ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Hamadānī (d. 415/1025), the leading figure of the Basran branch of the Muʿtazilī school, whose rationalist system centres on God's unity, justice, and wisdom. ʿAbd al-Jabbār 's foundationalist epistemology divides knowledge into intuitive and acquired, holding that moral truths are known by reason and that faith must arise through rational enquiry rather than mere imitation. He argues for God's existence through the argument from origination, grounded in the kalām atomist framework of substances and accidents, and extends causality from human experience to the entire cosmos. God acts voluntarily, guided by justice and wisdom, creating the world freely yet always for a purpose. ʿAbd al-Jabbār regards God's attributes as identical with His essence, thereby affirming divine simplicity and transcendence. Human beings are physical composites endowed with life, power, and freedom, and their moral accountability depends on genuine agency and choice. Miracles are extraordinary acts that confirm prophethood and differ from ordinary events by breaking the regular course of nature. Revelation, properly interpreted, never contradicts reason. ʿAbd al-Jabbār's natural philosophy affirms real causality, stable regularities, and the intelligibility of the world, making his outlook compatible with a form of pragmatic methodological naturalism that upholds rational enquiry while recognising the exceptional role of divine action.
