Knowra Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari (c. 874–936) was a Muslim theologian whose use of rational argument to defend Sunni doctrine established the Ashʿarī school of Islamic theology.
Islamic theology : The study of God, revelation, and religious doctrine within Islam. Al-Ashʿari helped establish a major Sunni approach to these questions.
Occasionalism : The view that God directly causes events, while created things and human acts have no independent causal power. Ashʿarī accounts of causation make divine agency decisive in every event.
Basra : A historic Iraqi city that became a major center of Islamic scholarship and theology. Al-Ashʿari studied and taught in Basra, where Muʿtazilite theology was influential.
Al-Ghazali : An eleventh- and twelfth-century Muslim theologian, jurist, and mystic who wrote influential defenses of Ashʿarī theology. His works carried Ashʿarī arguments into broad scholarly and religious debates.
Sunni Islam : The largest branch of Islam, grounded in the authority of the Quran, prophetic tradition, and the early Muslim community. His school became one of Sunni Islam’s principal theological traditions.
Kasb : The Ashʿarī doctrine that humans acquire acts created by God, making them accountable without creating their acts. It expresses how al-Ashʿarī’s school reconciles divine creation with human responsibility.
Abu Ali al-Jubba'i : A leading Muʿtazilite theologian of Basra and teacher of al-Ashʿari. Al-Ashʿari’s departure from Muʿtazilism followed his association with al-Jubba’i.
Maturidism : A major Sunni theological school founded by Abu Mansur al-Maturidi, with doctrines distinct from Ashʿarism. It became Ashʿarism’s principal theological counterpart among Sunni Muslims.
Kalam : Islamic speculative theology, which uses rational argument to defend and examine religious doctrines. Al-Ashʿari used its methods while criticizing some earlier kalam positions.
Divine omnipotence : The doctrine that God has unlimited power over everything that can exist or occur. Al-Ashʿarī’s theology gives divine power priority in explaining created events.
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