Marife Turkish Journal of Religious Studies

Abstract

Importance of mind is very clear for all scientific disciplines. The fact that
in Islamic Theology alongside with al-Mu’tazila, al-Ash’ari (d. 324/935) did not consider
the belief of a human being who did not use intellectual proof as valid forms
one of the extreme application fields. However, as far as the methodology and
conclusions are concerned, there are significant differences between al-Ash’ari and
al-Mu’tazilah. According to al-Ash’ari, a human being should have intellectual
proofs in the creation of world, existence of God and His attributions for validity of
his belief. Nevertheless, the source of this necessity is religious texts, not his mind.
In this article, it will be attempted to find answers to some questions by examining
the balance which al-Ash’ari tried to set up between the mind and the religious
texts. In fact, does al-Ash’ari consider the belief of al-Muqallid as invalid? If he
does not consider it as invalid, how should his words in this subject be interpreted?
If he considers it as invalid, is this opinion a trace of the Mu’tazili period and an effect
from which he could not recover himself? Or, as far as his understanding of
knowledge is concerned, does it have an unrelated position with al-Mu’tazilah?