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God, Logic and Lies: Intra-Ḥanafī Polemics on Divine Omnipotence in Colonial India

Year 2023, Volume: 21 Issue: 3, 960 - 983, 31.12.2023

Safaruk Chowdhury

https://doi.org/10.18317/kaderdergi.1360521

Abstract

This article is the first logical exploration of a major Islamic theological controversy regarding divine omnipotence (qudra) emerging in early 19th century northern India and persists today. The controversy involved two interconnected propositions. The first is known as ‘imkān-e naẓīr’, which is the proposition that God is able to create another identical Prophet Muḥammad. The second dubbed ‘ikmān-e kidhb’, is the possibility of God being able to lie or say untruths. The article will examine the arguments of two formidable scholars. The first is the one who detonated the controversy Shah Ismail Dihlawi (d. 1831) who argues for the possibility of God to actualise an identical Muḥammad and to lie and the second is his opponent and archnemesis Fazl-e Haqq Khayrabadi (d. 1861), who vehemently rejects both possibilities. The focus of the article is a detailed logical analysis of the structure and premises of the arguments as well as the core modal concepts assumed in the debate.

Keywords

Kalam Logic Divine omnipotence Imkān-e naẓīr Ikmān-e kidhb Northern India

References

  • Al-Abharī, Athīr al-Dīn. Isagoge: A Classical Primer on Logic (Isāghūjī risāla fī-l-manṭiq). Trans. Feryal Salem. Chicago: Blue Mountain Press, 2022.
  • Ahmed, Asad, Q. Palimpsests of Themselves. Logic and Commentary in Postclassical Muslim South Asia. Oakland: University of California Press.
  • Ali, Mir Shahamat. “Translation of the Takwiyat-ul-Imán, preceded by a notice of the author, Maulavi Ismaʿil Hajji”. The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 13 (1852), 310-372.
  • Al-Biqāʿī. Ibrāhīm b. ʿUmar b. Ḥasan. Tahdīm al-arkān ʿalā man qāla laysa fī-l-imkān abdaʿ mimmā kān. Amman: Dār al-Fatḥ, 2019.
  • Chatti, Saloua. “Logical Oppositions in Arabic Logic: Avicenna and Averroes”. Around and Beyond the Square of Opposition. Ed. J.-Y. Beziau and Dale Jacquette. 21-40. Basel: Springer Verlag, 2012.
  • Chatti, Saloua. Arabic Logic From Al-Fārābī to Averroes: A Study of the Early Arabic Categorical, Modal, and Hypothetical Syllogistics. Springer Verlag, 2019.
  • Dihlawi, Ismail. Taqwiyat-e īmān. Maunath Bhanjan, U.P.: Maktaba-e Naʿīmiyya, n.d.
  • Dihlawi, Ismail. Taqwiyat-e īmān. Riyadh: Maktabat al-Daʿwa wa-l-Tawʿiyyat al-Jāliyyāt, n.d.
  • Dihlawi, Ismail. Yak roza. Multan: Fārūqī Kutub Khāna, n.d.
  • El-Rouayheb, Khaled. “Must God Tell Us the Truth? A Problem in Ashʿarī Theology”. Islamic Cultures, Islamic Contexts. ed. Asad Q. Ahmed, et al. 411-429. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004281714_016
  • Al-Fārābī, Abū Naṣr. Al-Fārābī, Syllogism : an Abridgement of Aristotle’s Prior Analytics. Trans. Saloua Chatti and Wilfrid Hodges. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.
  • Fuda, Saīd. Baḥth fī Mas’alat nisbat al-kidhb ilā Allāh Subḥānahu wa taʿālā. Amman: Dār al-Aṣlayn, 2023.
  • Al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid. al-Iqtiṣād fī-l-iʿtiqād. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2015.
  • Al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid. al-Iqtiṣād fī-l-iʿtiqād. Jedda: Dār al-Minhāj, 2008.
  • Gwynne, Rosalind W. Logic, Rhetoric and Legal Reasoning in the Qur’ān: God’s Arguments. New York, Routledge, 2004.
  • Haddad, Gibril F. The Maturidi School: From Abu Hanifa to al-Kawthari. Oldham: Beacon Books, 2021.
  • Harvey, Ramon. Transcendent God, Rational World: A Maturidi Theology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021.
  • Hermansen, Marcia K. The Conclusive Argument from God. Shāh Walī Allāh of Delhi’s Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bāligha. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996.
  • Husain, Iqbal. “Fazle Haq of Khairabad – A Scholarly Rebel of 1857.” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 48 (1987), 355-65.
  • Ibn Ḥazm, Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī b. Aḥmad. Al-Faṣl fī-l-milal wa-l-ahwā’ wa-l-niḥal. Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1996.
  • al-Jurjānī, al-Sayyid al-Sharīf. Sharḥ al-Mawāqif. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1998.
  • Khayrabadi, Fazle Haqq. Taḥqīq-e fatwā fī ibṭāl al-tughwā. Lahore, 1979.
  • Khayrabadi, Fazle Haqq. Imtināʿ-e nāẓīr li-ḥaḍrat khātim al-nabiyyīn. Bareilly: Imam Ahmed Reza Khan Academy, 2012.
  • Mahmud, Khalid. Shah Ismail Muhaddith Dihlawi. Shahid Balakut. Lahore: Maktabat Dār al-Maʿārif, 1982.
  • Malik, Jamal. “Letters, prison sketches and autobiographical literature: The case of Fadl-e Haqq Khairabadi in the Andaman Penal Colony”. The Indian Economic & Social History Review 43/1 (2006), 77-100. https://doi.org/10.1177/001946460504300104.
  • Metcalf, Barbara D. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1982.
  • Nguyen, Martin. “The Contours of God’s Power: An Introduction to Passages from the Qur’an and Hadith”. Power: Divine and Human. Christian and Muslim Perspectives. ed. Lucinder Mosher and David Marshall, 30-41. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2019.
  • Ormsby, Eric L. Theodicy in Islamic Thought: The Dispute Over Al-Ghazali’s Best of All Possible Worlds. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1984.
  • Al-Qārī, Mullā ʿAlī. Sharḥ fiqh al-akbar. Istanbul: Maṭbaʿat al-ʿUthmāniyya, 1885.
  • Saharanpuri, Khalil Ahmed. Al-Muhannad alā’ l-mufannad. ed. Muhammad Ibn Adam al-Kawthari. Amman: Dār al-Fatḥ, 2004.
  • Sajjad, Mohammad Waqas. For the Love of the Prophet: Deobandi-Barelvi Polemics and the Ulama in Pakistan. California: Graduate Theological Union, Ph.D. Dissertation, 2018.
  • Sajjad, Mohammad Waqas. “Writing History in Deobandi-Barelvi Polemics: Conflicting Views of Shah Ismail and Fazl-e-Haq Khairabadi”. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 46/3 (2023), 612-627, DOI: 10.1080/00856401.2023.2200085.
  • Sanyal, Usha. Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi: In the Path of the Prophet. Oxford: Oneworld, 2005.
  • Sell, Edward. The Faith of Islam. London, Trübner & Co., and Madras, Addison & Co. 1880.
  • Shah, Sayyid Mehr Ali. Fatāwā-e mehriyya. Lahore: Maktaba-e Mehriyya, 2010.
  • Tareen, SherAli. Defending Muḥammad in Modernity. Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2020.

Allah, Mantık ve Yalan: Koloniyal Hindistan'da İlahi Kudret Hakkında Hanefilik İçi Polemikler

Year 2023, Volume: 21 Issue: 3, 960 - 983, 31.12.2023

Safaruk Chowdhury

https://doi.org/10.18317/kaderdergi.1360521

Abstract

Bu makale, 19. yüzyılın başlarında Kuzey Hindistan’da ortaya çıkan ve günümüze kadar devam eden, ilahî kudret hakkında önemli bir kelâmî ihtilafı ele alan ilk mantık araştırmasıdır. İhtilaf, birbiriyle bağlantılı iki tez içermektedir. İlk tez "imkān-i naẓīr" olarak bilinir ve bu, Allah’ın Hz. Muhammed'in aynısını yaratabilmesidir. İkinci tez ise "ikmān-i kızb" olarak adlandırılır ve Allah’ın yalan söyleme veya gerçeğe aykırı şeyler söyleme olasılığını hakkındadır. Makale, iki güçlü düşünürün argümanlarını inceleyecektir. İlk olarak, tartışmayı başlatan Shah İsmail Dihlawi (ö. 1831), Allah’ın benzer bir Muhammed'i yaratabilme ve yalan söyleyebilme olasılığını savunan argümanlar sunar. İkinci olarak, karşıt görüşteki ve baş rakibi Fazl-e Haqq Khayrabadi (ö. 1861), her iki olasılığı da kesin bir şekilde reddeder. Makale, argümanların yapısının ve öncüllerinin yanı sıra tartışmada deruhte edilen temel modal kavramların ayrıntılı mantıksal analizine odaklanmaktadır.

Keywords

Kelâm Mantık İlahî kudret İmkān-ı naẓīr İkmān-ı kizb Kuzey Hindistan

References

  • Al-Abharī, Athīr al-Dīn. Isagoge: A Classical Primer on Logic (Isāghūjī risāla fī-l-manṭiq). Trans. Feryal Salem. Chicago: Blue Mountain Press, 2022.
  • Ahmed, Asad, Q. Palimpsests of Themselves. Logic and Commentary in Postclassical Muslim South Asia. Oakland: University of California Press.
  • Ali, Mir Shahamat. “Translation of the Takwiyat-ul-Imán, preceded by a notice of the author, Maulavi Ismaʿil Hajji”. The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 13 (1852), 310-372.
  • Al-Biqāʿī. Ibrāhīm b. ʿUmar b. Ḥasan. Tahdīm al-arkān ʿalā man qāla laysa fī-l-imkān abdaʿ mimmā kān. Amman: Dār al-Fatḥ, 2019.
  • Chatti, Saloua. “Logical Oppositions in Arabic Logic: Avicenna and Averroes”. Around and Beyond the Square of Opposition. Ed. J.-Y. Beziau and Dale Jacquette. 21-40. Basel: Springer Verlag, 2012.
  • Chatti, Saloua. Arabic Logic From Al-Fārābī to Averroes: A Study of the Early Arabic Categorical, Modal, and Hypothetical Syllogistics. Springer Verlag, 2019.
  • Dihlawi, Ismail. Taqwiyat-e īmān. Maunath Bhanjan, U.P.: Maktaba-e Naʿīmiyya, n.d.
  • Dihlawi, Ismail. Taqwiyat-e īmān. Riyadh: Maktabat al-Daʿwa wa-l-Tawʿiyyat al-Jāliyyāt, n.d.
  • Dihlawi, Ismail. Yak roza. Multan: Fārūqī Kutub Khāna, n.d.
  • El-Rouayheb, Khaled. “Must God Tell Us the Truth? A Problem in Ashʿarī Theology”. Islamic Cultures, Islamic Contexts. ed. Asad Q. Ahmed, et al. 411-429. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004281714_016
  • Al-Fārābī, Abū Naṣr. Al-Fārābī, Syllogism : an Abridgement of Aristotle’s Prior Analytics. Trans. Saloua Chatti and Wilfrid Hodges. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.
  • Fuda, Saīd. Baḥth fī Mas’alat nisbat al-kidhb ilā Allāh Subḥānahu wa taʿālā. Amman: Dār al-Aṣlayn, 2023.
  • Al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid. al-Iqtiṣād fī-l-iʿtiqād. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2015.
  • Al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid. al-Iqtiṣād fī-l-iʿtiqād. Jedda: Dār al-Minhāj, 2008.
  • Gwynne, Rosalind W. Logic, Rhetoric and Legal Reasoning in the Qur’ān: God’s Arguments. New York, Routledge, 2004.
  • Haddad, Gibril F. The Maturidi School: From Abu Hanifa to al-Kawthari. Oldham: Beacon Books, 2021.
  • Harvey, Ramon. Transcendent God, Rational World: A Maturidi Theology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021.
  • Hermansen, Marcia K. The Conclusive Argument from God. Shāh Walī Allāh of Delhi’s Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bāligha. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996.
  • Husain, Iqbal. “Fazle Haq of Khairabad – A Scholarly Rebel of 1857.” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 48 (1987), 355-65.
  • Ibn Ḥazm, Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī b. Aḥmad. Al-Faṣl fī-l-milal wa-l-ahwā’ wa-l-niḥal. Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1996.
  • al-Jurjānī, al-Sayyid al-Sharīf. Sharḥ al-Mawāqif. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1998.
  • Khayrabadi, Fazle Haqq. Taḥqīq-e fatwā fī ibṭāl al-tughwā. Lahore, 1979.
  • Khayrabadi, Fazle Haqq. Imtināʿ-e nāẓīr li-ḥaḍrat khātim al-nabiyyīn. Bareilly: Imam Ahmed Reza Khan Academy, 2012.
  • Mahmud, Khalid. Shah Ismail Muhaddith Dihlawi. Shahid Balakut. Lahore: Maktabat Dār al-Maʿārif, 1982.
  • Malik, Jamal. “Letters, prison sketches and autobiographical literature: The case of Fadl-e Haqq Khairabadi in the Andaman Penal Colony”. The Indian Economic & Social History Review 43/1 (2006), 77-100. https://doi.org/10.1177/001946460504300104.
  • Metcalf, Barbara D. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1982.
  • Nguyen, Martin. “The Contours of God’s Power: An Introduction to Passages from the Qur’an and Hadith”. Power: Divine and Human. Christian and Muslim Perspectives. ed. Lucinder Mosher and David Marshall, 30-41. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2019.
  • Ormsby, Eric L. Theodicy in Islamic Thought: The Dispute Over Al-Ghazali’s Best of All Possible Worlds. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1984.
  • Al-Qārī, Mullā ʿAlī. Sharḥ fiqh al-akbar. Istanbul: Maṭbaʿat al-ʿUthmāniyya, 1885.
  • Saharanpuri, Khalil Ahmed. Al-Muhannad alā’ l-mufannad. ed. Muhammad Ibn Adam al-Kawthari. Amman: Dār al-Fatḥ, 2004.
  • Sajjad, Mohammad Waqas. For the Love of the Prophet: Deobandi-Barelvi Polemics and the Ulama in Pakistan. California: Graduate Theological Union, Ph.D. Dissertation, 2018.
  • Sajjad, Mohammad Waqas. “Writing History in Deobandi-Barelvi Polemics: Conflicting Views of Shah Ismail and Fazl-e-Haq Khairabadi”. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 46/3 (2023), 612-627, DOI: 10.1080/00856401.2023.2200085.
  • Sanyal, Usha. Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi: In the Path of the Prophet. Oxford: Oneworld, 2005.
  • Sell, Edward. The Faith of Islam. London, Trübner & Co., and Madras, Addison & Co. 1880.
  • Shah, Sayyid Mehr Ali. Fatāwā-e mehriyya. Lahore: Maktaba-e Mehriyya, 2010.
  • Tareen, SherAli. Defending Muḥammad in Modernity. Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2020.
There are 36 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Kalam
Journal Section Articles
Authors

Safaruk Chowdhury 0000-0002-2196-2968

Publication Date December 31, 2023
Submission Date September 14, 2023
Acceptance Date December 30, 2023
Published in Issue Year 2023 Volume: 21 Issue: 3

Cite

APA Chowdhury, S. (2023). God, Logic and Lies: Intra-Ḥanafī Polemics on Divine Omnipotence in Colonial India. Kader, 21(3), 960-983. https://doi.org/10.18317/kaderdergi.1360521
AMA Chowdhury S. God, Logic and Lies: Intra-Ḥanafī Polemics on Divine Omnipotence in Colonial India. Kader. December 2023;21(3):960-983. doi:10.18317/kaderdergi.1360521
Chicago Chowdhury, Safaruk. “God, Logic and Lies: Intra-Ḥanafī Polemics on Divine Omnipotence in Colonial India”. Kader 21, no. 3 (December 2023): 960-83. https://doi.org/10.18317/kaderdergi.1360521.
EndNote Chowdhury S (December 1, 2023) God, Logic and Lies: Intra-Ḥanafī Polemics on Divine Omnipotence in Colonial India. Kader 21 3 960–983.
IEEE S. Chowdhury, “God, Logic and Lies: Intra-Ḥanafī Polemics on Divine Omnipotence in Colonial India”, Kader, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 960–983, 2023, doi: 10.18317/kaderdergi.1360521.
ISNAD Chowdhury, Safaruk. “God, Logic and Lies: Intra-Ḥanafī Polemics on Divine Omnipotence in Colonial India”. Kader 21/3 (December 2023), 960-983. https://doi.org/10.18317/kaderdergi.1360521.
JAMA Chowdhury S. God, Logic and Lies: Intra-Ḥanafī Polemics on Divine Omnipotence in Colonial India. Kader. 2023;21:960–983.
MLA Chowdhury, Safaruk. “God, Logic and Lies: Intra-Ḥanafī Polemics on Divine Omnipotence in Colonial India”. Kader, vol. 21, no. 3, 2023, pp. 960-83, doi:10.18317/kaderdergi.1360521.
Vancouver Chowdhury S. God, Logic and Lies: Intra-Ḥanafī Polemics on Divine Omnipotence in Colonial India. Kader. 2023;21(3):960-83.
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