Kalām

Abstract

Kalām is a genre of theological and philosophical literature in Arabic that was actively pursued between the eighth and nineteenth centuries. In its early period, the genre employed a particular type of argumentative techniques and developed a distinct method that is also referred to as kalām. First produced by Muslim authors in Iraq, the genre and its method was also employed by Jewish and to a lesser degree Christian Arab theologians. A practitioner of kalām is known as a mutakallim and, in plural, as mutakallimūn. Often translated as “rationalist theology,” kalām is in Islam among the most important genres of theological literature. Muslim kalām can be divided into three periods: an early period of development as Muʿtazilite kalām, a middle period after the ninth century when the discourse and its method were adopted by Sunni Muslim theologians of the Ashʿarite and Māturīdite schools, and a late period after the eleventh century when kalām appropriated many techniques and teachings from the movement of Neoplatonized Aristotelian philosophy in Arabic (falsafa). In medieval European philosophy and theology, we find references to and refutations of teachings developed during the second period by Ashʿarite authors, who were known in Latin as loquentes. In its third period, kalām engages in an active reception of Aristotelian philosophy in Arabic, most importantly the philosophy of Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, d. 1038) and thus continued much of what had earlier been undertaken in falsafa.