Alternative Titles: Ashʿarīyah, Asharite
Ashʿariyyah, in Islam, school of theology supporting the use of reason and speculative theology (kalām) to defend the faith. Followers of the school, which was founded by Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī in the 10th century, attempted to demonstrate the existence and nature of God (Allāh) through rational argument while affirming the eternal, uncreated nature of the Qurʾān, the sacred scripture of Islam that Muslims believe to be the divine word. They were accused by the Muʿtazilah—theologians from a school promoting a much more extreme rationalism—of believing in predestination because of their claim that the human capacity for action was acquired only at the very moment of action.
This article was most recently revised and updated by Matt Stefon, Assistant Editor.
Islamic world: The Almoravid dynasty
…the limited rationalism of the Ashʿarite school, which was becoming so popular in the eastern Muslim lands. Like the Ashʿarites, he viewed the unity of God as one of Islam's fundamentals and denounced any reading of the Qurʾān that led to anthropomorphism. Because he focused on attesting the unity of…
al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī
…Muʿtazilah (philosophical theologians) and the Ashʿariyyah (followers of the theologian al-Ashʿarī), the two most important theological schools in early Sunni (traditionalist) Islam, consider Ḥasan one of their founders.…
Māturīdīyah
…Māturīdīyah differed also from the Ashʿarīyah on the question of the "assurance of salvation." They held that a Muslim who sincerely performed his religious duties as prescribed by God in the Qurʾān, and as explained and taught by his prophet, is assured of a place in heaven. The Ashʿarīyah maintained…
kasb
…al-Ashʿarī and his followers (the Ashʿarīyah) to clarify kasb, it remained one of the most vague theories in Islāmic theology, as the proverb aḍaqq min kasb al-Ashʿarī ("more subtle than the kasb of al-Ashʿarī") indicates.…
kalām
The Ashʿarīyah, a 10th-century school of kalām, was a mediation between the rationalization of the Muʿtazilah and the anthropomorphism of the traditionalists and represented the successful adaptation of Hellenistic philosophical reasoning to Muslim orthodox theology. They too affirmed the freedom of the human will but denied…
More About Ashʿariyyah
comparison with Māturīdīyah
In Māturīdīyah
influence on Ibn Tūmart's revolt
In Islamic world: The Almoravid dynasty
role of Ḥasan al-Baṣrī
In al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī
In kalām
In kasb
Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī
Buddha, (Sanskrit: "Awakened One") the founder of Buddhism, one of the major religions and philosophical…