‘ÍSÁ IBN HISHÁM related to us and said: I entered the asylum 1 of Baṣra and there was with me Abú Dá’úd the scholastic divine. 2 And I beheld a madman 3 who was glancing at me. Said he: 'If the augury bird is right ye are strangers.' And we answered: 'It is so.' He said: 'Who are the people? How excellent are their fathers!' I replied: 'I am 'Ibn Hishám and this is Abú Dá’úd the theologian.' He enquired: 'Al-’Askarí?' I said: 'Yes.' Then he exclaimed: 'May the faces be disfigured and the possessors thereof! Verily free-will 4 belongs to God and not to his slave, and affairs are in the hands of God and not in his. Ye Magians of this community 5 ye live predestined lives, and die victims of a merciless fate. Ye are forcibly driven doomwards. 'And, if ye had been in your houses, 6 verily they would have gone forth to fight, whose slaughter was decreed, to the places where they died.' 7 If the fact be as ye describe it, why are ye not just? Ye assert, the
In my devising I am the possessor of high degrees.
In vanity, I am its withers. 2
Alexandria is my home, an aimless
Wanderer am I on God's earth.
In the monastery I am an abbot,
In the masjid an ascetic.' 3
100:1 The asylum: Arabicized from the Persian a hospital.
100:2 Abú Dá’úd the scholastic divine: The person referred to is evidently Abú Bakr Muḥammad ibn Abdullah al-’Askarí the chief Qáḍí of the Khalífa Al-Mahdí (A.D. 775-84) at Ruṣáfa. He was one of the most famous of the Mu’tazilás (al-Ansáb of al-Sam’aní, p. 392).
100:3 a madman: Literally, possessed by a jinn, demon, or demoniac.
100:4 Free-will: The doctrine of free-will was no new idea, for we are told that al-’Aasha, a contemporary of the Prophet, was a believer in it and that he had been instructed therein by the ‘Ibádites, or Christians, of al-Híra from whom he used to buy wine. Aghání, viii, 76. The orthodox belief is expressed in Arab Proverbs, ii, 405. 'Had I been given free choice, I should have chosen'. [Cf. Life of Muḥammad (Wüstenfeld) Band, iv, 1011]. The Mu‘tazilís were the partisans of free-will () as opposed to orthodox fatalism or predestination (). For an excellent account of the origin and development of this sect, see Professor Browne, Literary History of Persia, i, 281-92; Hibbert Lectures, v, 214; Shahrastání, al-Milal wa’l-Nihal (Cunton's ed.), pp. 29-30 and Sell, The Faith of Islám (3rd ed.), pp. 194-206.
100:5 Magians of this community: An allusion to the spurious tradition 'The partisans of free-will are the Magians of the Church', quoted by Abú’l-Ḥasan al-‘Ash’arí (A, H. 270-330), in the Ibána, p. 73, as a genuine tradition.
100:6 If ye had been in your houses: Qur’án, iii, 148.
100:7 The places where they died: Literally, sleeping-places.
101:1 Because thou hast seduced me: Qur’án, xv, 39.
101:2 Whom God causeth to err: Qur’án, vii, 185.
101:3 Ye pervert it: Literally ye turn away from the apparent meaning and twist it. This is an allusion to the Báṭinites who assert that the Qur’án has an outward sense and an inward meaning differing from the former and known to them, i.e. the literal and the allegorical.
101:4 The earth contracted for me: Íbn al-Athír, Niháyah, ii, 82.
101:5 Paradise was manifested to me: ibid.
101:6 The balances: Of Justice and equity in mutual dealings. Qur’án, iv, 6.
101:7 Of leather: i.e., something created and not uncreate. An allusion to the dogma that the Qur’án is uncreate and the belief of the heterodox that it is something created.
101:8 God and His signs and His Apostle: Qur’án, ix, 66.
101:9 A faction seceded: An allusion to the withdrawal of Wáṣit ibn ‘Aṭá, the founder of the Mu‘tazila sect.
102:1 The Khárijites: 'The Seceders, or Theocratic Separatists'. The pious fanatics in ‘Alí's army who forced him to submit to arbitration at the battle of Siffin (A.D. 657) and afterwards blamed him for doing so, and, because he would not publicly confess, what they denounced as his disloyalty to God for having submitted the question of the succession to the Khalífate, for which he and Mu‘áwíya, the Governor of Syria, were contending, to arbitration, they seceded from him, No less than twelve thousand of these fanatical malcontents separated themselves from him and adopted as their war-cry, 'Arbitration belongs to God alone'. Browne, Literary of History of Persia, i, 220. Al-Fakhrí (Ahlwardt), p. 114.
102:2 Thou believest in part: An allusion to Qur’án, ii, 79.
102:3 an intimate associate: Literally the lining of a garment; metaphorically an intimate and familiar friend. In the text it means a wife. See Qur’án, iii, 114.
102:4 Minds: Literally, breasts.
102:5 I am the fountain of wonders: Metre, ramal.
103:1 The camel's hump: Figure for height or prominence.
103:2 Withers: Figure for less high, or less prominent.
103:3 In this maqáma the author introduces an extremely polemical subject, the doctrines of free-will and predestination. Abú’1-Fatḥ in the character of a madman in bonds champions the orthodox opinion, and Abú Dá’úd and ‘Ísá ibn Hishám, the partisans of free-will, are silenced and discomfited. Hamadhání's own opinion was clearly against the doctrine of free-will. See his Letters, pp. 27-8.