Kādî Abdülcebbâr Örneğinde Mahalsiz Hâdis İrâde Teorisinin Savunusu

Abstract

This article deals with the Bahshamites' theory of God's attribute of will that is in no substrate and temporally created (iradatun hadithatun la fi l-mahall). According to the theory, God's attribute of will genuinely exists and it has no carrier. The two primary components of the theory are that will is in no substrate and temporally created. Since these features led to physical and theological challenges, they were subjected to various criticisms both within and outside the sect. In response to these criticisms, the Bahshamites revised the understanding of accidents and developed internally consistent answers to the theory. The aim of this study is to present the answers to the criticisms through Qadi 'Abd al-Jabbar, one of the significant representatives of the Bahshamites. In this regard, the article focuses on Qadi 'Abd al-Jabbar's treatise, encompassing the criticisms that emerged concerning the divine will's attributes of being in no substrate and temporally created, as well as the counterarguments given to these arguments. The primary factor that led the Bahshamites to the defense of this theory was the sect's tenets of tawhid and justice. According to the principle of tawhid, the existence of an eternal attribute carried by God's essence cannot be accepted as it implies the acknowledgment of other eternal beings alongside God's essence. Thus, divine wills cannot be included in the category of divine attributes (sifatun ma'nawiya). According to the tenet of justice, the will (being a disciple) cannot be counted as an essential attribute derived from God's essence. The acceptance of this as an essential attribute leads to the conclusion that God wills evil as well as good. This would mean that will stemming from essence is equally distant from all intended objects, beyond ethical values. In order to justify God's voluntary orientation towards only the good, this attribute is placed in the category of created beings. The tenet of tawhid is maintained by characterizing the will as being in no substrate and not carried by God's essence. However, these features attributed to the will being in no substrate and created have drawn criticism both within and outside the sect. Critics argue that the emergence of a created will entails a change in God's state and that its non-spatial nature undermines the theory of kalam atomism. As a result, it has been determined that the divine wills are created and in the category of accidents, have arithmetically multiple structures and mathematical limitations, and have structural features such as being non-physical because they are not sensory.