Development of Muslim Theology: III: Theology: Chapter VI
The rise and spread of darwish Fraternities; the survival and tradition of the Hanbalite doctrine; Abd ar-Razzaq; Ibn Taymiya, his attacks on saint-worship and on the mutakallims; ash-Sha‘rani and his times; the modern movements; Wahhabism and the influence of al-Ghazzali; possibilities of the present. OUR sources now begin to grow more and more scanty, and we must hasten over long intervals of time and pass with little connection from one name to another. Preliminary investigations are also to a great extent lacking, and it is possible that the centuries which we shall merely touch may have witnessed developments only less important than those with which we have already dealt. But that is not probable; for when, after a long silence, the curtain rises again for us in the twelfth Muslim century, we shall find at work only those elements and conditions whose inception and growth we have now set forth. One name in our rapid flight deserves mention, at least. It is that of Umar ibn al-Farid, the greatest poet that Arabic mysticism has produced. He was born at Cairo in 586, lived for a time at Mecca, and died at Cairo in 632. He led no new movement or advance, but the East still cherishes his memory and his poems. We have already noticed (p. 177) the beginnings of darwish Fraternities and the founding of monasteries or khanqahs. During the period over which we have He was born near Damascus in 661 and educated as a Hanbalite. His family had been Hanbalite for generations, and he himself taught in that school and was reckoned as the greatest Hanbalite of his time. His position, too, was practically that of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, modified by the necessities imposed by new controversaries. Thus he was an anthropomorphist, but of what exact shade is obscure. He was accused of teaching that God was above His throne, could be pointed at, and that He descended from His seat as a man might, i.e., that He was in space. But he certainly distinguished himself from the crasser materialists. It will be seen that his position is essentially a mediating one. He wishes to show that the beliefs of the mystics and of the mutakallims are really one although they are reached by different paths. In fiqh he made a similar attempt. The Sufis had always looked down on those theologians who were canonists pure and simple. A study of canon law was a necessity, they thought; but as a propædeutic only. The canonists who went no further never reached religion at all. Especially they held that no Sufi should join himself to any of the four contending schools. Their controversies were upon insignificant details which had nothing to do with the life in God. But could it not be shown that their differences were not actual--one view being true and the other false--but were capable of being reduced to a unity? This was the problem that ash-Sha‘rani attacked. These differing opinions, he held, are p. 60), is a branch of the school of Ibn Taymiya. Manuscripts of the works of Ibn Taymiya copied by the hand of Ibn Abd al-Wabhab exist in Europe. So the Wahhabites refused to accept as binding the decisions of the four orthodox sects of canon law. Agreement as a source they also reject. The whole People of Muhammad can err and has erred. Only the agreement of the Companions has binding force for them. It is, therefore, the duty and right of every man to draw his own doctrine from the Qur’an and the traditions; the systems of the schools should have no weight with him. Again, they take the Over other details, such as the prohibition of the use of tobacco, we need not spend time. Wahhabism as a political force is gone. It has, however, left the Sanusi revolt as its direct descendant and what may be the outcome of that Brotherhood we have no means of guessing. It has also left a general revival and reformation throughout the Church of Islam, much parallel, as has been remarked, to the counter-reformation which followed the Protestant Reformation in Europe. The second movement is the revival of the influence of al-Ghazzali. That influence never became absolutely extinct and it seems to have remained especially strong in al-Yaman. In that corner of the Muslim world generations of Sufis lived comparatively
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