Unsaying God: Negative Theology in Medieval Islam (AAR ACADEMY SER)

351 Pages·2019·1.536 MB·English

by  Aydogan Kars

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Unsaying God
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ACADEMY SERIES
SERIES EDITOR
Aaron W. Hughes, University at Buffalo
A Publication Series of
The American Academy of Religion
and
Oxford University Press
THE CREATIVE SUFFERING OF TYPES OF PENTECOSTAL THEOLOGY
THE TRIUNE GOD Method, System, Spirit
An Evolutionary Theology Christopher A. Stephenson
Gloria L. Schaab
OTHER DREAMS OF FREEDOM
A THEOLOGY OF CRITICISM Religion, Sex, and Human Trafficking
Balthasar, Postmodernism, and the Catholic Yvonne C. Zimmerman
Imagination
LIBERALISM VERSUS
Michael P. Murphy
POSTLIBERALISM
INCARNATION ANYWAY The Great Divide in Twentieth- Century
Arguments for Supralapsarian Christology Theology
Edwin Chr. Van Driel John Allan Knight
DISABILITY AND CHRISTIAN IMAGE, IDENTITY, AND
THEOLOGY THE FORMING OF THE
Embodied Limits and Constructive AUGUSTINIAN SOUL
Possibilities Matthew Drever
Deborah Beth Creamer
RIGHTEOUS RHETORIC
MEETING GOD ON THE CROSS Sex, Speech, and the Politics of Concerned
Christ, the Cross, and the Feminist Critique Women for America
Arnfríður Guðmundsdóttir Leslie Durrough Smith
MUSLIMS, SCHOLARS, SOLDIERS ENFOLDING SILENCE
The Origin and Elaboration of the Ibādī The Transformation of Japanese American
Imāmate Traditions Religion and Art under Oppression
Adam R. Gaiser Brett J. Esaki
RACE AND RELIGION IN AMERICAN LONGING AND LETTING GO
BUDDHISM Christian and Hindu Practices of Passionate
White Supremacy and Immigrant Non- Attachment
Adaptation Holly Hillgardner
Joseph Cheah
MEANING IN OUR BODIES
JOURNEY BACK TO GOD Sensory Experience as Constructive
Origen on the Problem of Evil Theological Imagination
Mark S. M. Scott Heike Peckruhn
BEYOND THE WALLS THE GOODNESS OF HOME
Abraham Joshua Heschel and Edith Human and Divine Love and the Making
Stein on the Significance of Empathy for of the Self
Jewish- Christian Dialogue Natalia Marandiuc
Joseph Redfield Palmisano, SJ
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Unsaying God
Negative Theology in
Medieval Islam
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AYDOGAN KARS
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Kars, Aydogan, author.
Title: Unsaying God : negative theology in medieval Islam / Aydogan Kars.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019] |
Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018048099 |
ISBN 9780190942458 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780190942472 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: God (Islam)—Proof—History of doctrines. |
Negative theology—Islam. | Islamic countries—Intellectual life.
Classification: LCC BP166.2 .K28 2019 | DDC 297.2/11—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018048099
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
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To Aslı:
We have grown a flower that
No longer fits the pot.
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Acknowledgments
Reflecting on SufiSm and companionship, Henry Corbin said dec-
ades ago that “the Absolute has no face; only the person has a face per-
mitting the ‘face to face’ encounter.” This book owes a lot to my recent
encounters, some face to face, some virtual, and some, yes, imaginal.
First, it is the relentless support and guidance of Richard McGregor that
made this study possible. He has been continuously, gently, and naturally
embodying the meaning of scholarship. Next, it is my two companions at
Vanderbilt University, Ashkan Bahrani and Mohammad Meerzaei, who
have been providing me with scholarly dialogue and enduring support that
was indispensable in the ripening of this work. I am also thankful to my
other teachers and colleagues from the beautiful city of Nashville: David
Wasserstein, Lenn Goodman, Ellen Armour, and last but not least, Allen
Hibbard, whose friendship I am very much missing.
I am also indebted to various scholars who reviewed chapters of this
book and generously shared their insightful comments with me: Peter
Adamson, Livnat Holtzman, Khalil Andani, Samer Akkach, and Ken
Avery. Especially Mohammed Rustom illuminated my dark Ramadan
nights with his candid emails and insightful, meticulous responses to my
puzzled ideas.
My sincere thanks to my colleagues here at Monash University, who
joined me in reflecting on my project as it gradually evolved. Constant
Mews, Al Thomson, Peter Howard, Raphael Dascalu, Nathan Wolski,
Julian Millie, Bain Attwood, Susannah Radstone, Georgie Arnott, Ruth
Morgan, Tim Verhoeven, Daniella Doron, and Tamara Prosic: it has been
a privilege of mine to be working with these distinguished researchers.
This book was written in a world where it is difficult to concentrate on
research. I acknowledge the energy that I received from solidarity with
the Academics for Peace (Barış İçin Akademisyenler) in Turkey that kept
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xii Acknowledgments
me intellectually alive in the last few troubled years. They made me better
realize that I am part of multiple stories, many of which are just slightly
different narrations of ʿAṭṭār’s Conference of the Birds.
This humble book is my way of thanking my family. Rūmī said that
“the mirror of the soul is the face of the beloved,” to which his beloved re-
sponded: “words are for the other, my dear.”
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 Introduction
on a beautiful fRiday, according to an Anatolian anecdote, two villagers
eventually decided to begin performing the daily prayers that they had ne-
glected. They went to the mosque of their village and began listening to the
Friday sermon. Yet the sermon turned out to be infuriating. The preacher
was uttering only negative statements, occasionally decorating his sermon
with quotations from the Qurʾan: “God is not similar to what you imagine;
God cannot be compared to anything; God is elevated from anything you
say; God is not this, and God is not that.” One of them could not stand it
anymore, and whispered in the ear of his fellow: “This despicable man is
trying to say that there is no God, but he just cannot daresay it.”
This book is about what medieval Muslim scholars did actually say about
God, though in order to negate it. It examines the intellectual formations and
historical developments of negative speech performances— specifically, neg-
ative theological movements concerning the divine essence that developed
in medieval Islam. It presents a broad analysis of various Islamic disciplines
and schools to unearth diverse theological positions as well as figuring out
the intellectual contexts where negative discourses were performed.
Negative theology is difficult to pin down in Islamic intellectual history,
as our sources provide a rich variety of possibilities. When introducing the
Ismāʿīlīs, for example, the theologian ʿAbd al-M alik Imām al-Ḥ aramayn
al- Juwaynī (d.1085) employs a term that is a literal Arabic counterpart for
the Latin via negativa— the path of negation: “The path of Ismāʿīlīs is via
negativa [sulūkihim maslak al-n afy] instead of the affirmation of divine at-
tributes. If they are asked whether the creator exists, they negate it, and
say: ‘He is not not-e xistent.’ ”1 Al-J uwaynī was rather hostile to Ismāʿīlīs, but
1. Al- Juwaynī, Kitāb al- Irshād, 37.
Unsaying God: Negative Theology in Medieval Islam. Aydogan Kars,
Oxford University Press (2019). © Aydogan Kars. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190942458.003.0001
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2 intRoduction
the position he described was emphatically confirmed by famous Ismāʿīlī
scholars of his time, as we will explore in due course. Yet Abū Tammām
(fl.l.10th CE), himself an Ismāʿīlī doxographer of the time, ascribes a com-
parable double negation of speech to another group, a Zaydī branch of
Shīʿism in Yemen. Accordingly, the group—c alled Khalafiyya—r esisted
any positive, and indeed, negative speech when it comes to God:
These people will not describe God with any description that is suit-
able for created things nor will they say of Him that He is either
knowing [ʿālim] or not not knowing [lā lā ʿālim], not powerful [lā
qādir] or not not powerful [lā lā qādir], not a thing [lā shayʾ] or not
not a thing [lā lā shayʾ], not confined [lā maḥdūd] or not not con-
fined [lā lā maḥdūd]. They speak about the creator neither on the
basis of reality nor through metaphor. They rather talk by approx-
imation [taqrīb]. Thus if they were asked about God, “do you rec-
ognize Him?” They would remain silent. They will not say that we
recognize Him [naʿrifuhu] or that we do not not recognize Him [lā
lā naʿrifuhu]. For them, if they were to recognize Him, their recog-
nition of Him would encompass Him. Whoever is recognized and
becomes recognizable to his recognizer cannot be a god.2
Theological negativity, however, was by no means perceived to be ex-
clusive to Ismāʿīlī or Zaydī groups. Among the foremost “negators,”
according to the jurist Ibn Ḥazm (d.1064), were the Peripatetic philo-
sophers. Ibn Ḥazm accused al- Kindī (d.873) of contradicting his own neg-
ativist [salbī] theology when al-K indī tried to demonstrate that God is the
cause of all creation, after claiming that nothing can be applied to, thought
of, or said about Her. Ibn Ḥazm’s concerns were not unfounded. When
it comes to negating discourse on God’s essence, on the other hand, it
was such scripturalists and jurists who strictly applied the “without asking
how” [bilā kayfa] principle to cut off any discursive access to God’s nature.
In a similar spirit of prudence, legal scholars and traditionists would often
refuse to answer various theological questions, recommend another expert
to respond, or simply say “I don’t know.” As his favorite pupil famously
2. Abū Tammām, Kitāb al- Shajara, 96 (Arabic text). The English translation provided by
Madelung and Walker as “knowing or not knowing, powerful or not powerful, a thing or not
a thing, confined or not confined” omits the double negations in the original Arabic text. Cf.
ibid., 92 (English translation).