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a mad b. anbal
ris Ra awī, Tehran 1344sh/1965; Mīrzā
Mu ammad Khalīl Mar ashī, Majma
al-tawārīkh, Tehran 1328sh/1949; Laurence
Lockhart, Nadir Shah, London 1938; John
Perry, Ādel Shāh Afšār, EIr.
Ernest Tucker
A mad b. anbal
A mad b. Mu ammad b. anbal
Abū Abdallāh al-Shaybānī al-Marwazī
(164–241/780–855), also known as Imām
A mad or simply as A mad, is the ep-
onym of the anbalī school (madhhab) of
law and theology and the most significant
exponent of the traditionalist approach in
Sunnī Islam. Numerous traditions that he
transmitted to his disciples were compiled
by his son Abdallāh b. A mad into one
of the major adīth collections, al-Musnad.
A mad’s unique personality and everyday
conduct endowed him with the nimbus of
a renunciant (zāhid), who instilled moral
standards of behaviour in a growing circle
of disciples. His adherents in later genera-
tions were named anābila (sing. anbalī),
and the verb ta anbala (to join the anbalī
school by accepting or supporting anbalī
doctrines) was derived from his name.
A mad b. anbal’s profound influence on
almost every area of Sunnī Islam continues
to the present.
1. Life
The main sources for the life of A mad,
based on numerous anecdotes conveyed
by the smaller circle of family members
and devoted disciples, are varied and de-
tailed. The most productive transmitters
of anecdotes are A mad’s sons— āli (d.
265/879), who, as A mad’s biographer,
also recorded his problematic relation-
ship with his father, and Abdallāh (d.
290/903), a meritorious scholar, A mad’s
15
favourite son, and the reason for A mad’s
kunya, Abū Abdallāh—his cousin anbal
b. Is āq (d. 273/886), and his concubine
usn. The information that they conveyed
appears in several biographies, the earliest
of which was written some decades after
Ibn anbal’s death.
The most famous biography of A mad
b. anbal was that by Abū Bakr al-Khallāl
(d. 311/923), no longer extant but largely
retrievable from its incorporation into the
entry on A mad in the abaqāt al- anābila
of Ibn Abī Ya lā (d. 526/1131), which also
provides numerous details on A mad’s
relationships with his disciples, family
members, and adversaries in its entries
on other anbalīs. Later biographies by
Abū Nu aym al-I fahānī (d. 430/1038–9)
and Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1200) share the
laudatory style of the hagiographical lit-
erature called manāqib. Emphasising the
renunciant aspects of A mad’s everyday
conduct, these works construct parallels
between the detailed descriptions of the
prophet Mu ammad in the sīra literature
and the descriptions of A mad. The first
modern biography of A mad, Walter
Patton’s A mad b. anbal and the mi na, is an
uncritical reading of one of the mediaeval
sources. An excellent biography, based on
numerous sources, including later anbalī
works, is Abū Zahra’s Ibn anbal. Michael
Cooperson’s Classical Arabic biography (see
chapter 4), Nimrod Hurvitz’s The formation
of anbalism, and Christopher Melchert’s
Ahmad ibn Hanbal offer critical readings of
the mediaeval biographies (for additional
mediaeval and modern biographies, see
the bibliography).
A mad b. anbal was born in Rabī
I or Rabī II 164/Nov. or Dec. 780 in
Baghdad or Marv (Ibn al-Jawzī, 13). His
nasab (genealogy), consisting of some
thirty-six names and going back as far as
the mythical Abraham, indicates that he
16
belonged to the Banū Māzin tribe, which
took part in the conquest of Iraq and Iran.
In spite of subtle disagreements among
his biographers as to the authenticity of
the earliest elements of his genealogy,
his nasab establishes his impeccable Arab
origins (Laoust, A mad b. anbal, open-
ing remark). Except for his grandfathers,
anbal b. Hilāl and al- usayn b. Mu ab,
who held high military posts in Khurāsān,
none of A mad’s known ancestors gained
fame or fortune (for thorough discussions
of A mad’s descent and references to the
relevant biographies, see Abū Zahra, 14–8;
Hurvitz, Formation 27–30; and Melchert,
Ahmad, 1–4).
A mad’s parents moved from Khurāsān
to Baghdad a few months before he was
born. According to his favourite disciple,
Abū Bakr al-Marwazī (or al-Marrūdhī, d.
275/888), A mad told him that he was
born in Baghdad and that he never saw his
grandfather or his father (Ibn al-Jawzī, 15).
The sources offer little information about
the circumstances of his upbringing, for
which his mother took most of the respon-
sibility. A mad inherited at least two houses
in Baghdad from his father, but he and his
mother lived modestly. For example, when
he was a baby, his mother pierced his ears
and fastened two pearls to them, but he
was forced to sell these pearls in his youth,
presumably to finance one of his journeys
(al-I fahānī, 9:163; al-Dhahabī, 11:179;
āli b. anbal, 26; Abū Zahra, 18–9;
more on the relationships with his mother
in Melchert, Ahmad, 2–3). Several anecdotes
portray the young orphan as literate, highly
moral, and reasonable in his conduct,
standing out from his contemporaries (Ibn
al-Jawzī, 20–2; Abū Zahra, 21).
At the age of sixteen A mad studied
adīth and other Islamic sciences from
Baghdadī teachers, many of whom were of
low professional status. Early in his studies
a mad b. anbal
he showed tolerance for different theologi-
cal doctrines. His long-term participation
in classes given by the anafī Abū Yūsuf
(d. 181/798) in Baghdad indicates that
the young A mad was tolerant of the
doctrines of ahl al-ra y and not the devout
traditionalist that he would later come to
be (Hurvitz, Formation, 44). At the age of
nineteen he set out for Kufa and Basra,
and then for Mecca, Medina, Yemen,
and Syria, following the Islamic ideal of
al-ri la fī alab l- ilm (“travelling to acquire
knowledge”; Ibn al-Jawzī, 22–3). As he
himself testified, his main purpose was to
write down adīth accounts from prominent
scholars like Abd al-Razzāq (d. 211/827)
in Yemen and Sufyān b. Uyayna (d.
196/811) in the ijāz. His later teachers
were highly esteemed traditionists, such as
Abd al-Ra mān b. Mahdī of Basra, Waqī
b. al-Jarrā , and Ya yā b. Sa īd al-Qa ān
(all three d. 198/813–4; Hurvitz, Formation,
44–55; Melchert, Ahmad, 22–4, 33–4, 36–9;
Abū Zahra, 21–30).
In his thirties A mad began to associate
with well known scholars of his generation
and came to be widely appreciated. The
question of his association with al-Shāfi ī
(d. 204/820) is disputed. Goldziher claims
that A mad took lessons from al-Shāfi ī for
three years. On the other hand, Laoust as-
serts that only Shāfi ī-leaning sources claim
that he studied with al-Shāfi ī, for their
purpose of establishing the latter’s supe-
riority over A mad, and that he seemed
to have met al-Shāfi ī only once (Laoust,
A mad b. anbal; doubts in this regard are
also raised by Hallaq, 590). Hurvitz, after
pointing out the biased nature of anbalī
and Shāfi ī sources, suggests that the two
scholars indeed maintained a professional
relationship during the year 198/813–4,
which benefited both parties: while al-
Shāfi ī relied on A mad’s way of trans-
mitting traditions, A mad learned Islamic
a mad b. anbal
jurisprudence from al-Shāfi ī (Hurvitz,
Formation, 52–5; for anecdotes fabricated
to build up A mad b. anbal’s image at
the expense of al-Shāfi ī, see Cooperson,
Arabic biography, 149–50).
In his later thirties A mad married
and established a family. His two wives,
Ā isha (or Abbāsa) and Ray āna, and
his concubine usn were highly respected
by A mad’s disciples. Along with detailed
descriptions of A mad’s household, which
was constantly on the verge of poverty (Abū
Zahra, 75–80; Cooperson, Ibn anbal,
77–8; Ibn al-Jawzī, 223–4, 226–39, 300–1;
Ibn Abī Ya lā, 1:563–5; āli b. anbal,
40), his biographers emphasise his modest
lifestyle, characterised, for instance, by
humble clothing and a strict diet. These
habits drew from precedents set by the
prophet Mu ammad and his companions.
The renunciant nature of A mad’s diet, as
well as his reported recommendations of
other austerities, could be interpreted as
conveying moral criticism of the way of
life of the Abbāsid leisure classes (Hurvitz,
Scholarly circles, 992–3). Even so, A mad’s
diet is based on regular Middle Eastern
ingredients known since antiquity. For
instance, his habit of seasoning a piece of
bread in vinegar, although described in one
of the sources as a rule originally set by the
traditionist al a b. Mu arrif (d. 112/730;
al-I fahānī, 5:20), has Biblical echoes (cf.
“Come thou hither, and eat of the bread,
and dip thy morsel in the vinegar,” Ruth
2:14). As for A mad’s daily conduct, there
are indications of mystical elements in his
personal piety, suggesting that he associ-
ated with proto- ūfīs (Melchert, anābila,
355ff.).
A mad b. anbal’s reputation as a adīth
transmitter and jurisconsult attracted eager
students, and his circle of adherents grew.
In these classes he defined his uncompro-
17
mising traditionalist position: “Religion is
only the book of God, the reported sayings
(of early Muslims), the standard practices
(sunan), and sound narratives from reli-
able persons of recognised, sound, valid
reports [of adīth], where these confirm
one another. . . . The upholders of rea-
soned opinion and analogical reasoning
in religion are innovators and in error,
except where there is a reported saying
from any of the earlier reliable imāms”
(trans. by Watt, Islamic creeds, 39, from a
creed transmitted from one of A mad’s
disciples; for the doubtful authenticity of
the text, see al-Dhahabī, 11:286). In sum,
A mad regarded religious knowledge as
derived from the Qur ān and adīth and
disapproved of the use of reasoning in
religious matters. He did, however, allow
himself a certain degree of reasoning, as
the final clause above indicates (see also
Abrahamov, Islamic theology, x). A mad’s
appeal as a teacher arose also from his abil-
ity to guide his disciples in their everyday
conduct. A well-known saying by al-Shāfi ī
points out the aspects of A mad’s per-
sonality and behaviour that his adherents
found the most appealing: in addition to
his celebrated proficiency in adīth, Qur ān,
fiqh, and the Arabic language, he was con-
sidered a role model for his piety (wara )
and renunciation (zuhd), as well as for his
ideology of poverty (faqr) (Ibn Abī Ya lā,
1:23–34). Most of A mad’s disciples faded
into oblivion, apart from Ibrāhīm b. Is aq
al- arbī (d. 285/898) and Abū Dā ūd al-
Sijistānī (d. 275/889), the compiler of the
Kitāb al-sunan (“The book of traditions”),
which is one of the six canonical books of
adīth (for a description of A mad’s classes,
see Abū Zahra, 35–45).
The dramatic chain of events that
elevated A mad b. anbal’s persona in
the eyes of his adherents began in Rabī I
18
218/April 833, when the rationalist caliph
al-Ma mūn (r. 198–218/813–33) instituted
a procedure called mi na (lit., “testing”
or “trial,” often rendered “inquisition”;
for possible explanations of al-Ma mūn’s
motivation in introducing the mi na, see
Nawas, 615–29; for descriptions of the
mi na see Patton, Hinds, and Melchert,
Ahmad ibn Hanbal, 8–16). Since the
traditionalists were widely perceived as
authoritative legislators, al-Ma mūn de-
cided to challenge them, by forcing them
to accept confessions of faith prescribed by
him, thus reestablishing his position as the
successor of the prophet Mu ammad and
the guardian of Islamic law. Al-Ma mūn
favoured the doctrine of the createdness (as
opposed to eternity) of the Qur ān (khalq
al-qur ān), which was in accordance with
several rationalistic arguments made by the
Mu tazilīs. One of these arguments takes
Qur ān 43:3 (“We have made it (ja alnāhu)
an Arabic Koran”) as an assertion that God
created the Qur ān, as He created every-
thing in existence. Al-Ma mūn sent letters
to Is āq, his deputy in Baghdad, directing
him to summon the traditionalists in the
region and test their views on the creat-
edness of the Qur ān. Is āq tested thirty
leading traditionalists, most of whom, with
the exception of two, acknowledged this
doctrine, and then, following the caliph’s
orders, sent those who did not acknowledge
it to Tarsus for a further interrogation by
the caliph himself. A mad b. anbal was
one of the two who were sent in irons to
the caliph. Luckily for them, al-Ma mūn
died suddenly on Rajab 218/August 833,
and the two were sent back to Baghdad.
Only A mad survived the hardships of the
return journey. In Baghdad he was kept
in detention because the new caliph, al-
Mu ta im (r. 218–27/833–42), adopted the
mi na policy of his predecessor. The ordeal
suffered by A mad during al-Mu ta im’s
a mad b. anbal
reign shaped his public image beyond
the circle of his adherents, as reflected
in a saying attributed to one of his con-
temporaries, “A mad b. anbal was put
under the bellows and emerged [as pure]
as a bar of red gold” (al-I fahānī, 9:170;
Ibn Kathīr, 10:363). In his public trial in
Rama ān 219/September 834, he refused,
despite a severe flogging, to acknowledge
the createdness of the Qur ān. Soon after-
wards, the admiring biographers tell us, he
was released, as the Baghdadī masses ap-
plauded. On the other hand, biographers
of Mu tazilī inclination, who did not hold
A mad in high regard, especially his con-
temporary al-Jā i (d. 255/869), claim that
he could not refute the Mu tazilī arguments
and remained speechless even when forced
to deal with adīth material. Moreover, ac-
cording to those sources, he was flogged
until he did acknowledge that the Qur ān
was created, and was then released. After
the trial of 219/834, A mad resumed
his teaching career, but maintained a low
profile because of the ongoing mi na during
the reign of the next caliph, al-Wāthiq (r.
227–32/842–7).
The events of the mi na and their re-
percussions have been treated at length in
Western research. In the field of religious
thought, the most important result of the
mi na events was the consolidation of the
theory of the uncreated Qur ān, which is
probably the most significant contribution
of A mad b. anbal to Sunnī thought. In
the field of jurisprudence, the mi na had
several consequences, the most important
of which was the discrediting of the caliph
as the arbiter of Sunnism (Melchert, Ad-
versaries, 235; for a discussion of A mad
b. anbal’s capitulation and the way in
which anbalī-inclined literature dealt
with these claims, including anecdotes of
a miraculous nature, see Cooperson, Arabic
biography, 125–51).
a mad b. anbal
In 232/847 the caliph al-Mutawakkil
(r. 232–47/847–61) embraced the tradi-
tionalist faith and abolished the mi na,
and A mad b. anbal’s status changed
dramatically. In 237/851 al-Mutawakkil
invited him to the court in Sāmarrā , in
order to teach adīth to the young prince
al-Mu tazz. A mad b. anbal, now aged
and ill, made the journey to Sāmarrā and
was welcomed with great honours. Never-
theless, because he had reservations about
associating with the ruling elite, he asked
the caliph to be released from this task,
and he returned to Baghdad. He refused
because he was convinced that the caliph’s
wealth had its origins in wrong conduct (see
Abū Zahra, 81–7).
A mad b. anbal died in Rabī I
241/July 855. His funeral, in which thou-
sands of Baghdadīs participated, became
a symbol of the triumph of traditionalist
precepts over Mu tazilī rationalism. Later
biographers used the impressive descrip-
tion of A mad’s funeral as a criterion by
which to measure the prominence of this
or that public figure (see, for instance, the
description of the funeral of the leading
Damascene anbalī scholar Ibn Taymiyya,
d. 728/1328, by al-Karmī, 65).
2. Works
Much if not all of A mad b. anbal’s
surviving theological and jurisprudential
thought was in fact written down and
edited by his disciples, of whom the most
prominent are his second son, Abdallāh,
and A mad’s preferred disciple, Abū Bakr
al-Marwazī. Another prominent scribe of
A mad’s work is Abū Bakr al-Khallāl, a
disciple of al-Marwazī. (For al-Khallāl’s
role in preserving A mad’s writings, consult
the relevant entries by Laoust in EI2; for
A mad’s views on writing, the role his dis-
ciples played in the gathering of his teach-
ings from his notes, and his refusal to write
19
down his fiqh, see Abū Zahra, 194–218, and
Melchert, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, 65–70.) Every
known work attributed to A mad opens
with a chain of transmitters, indicating that
the material was transmitted orally from
master to disciple. The following is a short
description of his most celebrated works.
(For a complete list of A mad’s works,
existing manuscripts, works attributed to
him, nonextant works, and translations into
European languages, see Laoust, A mad
b. anbal; GALS 1:309–12; GAS, 1:502–8;
and the introduction to A mad’s al- Ilal).
Al-Musnad is a adīth collection arranged
according to the names of the original
transmitters; the first part contains all the
traditions that were transmitted by Abū
Bakr, and the following parts contain tra-
ditions transmitted by other companions
in descending order of seniority. Based
on A mad’s notes, al-Musnad contains
approximately thirty thousand traditions
reportedly sifted by A mad himself from
nearly 800,000 traditions. A small part of
the material in al-Musnad was declared by
later scholars to be forged (maw ū ). This
did not undermine the position of the work
as one of the preeminent adīth compila-
tions. (For adīth collections derived from
al-Musnad, see GAS, 1:504–6; for A mad b.
anbal’s methods of scrutinising adīth ma-
terial, see Siddiqi, adīth literature, 49–52;
Melchert, Musnad, 32–51; and Melchert,
Ahmad ibn Hanbal, 39–48).
Al-Masā il (“the responsa”) is a collection
of responses to questions posed to A mad
b. anbal by disciples and others. These
are based mainly on adīth material; when
the latter is indeterminate or inconsistent,
A mad refuses to use personal judgement
or analogical reasoning, thus leaving the
matter unresolved. Susan Spectorsky con-
cludes that A mad should be considered
more a traditionist (mu addith) than a juris-
consult ( faqīh; for a refutation of a similar
20
view expressed by the Mālikī qā ī Iyā
al-Sabtī, d. 544/1149, see Abū Zahra, 7–8).
There are to date several printed versions
of al-Masā il, by A mad b. anbal’s sons,
Abdallāh and āli (different versions), and
by his disciples Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī,
Is āq b. Man ūr al-Kawsaj (d. 251/865),
and I āq b. Ibrāhīm b. Hāni al-Nīsābūrī
(d. 275/889). Another version, by al-
Marwazī’s disciple Abū Bakr al-Khāllal,
has been published in part. In addition,
many extracts of a lost Masā il collection
or collections appear in Ibn Abī Ya lā’s
abaqāt al- anābila. (For details, see GAS
1:507; and for a comparison of three of
the above-mentioned versions, with their
discrepancies, see Spectorsky, 461ff., n. 1.)
Several works derived from al-Masā il and
organised by subject-matter were published
under the names of their main transmit-
ters, primarily Abū Bakr al-Khallāl.
Kitāb al-zuhd (“The book of renuncia-
tion”) was probably collected exclusively
by A mad’s son Abdallāh, as the mate-
rial is conveyed in the first person by him.
Through anecdotes from the lives of twelve
models of ancient renunciation, starting
with the prophet Mu ammad and going
back to Biblical and other pre-Islamic
figures (Adam, Noah, Abraham, Joseph,
Job, Jonah, David, Solomon, Luqmān, and
Jesus), it gives a detailed description of and
moral justification for renunciation.
Kitāb al-wara (“The book of piety”)
contains A mad’s recommendations for
the pious, as reported by Abū Bakr al-
Marwazī, in many aspects of life, based on
the Qur ān and adīth and anecdotes from
the lives of prominent ascetics, such as
Yūsuf b. Asbā (d. 196/811–2 or 199/814).
The manuscript has been printed several
times, in one case under the name of al-
Marwazī.
Al-Radd alā l-zanādiqa wa-l-Jahmiyya ,
A mad’s best known work in the field of
a mad b. anbal
polemics and one quoted often by later
anbalīs, treats almost every aspect of the
Islamic creed, by presenting detailed argu-
ments attributed to various heretical sects,
mainly the Mu tazila, and offering system-
atic refutations of them that demonstrate
A mad’s skills in rational argumentation.
The historian al-Dhahabī (d. 753/1352–3)
doubted the authenticity of al-Radd (Siyar,
11:286–7; Shu ayb al-Arnā ū , the editor
of the Siyar, has endorsed al-Dhahabī’s
doubt in a well reasoned footnote). Indeed,
even though A mad generally mounts his
counter-arguments mainly on the basis of
Qur ānic verses, in al-Radd he actually uses
rationalistic techniques such as argument
from disjunction (qisma or taqsīm); this,
and the perhaps anachronistic use of the
phrase bi-lā kayf (accepting formulations
in the Qur ān and adīth “without [ask-
ing] how”; al-Radd, 92; and see below in
“Doctrines”) put in question the attribution
of this work.
Kitāb al- alāt (“The book of prayer”)
is a short epistle, listing twenty-six things
necessary for the validity of ritual prayer.
Although filled with adīth accounts, it also
conveys A mad’s own views.
There are also numerous sayings at-
tributed to A mad b. anbal in the works
of later anbalīs, such as Ibn Aqīl (d.
513/1119), Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328),
and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751/1350),
and in the biographical sources. Six full-
text creeds ( aqā id) attributed to A mad ap-
pear in Ibn Abī Ya lā’s abaqāt al- anābila.
Other doctrinal texts, including creeds, are
quoted by disciples in al-Masā il, Ibn Jawzī’s
Manāqib, al-Khallāl’s Kitāb al-sunna, and
Mujīr al-Dīn al- Ulaymī’s (d. 927/1521)
al-Minhaj al-a mad. These creeds, as well as
the major corpus of the masā il and sayings
attributed to him, are a valuable source for
understanding A mad’s dogmas, although
their authenticity remains to be examined
a mad b. anbal
through a meticulous inspection of themes
and style (for a list of A mad’s creeds, see
Williams, 457, note 23).
3. Doctrines
A mad b. anbal’s paramount principle
is the acceptance of only the Qur ān and
adīth as the bases of religion, while em-
phasising that only a few are authorised
to interpret the sacred texts. One of the
creeds attributed to him opens with “Praise
be to God, who in every age and interval
between prophets (fatra) elevated learned
men possessing excellent qualities, who call
upon him who goes astray (to return) to
the right way” (Ibn al-Jawzī, 167; al-Radd,
52). In this creed A mad explicitly op-
poses the use of personal judgement (ra y)
and analogical reasoning (qiyās) as bases
of jurisprudence; in that respect he is an
authentic spokesman for the traditionalist
position against al-Shāfi ī’s legal theory
(u ūl al-fiqh). In spite of his reservations
about ra y, he did exercise judgement in his
adīth criticism, and there is evidence that
he gave his own opinion in legal matters
(Melchert, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, 73–4). The
rule of relying only on the Qur ān and
adīth in religious matters applies also to
A mad’s theological thought. Thus, doctri-
nal principles appearing in the creeds that
are attributed to him seem at first glance
to be fully compatible with adīth material.
A mad’s theological thought evolved not
only from the need to guide his adherents
but also from the growing need to refute
what seemed to him to be heretical views,
which explains the polemical tone of his
creeds.
As more a diligent traditionist than a
thinker or theologian, A mad did not
leave a coherent theological system. His
theological aphorisms required much ma-
nipulation by later anbalīs, such as Ibn
Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya
21
(Holtzman, Human choice). Two distinc-
tive contributions to the field of theology
that are usually attributed to him are not
actually entirely his and can be traced
in the sayings of his predecessors as an
inherent part of the traditionalist position
against rationalist ideas.
(1) The best known contribution of
A mad b. anbal to traditionalist theol-
ogy, the formula kalām Allāh ghayr makhlūq
(“the speech of God, uncreated”), meaning
that the Qur ān, as the speech of God,
is uncreated, was moulded from sayings
attributed to his predecessors, including
Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/796). Although
lacking explicit roots in the Qur ān or the
adīth, this formula became, as Wilferd
Madelung (521) puts it, “a shibboleth of
Sunnite orthodoxy.” Its origins are in fact
vague and disputable. The traditionalist
position prior to A mad was apparently
merely hostile to rationalistic arguments
that the Qur ān is created, without using
the term “uncreated” (ghayr makhlūq) .
A mad’s own view evolved gradually, but
his conviction that the Qur ān is God’s
knowledge ( ilm), or part of it, and as such
is uncreated led him to the final formula,
which has since appeared in almost every
traditionalist creed (for the gradual shap-
ing of this formula, see al-Ājurrī, 88; on
A mad’s position on the pronunciation
of the Qur ān, see van Ess, TG, 4:212–5).
Madelung points out the crucial role of
the mi na in this development: A mad
initially refrained from adding anything to
the formula “The Qur ān is the speech of
God,” and it was only after the mi na that
he added “uncreated.”
(2) A mad b. anbal’s second most
distinctive contribution to the field of
theology is his position regarding the an-
thropomorphic accounts in the Qur ān and
the adīth, which endow God with human
traits, whether bodily parts (e.g., hands,
22
face, legs) or feelings (e.g., anger, happiness).
As opposed to the Mu tazilī position, which
insisted on interpreting these accounts
figuratively, A mad simply repeated the
anthropomorphist descriptions of God as
they appear in the Qur ān and adīth, stat-
ing that “God should be described exactly
as He describes Himself ” (a quotation from
Abū Bakr al-Khallāl as it appears in Ibn
Qayyim al-Jawziyya’s Ijtimā , 2:211; for
A mad’s restrictions of the use of hand
gestures while transmitting anthropomor-
phic adīth accounts, see Holtzman, An-
thropomorphism). Later authors ascribed
to A mad views that correspond with the
Ash arī doctrine of bi-lā kayf, that is, accept-
ing, without attempting to interpret, the at-
tribution of physical characteristics to God
(see a creed by Abū l-Fa l al-Tamīmī, d.
410/1210, quoted in Ibn Abī Ya lā, 2:294;
the passage was analysed by B. Abrahamov,
Bi-lā kayfa, 366–7). It is noteworthy that
A mad did not coin the phrase bi-lā kayf;
this was a task for later generations, start-
ing with al-Ash arī (d. 324/935). (For al-
Ash arī’s adherence to A mad, see Makdisi,
261, and for Ibn Taymiyya’s view, 1:270.
The view that A mad used the bi-lā kayf
method was challenged persuasively by
Wesley Williams).
In other issues of dogma, A mad’s ap-
proach seems to rely heavily on the adīth
material. In general, he recommends avoid-
ing all discussion of complex matters of
faith and clinging instead to the sacred texts
(Ibn al-Jawzī, 173). On the question of pre-
determination (al-qa ā wa-l-qadar), A mad
asserted that the true believer “knows that
everything, the good and the bad, [exists]
through God’s predetermination” (Ibn
al-Jawzī, 166). The principle that A mad
presented is based on adīth material and
was certainly nothing new in that respect.
Nevertheless, he also promoted another
principle, ignored later by anbalī scholars
a mad b. anbal
such as al-Barbahārī (d. 329/941) and Ibn
Ba a (d. 386/997) and rejected altogether
by Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawzi-
yya: according to him, even the evil deeds
of humans are predetermined by God. In
several places in the Masā il and in one
of his creeds, A mad declares: “Adultery,
theft, wine-drinking, homicide, consuming
unlawful wealth, idolatry and all other
sins [come about] by God’s decree and
predetermination” (trans. by Watt, Islamic
creeds, 33; Ibn Abī Ya lā, 1:25; Abū Bakr
al-Khallāl, 3:545).
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Livnat Holtzman
A med II
Sul ān A med II (r. 1102–6/1691–5)
was the son of Sul ān Ibrāhīm I (r. 1049–
58/1640–8) and Mu azzez Sul ān. Born
6 Dhū l- ijja 1052/25 February 1643,
he succeeded his brother Süleymān II
(r. 1099–1102/1687–91) on 26 Rama ān
1102/23 June 1691. His succession was
favoured by the grand vizier Köprülüzāde
Fā ıl A med Pasha, who was confirmed
in his post after A med’s accession to the
throne. After long years of war against
Austria, Poland, Venice, and Russia (1094–
1111/1683–99), the need for money, sol-