ABSTRACT
Al-Qāḍī Abū ʾ l-Ḥasan ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn Aḥmad al-Hamadhānī al-Asadābādī (d. 1025) a prominent judge in Rayy, Iran (now a southern suburb of Tehran) during the Būyid period, is today remembered above all as an eminent theologian of the Muʿtazilī school. His writings record otherwise lost excerpts of the early Muʿtazila and reflect his original contributions on a wide range of topics, not only theological but also jurisprudential, exegetical and apologetical. The last term in his name represents his place of birth (probably in the mid-930s): Asadābād, a small town (also the birthplace of Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī) known for its honey production in a mountain valley in western Iran, to the southwest of Hamadhān. The first term represents his profession later in life, when he worked as a judge under the vizier al-Ṣāḥib ibn ʿAbbād (d. 995), during the reigns of the Būyid princes Muʾ ayyid al-Dawla (r. 977–84) and Fakhr al-Dawla (r. 984–97) in Rayy.
