Muhazili and Ashtari Approaches to Epistemology, Ethics, and Speech

In contrast, approaching ethics teleological, lying is bad when it is harmful and without benefit or when its benefit is less than the harm incurred. As we will see, Muhazili ethical theories of the 5th∕11th century exhibit both deon- tological and consequentialist elements, despite a common understanding of good and bad in terms of harm and benefit. Moreover, even among Muhazilis there appears to have been a shift historically toward favoring a consequential­ist ethics. ^tAbd al-Jabbar still draws on both deontological and consequential­ist factors when assessing acts; Abu l-Husayn al-Basri favors consequentialist considerations; and the later Muttazili Ibn al-Malahimi (d.

The other approach to knowledge, espoused by the Ashtari school of theol­ogy, conceives of knowledge as recognizing a thing for what it is, i.e., grasping its ontological truth by the person reflecting about it. Like Muttazilis, Ashtaris hold that reasoning is the process which leads to knowledge and by which one attains some form of representation of reality. For Ashtaris, the mental state of knowing is the same as the object of knowledge; for the person who obtains knowledge, her knowledge of something becomes identical to the reality of the thing known. Yet, and here Ashtaris differ from Muttazilis, this knowledge about the ontological state of the object of knowledge (its factuality) does not include normative knowledge; normative value is not known necessarily from reasoning or from obtaining knowledge about a thing.2⁵ That something is per­ceived as true, does not make it good.2⁶ The normative value of the object of knowledge (act under consideration) is not intrinsic to it, because harm and benefit are, as mentioned above, agent-specific. Judging an act as good or bad is not obtained from the nature, type or property that is attached to it. Rather, it is the subjective assessment of the act by an individual, for whom the reality of the assessment with regard to her own knowledge is nevertheless known.^[77] Zayd knows that hitting ^tAmr is good, and ^tAmr knows that being hit by Zayd is bad. The moral assessment of an act is known as true to the person experienc­ing it, though it is not intrinsic to the act. Normativity can only be known in relative terms - not absolute or universal.

1.3 The Role of Revelation

The Muttazili confidence in the intellect’s ability to determine normativity seems to preclude any need for Revelation or prophecy. Yet, this is not the case. Muttazilis affirm that humans are still in need of God sending His prophets and Revelation because, in contrast to God, the human intellect has its limits - it is imperfect - and, hence, some norms need to be revealed for humans - in particular those that inform them about how to secure salvation. Only from Revelation are reward and punishment known. God’s purpose with sending His Law and imposing culpability (takllf) upon humans is to benefit them through reward in the Afterlife.2^[78] The religious Law confirms what people already know about the mundane and divine realms through reasoning but, more importantly, supplements their knowledge of the path toward salvation^[79] People know that God’s commands are good because God, being just, perfect and all-knowing, does no evil, and, hence, commands only what is good.^{[80] [81]} Revelation informs about those acts to which the intellect is unable to assign a stable norm, such as the goodness of fasting during Ramadan or supereroga­tory prayer.31 Only through Revelation do people know that fasting in Ramadan is commanded, that the number of daily prayer is five, that the punishment for stealing (sariqa) is amputation, and that taking interest (riba) is prohibited. Moreover, only the divine Law informs that acting upon these commands and prohibitions is rewarded in the Afterlife. While, for Muttazilis, Revelation is not a prerequisite for knowledge of the existence of the Creator, it is needed in order to know that reward awaits the servant of God in the Hereafter for obedience to those divine commands that are not rationally knowable.^{[82] [83] [84] [85] [86] [87] God's justice - one of the most “pivotal” commitments of Muttazili thought33 - coupled with a belief in uniform normativity also leads Muhazili scholars to apply rationally knowable legal categories like obligation to God. God is obliged to provide His obedient servant with the promised reward, or else He would be unjust, which is impossible for God.34}

For Ash^taris, by contrast, Revelation is the start of normativity. Without Revelation, one cannot truly know the possibility of salvation. God is the source of normativity that creates universal norms in this world. Without the divine information, good and bad remain subjective norms evaluated accord­ing to what serves the subjective purpose of the human agent to attain benefit or prevent harm. It is only with Revelation that the normative value of an act in the eyes of God is knowable?⁵ However, doing what is ‘good' in the eyes of God is always only a possibility to salvation. It is only a ‘possibility' because in order to preserve God's omnipotence, Ash^taris also reject that salvation is earned on account of one's deeds?⁶ Rather it is God's generosity and benefac­tion (fadl, tafaddul, ni^rmcι) that grants eternal bliss.3⁷ A person's obedience to God's commands is not a sure path to paradise but facilitates it; and, in prin­ciple, God could forgive or even reward what in human estimation is a most heinous crime.

Hence, Ash^taris spend much of their inquiry on how to interpret the lan­guage of the revealed world to be guided to a god-pleasing life. The Law is much less defined in terms of ethics than in terms of the deontological perspective of obedience. People are obliged to obey God's commands and prohibitions not only as potential key to their salvation but because it is their obligation to obey their Creator, irrespective of His reward. Belief in humans' utter dependence on the mercy of an all-powerful God, together with people's inability to ratio­nally determine any stable normative conduct, disposes Ash^taris toward the view that the divine Law addresses all of human conduct. Hence, they argue for an all-encompassing religious Law or legal universality.^[88]

1.4 LanguageandLaw

These different approaches by Muhazilis and Ash^taris to epistemology and ethics influence their interpretation of the divine Law. More specifically, it impacts the way those instances are resolved that are not directly addressed in Revelation.3^[89] How is it known that the legal solution a jurist comes up with for a particular case is good in the eyes of God and corresponds to the same moral value as God's revealed command? These questions come to the foreground in the way jurists conceive of the procedure of analogical reasoning (qcyas). Key here is the ratio legis (^cilla). The presence of the ratio legis in both the scriptur- ally ruled upon and undetermined case warrants to transfer the divine ruling to the new case, and, thus, extend to the act in question God's legal intent as expressed through His laws.^{[90] [91] Since Scripture is interpreted through language, the way scholars interact with the word of God and how they understand speech to establish meaning influences their conception of the epistemology and ontology of the ratio legis. Leaving aside the complexities of how differ­ent scholars understand the nature of God, His essence, attributes, and what is accidental to Him, one significant aspect of Muttazili and Ashtari concep­tions of the divine speech is tied to their notion of continuity or discontinuity between the mundane and divine realms.}

Mu^ttazili confidence in a continuous, shared objective normativity extends to their speech theories. They generally favor a conception of speech as utter­ance (lα∕⅛). Speech is an arrangement of purposeful utterances, or sounds, that are produced at a specific point in time to create a given impact. 41 These utterances, hence, are arranged according to what the speaker wants to express at that moment in time to whoever is the addressee of these utter­ances. As communication, speech presupposes the existence of a recipient and a time-specific communicative situation.^{[92] [93] [94] [95] As physical utterance, speech is a time-dependent accident^3 For Muttazilis, divine speech, not being fundamen­tally different from human speech, follows the same pattern. God speaks at a particular point in time, namely at the time of Revelation, conveying His com­municative intent through the Prophet Muhammad. Hence, Muttazilis hold that the Qur’an as God's spoken word has been revealed at a particular point in time; it is temporal (hddith) and, thus, not co-eternal with God.44 Revelation as an act in time is, however, not the same as that to which the speech refers to, namely the thoughts and intentions of the Speaker/God - they are eternal with God on account of Him being able to speak eternally. Revelation itself does not generate a normative judgment because the normative value of the act under consideration exists time-independently from the spoken word. The actual spoken word at the moment of Revelation is, however, conceived of as a temporal speech act. This speech act (Qur’an) is understandable and interpre­table by humans; and conveys the meaning that the speaker (God) intended to convey in this speech act.45 The confidence in shared human experience and in a measure of continuity between this world and the unseen allows Muttazilis to understand Revelation as the expressed intention of God. This intention is expressed in a language, i.e., Arabic, that can be correctly understood through analysis of the rules of human language conventions. Correct understanding of the revealed utterances, thus, leads to a correct assessment of the meaning of God's speech. Divine command, then, is the sign (amara, calam) that indicates or provides supplementary information that the commanded action is good and should be done.}

As we will see in the next chapters, the Mu^ttazili confidence in human ability to understand the language of Revelation also informs the way they employ legal analogy. The divine rulings are extended in analogy based on lin­guistic signs used in the textual statements that inform about divine rulings.

God indicates His legislative intent in the words He uses. He does not impose undue hardship or uncertainty on humans in deciphering His words, though humans may not always discern the intended meaning.

Ash^taris have a somewhat different conception of speech. For them, speech is a meaning (ma^rna) in the mind of the speaker^[96] that is expressed through signs, namely arranged utterances, which are established by convention^^[97] The mental speech (kalam nafsi) is the proposition that the speaker intends to convey through the physical manifestation of that mental speech in form of utterances; the meaning of speech is independent of and prior to the use of language as physical utterance^^{[98] [99] The sequence of utterances used by the speaker to communicate the intended message is motivated by the usage of words (convention) and is grasped by the addressee from the context in which the words are uttered.4θ Emphasizing a subjective epistemology, Ashtaris also espouse that the mental speech of the speaker is not necessarily the same as the meaning that the addressee understands from that speech. The recipient has to decipher or interpret the meaning of what the speaker conveys by con­sidering a combination of the conventional assignment of meaning (wadf) to the uttered words, their literal and figurative use (istimdl), and the situational context (qarlna) in which the words are spoken.[100] [101] [102] [103]}

With regard to divine speech, the situation for the recipient is similar. God's speech as divine mental speech exists with God eternally - since God is eternally speaking?¹ The Qur’an is a manifestation of God's mental speech.5² However, God being utterly different from His creation means for the recipi­ents of the communication that the divine mental speech, as manifested in the Qur’an, can only be interpreted according to human speech conventions^³ When studying the Qur’an in light of human speech conventions, it is appar­ent that it is beyond mundane linguistic capacities, i.e., it is discernable as an anomaly or interruption of what humanly is possible - a miracle (muj'izα).^{[104] [105] [106]} The interpretation of God's speech remains, however, purely within the realm of the mundane. It is always only an approximation of people's interpreta­tion of God's intended meaning; they can never be sure that it actually is.55 As Mustafa remarks so succinctly, for Ash^taris “the textual evidence of scripture, by the very fact of its being linguistic, obscures rather than illuminates the real meaning of scripture.... The textual evidence of scripture thus becomes merely the beginning, rather than the ultimate end, of Ash^tari legal hermeneutics."5θ

The ultimate incomprehensibility of the divine mind and divine will as con­ceived by Ash^tarism leads, similar as in Christian Protestantism, to a constant insecurity among the believers whether they understand and interpret God's message correctly, and are doing what is ‘good'. This insecurity about God's legislative intent is, I argue, exactly why Muslim scholars searched for ways to alleviate such doubt.5^[107] One avenue was the adoption of syllogistic reason­ing to attain certainty in one's arguments^^[108] another was institutionalizing Consensus (ijma^e) as a source of Law.^[109] Another search for stability led to the reification of God's legislative intent in the concept of maslaha and employing this purpose of the Law as ratio legis in the procedure of analogy. Articulating the objective of the Law as attaining maslaha and averting mafsada for the five necessities of human existence, al-Ghazali imbued the ratio legis with ethi­cal values that are tangibly recognizable. He thereby reified God's legislative intent and provided a stable normative framework.

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