Abstract
§adr al-Sharī‘a’s (d. 747/1346) four premises (al-muqaddimāt al-arba‘), which were formulated to
refute Fakhr al-Din al-Rāzī’s (d. 606/1210) argument negating human volitional acts and to re-articulate the
principles of the Hanafī-Māturīdī tradition on the subject in a theoretical language, and Mehmed Birgīvī’s
(d. 981/1573) later explanations on these premises have shaped the discussions on free-will and human
action in the lands of Rum. Ibrāhīm al-Kūrānī, an Akbarian-Ash‘arī scholar who operated in Hijāz during the
17th century and was influential in the lands of Hijāz, Damascus and North Africa, wrote numerous works
on this subject. With his treatise Jilā’ al-AnÛār, al-Kūrānī also got involved in the version of the discussion
that occurred in the lands of Rum and analyzed the views of §adr al-Sharī‘a and al-Birgiwī. Al-Kūrānī
evaluated and challenged the dominant Hanafī-Māturīdī tradition in his time and addressed various issues
such as the possibility of proving human moral responsibility through the notions of particular will (al-
irāda al-juz’īyya) and performance (īqāʿ ), whether the states (ahwāl) were subject to creation, and if the will
needed a cause for making choices. Moreover, he focused on the establishment of a middle position between
absolute freedom (tafwīd ) and absolute determinism (jabr). This paper aims to contextualize al-Kūrānī’s
views and criticisms within the related intellectual history by suggesting that, similar to the interactions he
had with other intellectual circles, al-Kūrānī’s interactions with the lands of Rum through his criticism of
the dominant Hanafī-Maturidī tradition of the time was connected to his purpose of opening up space for
his own intellectual position and views that had the ambition to reconcile the different schools of thought.
Keywords
voluntary act volition particular will īqā‘ al-Muqaddimāt al-arba‘ Ibrāhīm al-Kūrānī §adr al- Sharī‘a al-BirgiwīShare
Details
- Authors: Şerife Nur Çelik, Ankara University
- DOI: dx.doi.org/10.12658/Nazariyat.8.1.M0152en
- Year: 2022 (May) / Volume: 8 / Issue: 1
- Page: 63-100
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