The Problem of Free Will in the Post-Classical Period of the Hanafī Tradition: Samarqandī’s and Sadr al-Sharī‘a’s Criticisms of al-Rāzī
İmam Rabbani ÇelikFakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210), who reconstructed Ashʿarite theology using the language and concepts of Avicennian philosophy, argued that the actions of the people were under compulsion (jabr). His argument to prove this view set the agenda of Hanafī theologians and jurists in the post-classical period. Shams al-Dīn al-Samarqandī (d. 702/1303) and al-Sadr al-Sharīʿa (d. 747/1346), who were among the first thinkers in Transoxiana to reexamine the scholarly legacy of the Hanafī tradition accumulation in theology and legal theory with the concepts and issues of Avicennian philosophy and classical logic, criticised al-Rāzī’s argument in their works. Although there are studies in the modern literature dealing with al-Rāzī’s and Sadr al-Sharīʿa’s approaches to the acts of people, there is a need for a study that deals with al-Samarqandī’s views on this issue in connection with these two thinkers’ ideas. This article aims to address a gap in the literature by examining the continuity and change in the criticism of al-Rāzī’s argument within Hanafī circles. It will also demonstrate how the Hanafī tradition in Transoxiana engaged with the Ashʿarite tradition during the post-classical period through discussions on free will. This article demonstrates that al-Samarqandī’s criticism does not differ from al-Rāzī’s argument of jabr in terms of cause because he also uses the hierarchical chain of causality. However, Sadr al-Sharīʿa’s conception of “the complete cause” differs from al-Rāzī’s conception of “hierarchical causality” and he integrates “the ontological category of state (al-ahwāl)” into “the complete cause”. In his criticism, Sadr al-Sharī’a went one step further than his predecessor and tried to refute the premises of the jabr argument.
Hanefî Geleneğin Klasik Sonrası Döneminde Özgür İrade Problemi: Semerkandî ve Sadrüşşerîa’nın Râzî’ye Eleştirileri
İmam Rabbani ÇelikEş‘arî kelâmını meşşâî felsefenin dili ve kavramlarıyla yeniden inşa eden Fahreddin er-Râzî (ö. 606/1210) kulların fiillerinin cebr altında olduğunu ileri sürmüştür. Onun bu görüşünü ispat için getirdiği argüman klasik sonrası dönemde Hanefî kelâmcı ve usûlcülerinin de gündemini belirlemiştir. Mâverâünnehir’de Hanefî geleneğin kelâm ve usûldeki birikimini meşşâî felsefenin ve mantığın kavram ve meseleleriyle yeniden ele alan ilk düşünürlerden olan Şemseddin es-Semerkandî (ö. 702/1303) ve Sadrüşşerîa (ö. 747/1346) yazdıkları eserlerle Râzî’nin bu argümanına eleştiriler yöneltmiştir. Modern literatürde özellikle müstakil olarak Râzî’nin ve Sadrüşşerîa’nın insan fiillerine yaklaşımlarını konu edinen çalışmalar yapılmakla birlikte Semerkandî’nin bu husustaki görüşlerini hususen bu iki düşünürle irtibatlı şekilde ele alan bir çalışmaya ihtiyaç vardır. Söz konusu ihtiyaca cevap vermeyi amaçlayan bu makalede zikri geçen iki Hanefî ismin Râzî’nin argümanına getirdikleri eleştiride süreklilik ve değişimin izi sürülecek ve Mâverâünnehir’deki Hanefî geleneğin klasik sonrası dönem Eş‘arî birikimiyle hesaplaşmasının irade tartışmalarına nasıl yansıdığı gösterilecektir. Bu makalede mezkûr iki Hanefî düşünürden Semerkandî’nin Râzî’yi eleştirisine rağmen onun cebr argümanının hiyerarşik sebeplik zincirini benimseyerek illet anlayışında onunla benzeştiği, Sadrüşşerîa’nın ise farklı bir tam illet tasavvurundan hareketle hâlleri de bu illete dâhil ettiği tespit edilmiştir. Sadrüşşerîa eleştirisinde selefinden bir adım öteye giderek cebr argümanın öncüllerini çürütmeye çalışmıştır.
The problem of free will in human actions is a controversial issue between the Hanafī/ Māturīdī tradition and the Ash‘ari tradition. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210), who reconstructs Ashʿarite theology with the language and concepts of Avicennian philosophy, argues that the actions of the people are under compulsion (jabr). In his argument to support this claim, al-Rāzī centers on the concept of “murajjiḥ” and argues that human action exists necessarily depending on the chain of causality. In this chain of causality, the human act necessarily comes into existence through the motivations (dāʿīs), which al-Rāzī characterizes as murajjiḥ, while motivations are created by the power of God, the ultimate murajjiḥ. According to al-Rāzī, human will (irāda) is necessarily determined by these dāʿīs. This argument, which al-Rāzī uses to prove his claim of jabr, sets the agenda of Hanafī theologians and jurists in the post-classical period. Shams al-Dīn al-Samarqandī (d. 702/1303) and Sadr al-Sharīʿa (d. 747/1346), who were among the first thinkers in Transoxiana to reexamine the scholarly legacy of the Hanafī tradition in theology and legal theory with the concepts and issues of Avicennian philosophy and classical logic, criticized al-Rāzī’s argument in their works.
Although there are several studies in the modern literature dealing with al-Rāzī’s and Sadr al-Sharīʿa’s approaches to the acts of people, there is a need for a study that deals with al-Samarqandī’s views on this issue in connection with these two thinkers’ ideas. This article aims to address a gap in the literature by examining the continuity and change in the criticism of al-Rāzī’s argument within Hanafī circles. It will also demonstrate how the Hanafī tradition in Transoxiana engaged with the Ashʿarite tradition during the post-classical period through discussions on free will.
In this article, I argue that the two Hanafī thinkers, Shams al-Dīn al-Samarqandī and Sadr al-Sharīʿa, respond to the concepts and issues of Avicennian philosophy and classical logic in different ways to the challenge of al-Rāzī’s argument of jabr. While al-Samarqandī criticizes al-Rāzī's jabr argument by adopting the hierarchical chain of causality that leads to divine determinism, Sadr al-Sharīa‘s criticism is based on the concept of “the complete cause (al-illā al-tāmma)” and the idea of “the ontological category of state (al-ḥāl)” which he considers to be included in the complete cause. In his argument, al-Samarqandī considers human will and power as the proximate cause of action and God‘s power as the remote cause of the action in the hierarchical chain of causality, thus arguing that human power has an effect on human action as much as God’s power. Thus, he prefers the approach of Abū İsḥāk al-Isferāyīnī (d. 418/1027), one of the early Ashʿarites, who accepted both God and human power as efficient causes of action. On the other hand Sadr al-Sharī’a, in his criticism, goes one step further than his predecessor and tries to refute the premises of the jabr argument of al-Rāzī. Sadr al-Sharīʿa in his counter-argument called “four premises (al-muqaddimāt al-arba‘)” breaks the chain of causality that leads to necessity by including “the noncausal states (al-ḥāl)”, such as human will, in the complete cause of human action. In addition, contrary to al-Rāzī’s claim, he argues that motivations (dāʾīs), do not necessarily determine the choice of human will in actions. With this approach, Sadr al-Sharīa seems to prefer the view of the classical Māturīdī tradition, which attributes the efficient cause of human action exclusively to God but recognizes a role for human beings, which is referred to as “kasb”.
