ABSTRACT

The extreme Ash‘arite emphasis on the omnipotence of God culminated, as we have seen, in the repudiation of the natural efficacy of ‘secondary’ agents, both animate and inanimate. The Ash‘arite doctors considered hitherto, however, offer no justification for their repudiation of this efficacy, save the pious contention that its admission is incompatible with the fundamental Koranic thesis of God's sovereignty and uniqueness. The classical statement of this thesis is found in the Creed of al-Ash‘arī (al-Ibāna), who sums up in a memorable passage this fundamentally Islamic conception of the unqualified omnipotence of Allah, who is the sole creator and master of everything; before whose will every other will must bend. ‘We believe,’ he writes, ‘that God created everything by bidding it “Be” (Kun) 1 . . . ; that nothing on earth, whether a fortune or a misfortune, comes to be save through God's will; that things exist through God's fiat; that no one can perform an act prior to its performance, or be independent of God or elude His knowledge . . . ; that there is no creator save God; and that the deeds of the creatures are created by Him and predestined by Him, as it is written: “He created you and your deeds” 2 ; that the creatures can create nothing but are rather created themselves . . . ; that God has pleased to give it to the pious to obey Him, through His grace, His care, His reform and His guidance; as He has pleased to delude (adhalla) the impious by refraining from guiding them graciously . . . ; that God could reform the impious and convert them unto godliness, but for his fore-ordination that they shall be impious as He foreknew, leading them thus to perdition and blindness. (We believe) that good and evil are the outcome of God's decree and fore-ordination and we profess faith in God's decree and fore-ordination (qadā’ wa qadar): good or evil, auspicious or ominous, and know that what has failed to attain us could not have attained us and what has befallen us could not have failed to attain us, and that creatures are unable to benefit or injure themselves, save through God's pleasure.’ 3