Early Science and Medicine 14 (2009) 68-78
www.brill.nl/esm
The Simple Ontology of Kalām Atomism: An Outline A.I. Sabra*
Harvard University
Abstract is paper aims to present concisely the Islamic kalām atomism as an alternative philosophy to Hellenizing falsafa. Kalām is a theological-philosophical discourse which, first (in the third/ninth century) ventured to rival the falsafa represented early by al-Kindī (d.ca. 252/866), then by al-Fārābī and Avicenna in the fourth/tenth and fifth/ eleventh centuries, and which eventually (in the sixth/twelfth century and after) appeared to be inclined to propose a mingling of the kalām discourse with falsafa in a series of varied “syntheses”.—Focusing on the simple ontology of the basic kalām atomism, and noting the hybrid character of kalām, the aim of this paper is to help to clarify the inevitable problematic consequences of those late ventures of Islamic intellectualism. Keywords kalām, atomism, Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, al-Ashʿarī, al-Ījī, al-Naẓẓām, al-Muʿtazila
I “... only the Exalted God and His actions exist.” e Ash‘arite Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, d. 505/11111 * History of Science Department, Science Center 371, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A. (
[email protected]). Web Site, including a complete list of publications: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~sabra. 1) Al-Ghazālī, al-Mustaṣfā min ʿilm al-uṣūl, Būlāq, 1322, vol. I, pp. 26-27: “[...] knowing/knowledge is the occurrence of forms, or similitudes, of things, in the mirror of reason (al-ʿaql); and reason is the innate disposition (al-gharīza) through which it is able to receive the forms; now, the soul, or the human reality that is endowed with this innate disposition to receive the intelligibles, [acts] like a mirror. [...] this analogy will help [the reader] to understand what knowing really is; for when the real intelligibles © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009
DOI : 10.1163/157338209X425506
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1. Introduction 1.1. Al-Kalām, or what came to be known to its practitioners as “the science of al-kalām, ‘ilm al-kalām,” is a theological-philosophical discourse which arose in Baṣra and Baghdad shortly before the time when the ‘Abbasid rulers in Baghdad undertook to promote the astounding projects of translating Greek medicine, science, mathematics and philosophy into Arabic at the middle of the second/ eighth century.—It should be noted immediately that at least some of the early ‘Abbasid rulers were also supportive of the first large kalām ‘school’, the so-called Muʿtazila or Muʿtazilīs, who were known for championing the role of reason/al-ʿaql in theological thinking. In the fourth/tenth century a well-practiced Muʿtazilite, Abū l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/935), broke away from the Muʿtazila to found what eventually came to be the largest school of kalām known as the Ashʿarīs or Ashʿarites. Despite some significant doctrinal differences between the two schools, it is the opinion of the present writer (and others) that some specific and important Ashʿarite doctrines can and should be understood as natural, if not logical, developments of Muʿtazilite doctrines. And in accordance with this opinion, it is my assumption that a correct and complete understanding of Ashʿarism is not possible without grasping the earlier Muʿtazilite arguments, many of which have been preserved in al-Ashʿarī’s own clear and precise accounts in his outstanding Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn/ Islamic Doctrines.2 1.2. e well-known third-/ninth-century littérateur, al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/868-9), who originated in Baṣra, was also a noted mutakallim, or practitioner of kalām, and the leader of a school of kalām known after his name. He wrote in his monumental book, called Animals impress themselves upon the rational soul, they will be called ‘knowledge’. And, just as the heavens and the trees and the rivers are conceived to be seen in a mirror as if they existed in the mirror, and as if the mirror contained them all, so the whole divine presence (al-ḥaḍra al-ilāhiyya) is conceived to be impressed upon the human soul. Now, the ‘divine presence’ is an expression for the totality of existing things, all of them being [part] of the divine presence — since only the exalted God and His actions exist (idh laysa fī l-wujūdi illā Allāha taʿālā wa af ʿālahu).” 2) Hellmut Ritter, ed., Abū l-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn, 2nd ed. (Wiesbaden, 1963).
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(Kitāb al-Ḥayawān), a sentence to the effect that the practice of kalām as an argumentative discourse on religion (called kalām al-dīn) would be less than perfect unless it was “brought to the level” of the discourse of philosophy (kalām al-falsafa). I have used that sentence as a motto for an article with the title “Kalām Atomism as An Alternative Philosophy to Hellenizing Falsafa.”3 — On this occasion I should like to focus on some features of the atomistic theory forming a basis of kalām as discussed by the early school of the Muʿtazila and as later developed by al-Ashʿarī and his early followers. 1.3. Even as a discourse on religion, kalām obviously inclined, right from the start, to use forms of arguments some of which were clearly employed by ancient (and modern) philosophers; and it is of course important to identify these forms, their sources and characteristics.—In the article just mentioned I briefly describe some of these forms. Now I am concerned only with a basic, though apparently overlooked, form of argument, namely the ontology that lays the foundation of a certain kind of “atomism” explored and generally chosen by the Muʿtazila and later developed and adapted by al-Ashʿarī and his followers. 2. e Ontology of Kalām Atomism 2.1. Ontology is the theory of what there is. My aim is to answer the question: what is it, for kalām, and, in particular, Ashʿarite kalām, that exists in the created World (al-ʿālam); or, more specifically, what is it that exists in the World according to the basic doctrine of kalām atomism known to the mutakallimūn (practitioners of kalām) as daqīq al-kalām, subtle kalām.—My proposed answer to this question will be: not things, but events or occurrences (ḥawādith) in space and time; and this answer will imply that the atom itself is
is article is contained in James E. Montgomery, ed., Arabic eology, Arabic Philosophy: Essays in Celebration of Richard M. Frank (Leuven, 2006), 199-272.—Hereafter, I shall refer to this article as KAF. 3)
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such an occurrence or event that is presupposed by all other events in the World.4 2.2. My argument can be summarised briefly as follows. By definition, events are characterised by four co-ordinates: three of them are those of space, and they attach to the atom called ‘simple’ or ‘individual’ substance (al-jawhar al-basīṭ, or al-jawhar al-fard), or to aggregates of atoms called ‘composite substances’, also by virtue of being occupiers of place; the fourth co-coordinate is the time at which a “quality” or “property” (maʿnā) or “accident” (‘araḍ) momentarily inheres, or comes-to-occur, in a simple atom or in an aggregate of atoms called ‘body’. 2.3. Space and time, both being neither substances nor accidents, they are consequently conceived and clearly treated as relations or conventions.5 3. e Definition of Atom as a Postulate 3.1. e definition of atom as a simple, individual or indivisible substance is itself also a postulate asking us to grant these qualifications, just as in the way that Euclid’s “definition” of point asks us to grant that a point is “that which has no part/sēmeion estin, ou meros outhen.” at means that we are not at liberty to confer upon the atom other qualities such as size and shape.—As a substance, then, the atom is completely characterized as a place-occupying entity, and completely defined as a simple or indivisible entity that occupies place.
Note that the English verb ‘to occur’, like the Arabic verb ḥadatha, from which the singular noun ḥadath (occurrence) and the derived plural, ḥawādith, is intransitive, and so is ‘to-come-to-be’, kāna. By contrast, ‘to create,’ and the Arabic khalaqa, are transitive, implying a creator/khāliq and a created/makhlūq. 5) See KAF, 206-07, esp. 215-17; ʿAḍud al-Dīn al-Ījī, Kitāb al-Mawāqif fī ʿilm al-Kalām [hereafer: Mawāqif], ed. Ibrāhīm al-Dusūqī ʿAṭiyya and Aḥmad al-Ḥanbulī (Cairo, 1357/1938-39); on relativity of time, see 112.—See also: Al-Tahānawī, Muḥammad Aʿlā ... al-Fārūqī, Kashshāf Iṣṭilāḥāt al-Funūn, 3 vols, Dār Ṣādir, Beirūt, no date, vol. II:619-623, entry on time: al-Zamān, esp. 621, on “the mutakallimūn,” particularly al-Ashʿarī and his followers. 4)
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3.2. e well-known debate, first initiated among the Muʿtazila, as to how many atoms are necessary to make up a “body” (jism), or composite substance, came to be considered by some leading Ashʿarites as a useless digression: we can regard two composed atoms as ‘length’, meaning that they can be imagined to be joined by a straight line, or else call them ‘an aggregate of two atoms’; similarly, we can call three composed atoms a ‘plane’, meaning that they can be joined by three non-collinear lines, or ‘a particular aggregate of three atoms’; and, again, we might call four atoms a ‘body’, or ‘another particular aggregate of four atoms’.—But a body must be defined as that which has length, breadth and depth—these three characteristics being distinguished among themselves by means of the concept of ‘right angle’.—For the influential fourteenth-century Ashʿarite ‘Aḍud al-Dīn al-Ījī (d. 756/1355), the early well-known debate had been merely “a verbal [that is, useless] dispute.”6 3.3. As for us, we can easily see the decisive Euclidean contributions to the definitions of atom and body. 4. Modes of Coming-to-be in Space: al-akwān 4.1. e behaviour of atoms in space is completely described in terms of exactly four accidents (aʿrāḍ. sing. ‘araḍ) all of which expressed as distinct modes of “coming-to-be” (akwān, sing. kawn, from kāna, to-be or to come-to-be):– at any single moment, an existing atom either comes-to-be in-motion, or comes-to-be at-rest; and, simultaneously, it might come-to-be in-separation-from and/ or in-contact-with another atom or group of atoms. 4.2. us motion involves two places and two times; and rest involves two times and one place; and, therefore, both motion and rest involve a coming-to-be at every moment during their initially created existence. 4.3. Al-Ashʿarī, in contrast to the Muʿtazila, and especially against the often misunderstood al-Naẓẓām (d. 230/845), did not regard the initial “creation” of an atom or body in the World as motion, See, in KAF, Marṣad (i) in Ījī’s Mawāqif On Bodies, 259-271, especially the discussion on what he calls “the true [doctrine],” and note 32. 6)
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for the reason that initial creation is not preceded by the atom’s or body’s being-at-rest or in-motion.) 4.4. In regard to separation: when an atom A comes-to-be inseparation-from B, then B would have simultaneously come-to-be in-separation-from A. is illustrates the relativity of spatial locations. 4.5. In regard to contact, it may be noted that the term actually covered all cases involving touching (mumāssa) of substances—such as pressure, impact, collision, cohesion, etc. 4.6. To be noted, and kept in mind, is the fact that the four akwān are all explicated in terms of the basic concept of “comingto-be” (al-kawn).—Not to observe this is to miss the direction of argument in all of kalām ontology from the start. To complete the argument, we only need to turn to kalām explication of accidents, as will now be shown.7 5. Motion as “Departure” (zawāl). Rest as a Coming-to-be (kawn). An Obvious and Definitive Rupture with Aristotelianism 5.1. Two assertions are especially important about the kalām doctrines of motion and rest; both assertions are shared by the Ashʿarīs and the Muʿtazilīs. First is the definition of motion only in terms of place and time, and in the total absence of all Aristotelian concepts like actuality and potentiality, and completion or perfection, and of any Neoplatonic concepts. Descartes would agree. 5.2. e definition of motion is consistent with al-Ashʿarī’s explicit understanding of motion simply in terms of “departure” (zawāl) from one place to another—period. 5.3. e second assertion is the explication of rest in terms of a ‘coming-to-be’—exactly as in the case of motion; which implies that to-be-at-rest at p at time t is not, of necessity (or, of itself ) followed by a being-at-rest at p at the immediately following moment;
On the akwān doctrine, and on motion, see KAF, pp. 209-11, and pp. 211-15; for the supporting quotations in English translation, see KAF, pp. 221 and following pages. 7)
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which in turn signals that a cause is always involved in both motion and rest, and in both “separation” and “contact”. —As the reader will have guessed, the cause, for the Ahʿarīs, is always meta-physical, being no other than God’s free and unmediated action.—But we still have to introduce the role of accidents. 6. Accidents: What they Are, Generally8 6.1. Generally, accidents (aʿrāḍ, sing. ‘araḍ) are occurrences that come to inhere in (taqūmu fī) a single or composite substance, only for a single moment.—Note that it is through this instantaneous inherence or attachment that an accident acquires its momentary position in space, thereby gaining the qualification of being an event or occurrence in space as well as time. 6.2. But, as a result of considering all accidents as occurrences in a subject (fī mawḍūʿ), that is, a place-occupying substance, it was inevitable for the mutakallimūn, both Muʿtazilīs and Ashʿarīs, to confront the following question with regard to motion as departure from one place to another: namely, where must the accident motion occur9—at the first or the second place? 6.2.1. at, we now know, was the kind of question that plagued all exclusive subject-predicate ontologies throughout the history of philosophy, until they were exorcized by Bertrand Russell. For al-Ashʿarī, the answer was: that stepping into the Mosque from the street is identical with abandoning or departing from the street. 7. Accidents as Defined by the Muʿtazila and the Ashʿarites 7.1. For the Ashʿarīs, accident is both what comes-to-be and stands, resides or inheres in (qāma fī) what occupies place. Whereas, for the Muʿtazilīs, accident is that which, if it exists, must inhere in what occupies place, their reason being that accident is, by itself, In Ījī’s Mawāqif, the discussions of “accidents” (al-aʿrāḍ) occupy the pages KFA, 96-181; they have yet to receive the attention they certainly deserve. 9) See al-Ashʿarīʿs Maqālāt al-Islāmīyīn, 353-56; KFA, 235-37; and Ibn Fūrak, Mujarrad Maqālāt al-Ashʿarī, ed. Daniel Gimaret (Beirut, 1987). 8)
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only a definite or determinate (thābit) “description,” whether it does or does not exist. is is not the place to comment in any detail on the important discussions in kalām about “whether the non-existent is a thing” (hal al-maʿdūm shayʿ, i.e. some-qualification-or-other, which seems to be a question about ‘existence’ rather than about ‘thing’.) —However: 7.2. Explicating, briefly, the Muʿtazilite argument, we may say that a ‘square circle’ and an ‘oval circle’ both do not exist, and yet they are distinct one from the other by virtue of their “determinate” and “differing” accidents, namely ‘square’ and ‘oval’.10 7.3. e falāsifa, for their part, are understood as holding that an accident is that which, if it has external existence, must inhere in a supporting subject (mawḍūʿ) also termed maḥall muqawwim, supporting substrate). 8. Characteristics of Accidents, Especially for al-Ashʿarī and His Followers 8.1. By definition, then, an accident, for al-Ashʿarī and his followers, does not inhere in another accident, but always in a substrate (maḥall) which itself occupies place; speed, for example, is not a quality of motion but of the body in motion. 8.2. Moreover, accidents do not migrate from one substrate to another; what may appear as a loco-motion (intiqāl) of one and the same accident is in fact a creation in some substance of another instance (shakhṣ) of the quality inhering in the other substance. 8.3. us one and the same quality cannot inhere in two substrates at once; the black inhering in one substrate is existentially other than the black inhering in the other. It may be helpful to note that (for the Muʿtazila) a ṣifa thubūtiyya is either a definite (thābit) attribute of the ing (al-dhāt) of which it is an attribute, without including any additional qualities of the ing, such as being a substance, or something else that exists; or the ṣifa thubūtiyya is a qualifying attribute (ṣifa maʿnawiyya) indicating a characteristic over and above the ing, such as occupying-place (taḥayyuz), or coming-tobe (ḥudūth), or accepting accidents. 10)
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8.4. And, finally, an accident does not itself endure for more than one instant; only the free-acting Creator determines how long it persists, that is, how long it continually comes-into-being. 8.5. Accidents may of course belong to a living thing, and when they do they are the life itself and all the accidents/qualities that accompany the presence of life, including, e.g., willing, perceiving, believing, knowing, and the ability to perform other actions. 8.6. All remaining accidents are comprised of the four comingsto-be (al-akwān) plus the sensible qualities (al-maḥsūsāt) of placeoccupying entities. 9. Two Historical Comments 9.1. As can be imagined, all these doctrines were bound to provoke, not trivial or “verbal” disputes, but substantial and long-lasting arguments between, on one hand, the mutakallimūn, both Ashʿarīs and Muʿtazilīs, and, on the other hand, the committed “falāsifa,” who clung to positions received from Aristotle and his ancient supporting commentators and from the Neoplatonists, or, what is historically most important, the hopeful “conciliators” of kalām and falsafa. 9.2. e resulting debates in fact constituted the major and dominant part of what we often refer to as “Islamic philosophical thought” from, say, the time of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1209) on. II 10. God and Humans So far in this account, God has been mentioned as the sole cause/ creator of all events in a World of substances and accidents, including of course humans (al-insān) and what humans seem to be able to do. By introducing humans as creatures under obligation to their creator we come to a distinct and fundamental aspect of kalām referred to as a ‘theology’ concerned with what are called Traditions/Samʿiyyāt.—Under this aspect we meet, for example, the con-
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cept of origination or initial creation of the World in time, and we see ourselves as “actors” in a drama of birth, death and resurrection, always expressed in terms of right and wrong, punishment and reward, both measured and distributed by a just and compassionate God. Above all we come to the questions of God’s existence and His attributes, being questions of our knowledge of His existence, His attributes and His demands, etc. At this point philosophy must make room for what is acquired from the Revealed Book and from the Last Messenger to whom e Book was first revealed; and, accordingly, kalām discussions have been bound to take the form of a hybrid discourse that is concerned with Traditions/Samʿiyyāt as well as rational arguments. And yet, we should keep in mind that neither the “subtle kalām/ daqīq al-kalām,” concerned with the behaviour of atoms and bodies in space, nor the “exalted kalām/jalīl al-kalām,” mainly concerned with God and His relations with humans, were ever completely detached from what we normally call rational thinking.—It should be remembered that both the Muʿtazila and the Ashʿarites were definitely and explicitly against taqlīd, or the slavish acceptance of authority. And one would therefore hope that the recent modern period in which kalām was mostly regarded as merely “apologetic discourse” is now definitely over. III e preceding is written as a philosophical argument clarifying a position that may be suggested by the following hypothesis consisting of thirteen propositions: 1. 2. 3.
e world (al-ʿālam) is all that occurs (kullu mā yaḥduth). Occurrences are events (ḥawādith) in space and time: all have space and time coordinates. Occurrences consist of the coming into being of place-occupying entities called ‘substances’ (sing. jawhar), and of accidents (sing. ‘araḍ) that may only reside (taḥillu fī) or inhere (taqūmu fī) in substances momentarily.
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4. 5.
6.
7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
13.
Substances are initially created (tukhlaq, tubtadaʿ, tukhtaraʿ) and subsequently re-created (tuʿād) at every moment of their span of existence. Substances are of two types (ḍarbān): (1) “simple” or “individual” substances (sing. jawhar basīṭ, or jawhar fard or munfarid), called ‘atoms’ (sing. al-juzʿ, or al-juzʿ alladhī lā yatajazzaʿ: the part, or the indivisible part); and (2) composites of these, called ‘bodies’. Four accidents, known as al-akwān, the comings-to-be, completely describe the possible behaviour of substances as place occupiers: at every moment, a substance (atom or body) either (1) comes-to-be in motion, from one place to another, or (2) comes-to-be at rest in one and the same place; and, through motion and rest, a substance may (3) come-to-be in contact with, or (4) in separation from, another substance or substances. Accidents acquire their spatial positions from their inevitable association with place-occupying substances. Space and time, being neither substances nor accidents that reside or inhere in substances, are relations: Space is an order of relations that happen to obtain between substance-occupied places (positions) at any moment. Time is an arbitrary convention of correlating coincident or simultaneous events. All occurrences are contingent, all of them being choices or free actions of a transcendent, unique and omnipotent Agent: In the created world of events, there are no Aristotelian substances, no natures or natural powers or forces, no forms or essences or necessities; there is only one, meta-physical, cause which acts without means or intermediary agents: “Creating,” the act of a transcendent Being, “is that which is created” (“al-khalq huwa l-makhlūq”).
