. doi:10.1163/9789004426610_009. ISBN 978-90-04-42661-0. ISSN 2212-8662. LCCN 2020008682. S2CID 219026357.
  9. ^ Halverson, Jeffry R. (2010). Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam: The Muslim Brotherhood, Ash'arism, and Political Sunnism. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 14–15. ISBN 9781137473578.
  10. ^ Weeks, Douglas. "The Ideology of Al Muhajiroun." Al Muhajiroun. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2020. 103-140.
  11. ^ Henderson, John B. (1998). "The Making of Orthodoxies". The Construction of Orthodoxy and Heresy: Neo-Confucian, Islamic, Jewish, and Early Christian Patterns. New York: SUNY Press. pp. 55–58. ISBN 978-0-7914-3760-5.
  12. ^ Richard McCarthy The theology of al-ash'ari 1953 Appendix IV
  13. ^ Brown, Jonathan A. C. (2014). Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy. Oneworld Publications. p. 53. ISBN 978-1-78074-420-9. Retrieved 4 June 2018.
  14. ^ John L. Esposito The Oxford History of Islam Oxford University Press 2000 ISBN 978-0-199-88041-6 p. 281
  15. ^ Al-Bayhaqi (1999). Allah's Names and Attributes. Translated by Gibril Fouad Haddad. Islamic Supreme Council of America. pp. 17–18. ISBN 9781930409033.
  16. ^ Aaron Spevack, The Archetypal Sunni Scholar: Law, Theology, and Mysticism in the Synthesis of Al-Bajuri, p 55. State University of New York Press, 1 Oct 2014. ISBN 143845371X
  17. ^ "Ahl al-Sunna: The Ash'aris - The Testimony and Proofs of the Scholars". almostaneer.com (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 28 January 2021.
  18. ^ "Abi al-Hasan al-Ash'ari Center for Doctrinal Studies and Research" (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 20 January 2018.
  19. ^ Bulliet, Richard (1970). "A quantitative approach to medieval Muslim biographical dictionaries". Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 13 (1): 195–211. doi:10.1163/156852070X00123. The great Ash'ari theological school was flourishing under Abu at-Tayyib as-Su'laki (d. 398), Ibn Furak (d. 406), al-Hakim an-Naisaburi (d. 405) and Abu Ishaq al-Isfara'ini
  20. ^ Namira Nahouza (2018). Wahhabism and the Rise of the New Salafists: Theology, Power and Sunni Islam. I.B. Tauris. pp. 121–122. ISBN 9781838609832.
  21. ^ Muhammad ibn 'Alawi al-Maliki. "The Ash'ari School". As-Sunnah Foundation of America. Archived from the original on 12 January 2021. Shaykh al-Islam Ahmad ibn Hajar al-'Asqalani (d. 852/1449; Rahimahullah), the mentor of Hadith scholars and author of the book "Fath al-Bari bi-Sharh Sahih al-Bukhari", which not a single Islamic scholar can dispense with, was Ash'ari. The shaykh of the scholars of Sunni Islam, Imam al-Nawawi (d. 676/1277; Rahimahullah), author of "Sharh Sahih Muslim" and many other famous works, was Ash'ari. The master of Qur'anic exegetes, Imam al-Qurtubi (d. 671/1273; Rahimahullah), author of "al-Jami' li-Ahkam al-Qur'an", was Ash'ari. Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Hajar al-Haytami (d. 974/1567; Rahimahullah), who wrote "al-Zawajir 'an Iqtiraf al-Kaba'ir", was Ash'ari. The Shaykh of Sacred Law and Hadith, the conclusive definitive Zakariyya al-Ansari (d. 926/1520; Rahimahullah), was Ash'ari. Imam Abu Bakr al-Baqillani (d. 403/1013; Rahimahullah), Imam al-'Asqalani; Imam al-Nasafi (d. 710/1310; Rahimahullah); Imam al-Shirbini (d. 977/1570; Rahimahullah); Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi, author of the Qur'anic commentary "al-Bahr al-Muhit"; Imam Ibn Juzayy (d. 741/1340; Rahimahullah); author of "al-Tashil fi 'Ulum al-Tanzil"; and others – all of these were Imams of the Ash'aris.
  22. ^ "Ahl al-Sunna: The Ash'aris - The Testimony and Proofs of the Scholars". almostaneer.com (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 28 January 2021.
  23. ^ Louis Massignon (2019). The Passion of Al-Hallaj, Mystic and Martyr of Islam, Volume 2: The Survival of Al-Hallaj. Translated by Herbert Mason. Princeton University Press. p. 158. ISBN 9780691657219.
  24. ^ Boyle, J.A. (January 1, 1968). The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 5: The Saljuq and Mongol Periods (Volume 5). Cambridge University Press. p. 299. Talbis Iblis, by the Ash'ari theologian Ibn al-Jauzi, contains strong attacks on the Sufis, though the author makes a distinction between an older purer Sufism and the "modern" one,
  25. ^ Mohammad Sharif Khan, Mohammad Anwar Saleem (1994). Muslim Philosophy and Philosophers. Ashish Publishing House - APH Publishing. p. 25. ISBN 9788170246237.