agnosticism
collected from secondary sources exists.
The following evaluation of Ads poetical
merits takes into account only the poetry
preserved in the dwn.
The most striking characteristic of Ad
b. Zayds verse is the great number of
poems addressing the poets imprisonment
(nos. 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 16, 17), a type of poem
known in later times as sijniyya. With the
exception of no. 3, they all rhyme the first
half-verse, as is typical of the qa da, but
not all of them follow the qa da scheme
in content (e.g., nos. 1, 7, 8). Several verses
of nos. 11 and 13 deal with the topic of
wine and wine-drinking, and Ad is said to
have composed self-contained wine poems
that served as a model for the Umayyad
caliph al-Wald b. Yazd (r. 1256/7434)
(G. Schoeler, Die Einteilung der Dichtung
bei den Arabern, ZDMG 123 (1973),
955). The well-known ubi sunt motif is
employed in poem no. 16 (v. 22f.), when
the poet asks where the Ssnid monarchs
Kisr Anshirwn and Sbr and the
Byzantine emperors have gone (cf. no. 39,
verses 12).
Bibliography
Dwn Ad b. Zayd al- Ibd, ed. Mu ammad
Jabbr al-Mu aybid, Baghdad 1965; Josef
Horovitz, Adi ibn Zeyd, the poet of Hira, IC
4 (1930), 3169; Francesco Gabrieli, Ad ibn
Zaid, il poeta di al- rah, Rendiconti della Reale
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, ser. 8/3 (1948),
8196; GAS 2:1789; Ab l-Faraj al-I fahn,
Kitb al-Aghn (Cairo 192774), 2:95154.
Tilman Seidensticker
A ud al-Dn, Mu ammad b.
Abdallh
A ud al-Dn, Mu ammad b.
Abdallh (51473/112078), of the fam-
ily of Ibn al-Muslima, figured prominently
47
in the struggle over authority at the end of
the Abbsid caliphate of Baghdad. He was
major-domo (ustdhdr) to al-Mustanjid I
(r. 55566/116070) until he had the lat-
ter assassinated, after which A ud al-Dn
was appointed wazr by caliph al-Musta
(r. 56675/117080). It was primarily
through him that al-Musta attempted
to increase his effective and just rule, op-
posing men of power, in and around the
capital. Though al-Musta was obliged
to dismiss him, A ud al-Dn regained his
post shortly afterwards, and several years
later, when preparing for the jj (pilgrim-
age), he was murdered by Ism ls. A ud
al-Dn was also a man of great learning,
glorified by poets.
Bibliography
The career and role of A ud al-Dn are
described in detail by Ibn al-Athr, Kmil f
l-ta rkh, (Beirut 1965), 11:200, 258, 333, 409,
426, 440, 446, 459; Ibn al-aqaq, al-Fakhr
f l-db al-sul niyya wa l-duwal al-Islmiyya
(Cairo 1999), 31921. For an extensive
biography, see al-Dhahab, Ta rkh al-Islm
wa-wafayt al-mashhr wa l-a lm, ed. Umar
Tadmur (Beirut 1996), 37:1303.
Daphna Ephrat
Agnosticism
Agnosticism is the admission that
the enigmas of Gods existence and the
effects of Gods actions cannot be solved.
An agnostic regards all transcendental
knowledge as impossible. Although distinct
from atheism, which assumes that there is
evidence for Gods non-existence, it has
a similar attitude toward religion. Both
regard faith in God as irrelevant or even
as an abomination (Thomas H. Huxley,
Collected essays, London 18935, 5:314).
There is a moderate form of agnosticism
48
that, while maintaining that the existence
of God cannot be proven, accepts that
it is a legitimate object of faith held by
some people.
Within the Islamic tradition there is al-
most no evidence of thinkers who upheld
even the moderate form of agnosticism.
The Qur n does not address the notion
that there might be people who doubt
the existence of deities. The unbeliev-
ers (kfirn) and polytheists (mushrikn), 313/925 or 323/935), who harshly criti-
who are Mu ammads adversaries in the
Qur n, believe in the existence of one or
more gods and deny only Mu ammads
mission as a messenger of God and/or
elements of his message such as the Day of
Judgement. The idea that religious observa-
tion might be futile and irrelevant for this
and the next world first appears in Islamic
literature in the middle of the second/
eighth century. It is expressed in Burzs
autobiographical preface to the Indian
fable collection Kalla wa-Dimna. Burz,
a physician and minister to the Ssnid
king Khusraw I Anshirwn (r. 53179),
describes his periods of intense doubt
about the truth of all religions. He suspects
that religious teachings are empty claims
handed down as an inheritance (wirth) and
considers believers deceived (makhd ).
The translation of the text from Pahlavi
into Arabic by Abdallh b. al-Muqaffa
(d. 137/755) initiated a tradition of free-
thinking and sceptical literature in Islam
that led to the scepticism of the Ism l
Sh missionaries (du t) in the fifth/elev-
enth century and that of al-Ghazl (d.
505/1111), as seen in his autobiography,
al-Munqidh min al- all (The deliverer from
error; ed. and trans. Farid Jabre, Erreur et
dlivrance, Beirut 1969, 124).
The scepticism was often no more
than a methodological exercise employed
to convince readers of an epistemology
agnosticism
that promises to yield knowledge about
the transcendent. And while freethinking
literature in Islam reflects doubts about
how knowledge of the transcendent is
obtained and often considers different
religious traditions as equally true or false,
it does not allow for Gods non-existence.
Even one of the most radical proponents
of the freethinking tradition in Islam, Ab
Bakr Mu ammad b. Zakariy al-Rz (d.
cised the notion of prophecy as a trick to
gain worldly fame and riches and who in his
metaphysics came close to a deist position,
expressed no doubts about the existence
of God. Some of the quatrains (rub iyyt)
attributed to Umar Khayym (d. c. 517/
1123), however, indicate a position that
treats the transcendent as unattainable
through human knowledge and questions
Gods creative activity ( Al Dasht, Dam
b Khayym, Tehran 1344/19656, nos.
1, 4, 19; trans. Lawrence P. Elwell-Sut-
ton, In search of Omar Khayyam, London
1971). Yet, in his philosophical treatises
Umar Khayym follows the tradition of
Aristotle and Ibn Sn (d. 428/1037) and
reproduces proofs for the existence of God
( Jmi al-bad i , ed. Mu y l-Dn abr
al-Kurd (Cairo 1335/1917), 16593, esp.
16971).
Islamic thinkers believed that the ex-
istence of God could be proven beyond
doubt. Both Muslim theologians and
intellectuals in the Aristotelian tradition
( falsafa) reproduced and developed proofs
for the existence of God. Knowledge of the
existence of only one God (monotheism)
was considered part of the fi ra (inborn
nature) of humans, which is given to them
when they were created. Humans would
therefore not require revelation in order to
know that God exists, but they would still
need revealed knowledge to learn how to
agnosticism
serve God, act justly, and gain redemption
in the afterlife.
Rationalist Muslim theologians devel-
oped a position that has sometimes been
described as religious agnosticism. While
the existence and reality of a transcendent
God is accepted, the possibility of know-
ing God and making proper predications
of Him is denied. Jahm b. afwn (d.
128/746) was one of the first Muslim
theologians to whom this position has been
attributed. He argued that God is not a
thing (shay ) and so cannot be known to us
( Josef van Ess, TG, 2:493508, 5:21223).
Although orthodox theologians such as
al-Ash ar (d. 324/935) and his school
acknowledged that there is a significant
epistemological gap between God and
His creation and that humans are unable
to fully understand Gods transcendence,
they rejected the notion that there can be
no rational knowledge of God. Proponents
of such a view were branded as jahms (col-
lectively, al-jahmiyya) or as mu a ila, those
who deprive [God] of what is due Him,
namely an understanding of Him through
the predicates ( ift) that He ascribes to
Himself in His revelation. Religious ag-
nosticism had a significant impact on the
philosophical literature ( falsafa) in Islam
where it was influenced by Neoplatonic
literature such as Plotinuss (c. 20570)
Enneads, available in Arabic as pseudo-
Aristotelian works (Peter Adamson, The
Arabic Plotinus, London 2002).
In the modern period, the philosophical
term agnosticism, coined in 1869 by
the English positivist Thomas H. Huxley,
had far less influence on Muslim intellec-
tual life than on Christianity or Judaism.
Prominent Arabic Darwinists and secular-
ists such as the Lebanese Shibl Shumayyil
(18501917) and the Egyptian Salma
Ms (18871958), for instance, may
49
have been agnostics, but they nonethe-
less defended religion for its social value.
Agnosticism is considered apostasy from
Islam. Muslim authors have so far never
deemed it a significant threat to Islam, as
they did atheism, materialism, and Marx-
ism. The English word agnosticism
has often been translated into Arabic as
al-l-adriyya, a term that was already in
use, with the sense of scepticism (cf. al-
Sharf al-Jurjn, al-Ta rft (Beirut 1987),
200). Philosophical dictionaries in Arabic
often fail to distinguish clearly between
these two intellectual currents. While there
have never been many agnostic voices in
Muslim societies, the migration of Muslims
to Western countries during the twentieth
and twenty-first centuries has increased the
number of former Muslims who consider
themselves agnostics.
Bibliography
Editions of KALLA WA-DIMNA
Most editions and all English translations of
Kalla wa-Dimna present a censored version of
Burzs introduction. For an accurate text,
see the edition by Abd al-Wahhb Azzm
(Cairo 1941), 2542, esp. 29f.; French transl.
Andr Miquel (Paris 1957), 3148, esp. 35f.
Studies
Georges C. Anawati, Shibl Shumayyil. Medical
philosopher and scientist, in Clifford Edmund
Bosworth et al. (eds.), The Islamic world from
classical to modern times (Princeton 1989),
63750; Ali E. H. Dessouki, The views of
Salama Musa on religion and secularism,
Islam and the Modern Age 4/3 (1973), 2334;
Samh Dughaym, Maws at mu ala t al-fikr
al- Arab wa-l-Islm al- adth wa-l-mu ir (Bei-
rut 2002), 2:900; Vernon Egger, A Fabian in
Egypt. Salmah Ms and the rise of the profes-
sional classes in Egypt, 19091939 (Lanham
MD 1986), 44f., 948, 149f.; Josef van Ess,
Skepticism in Islamic religious thought, al-
Ab th 21 (1968), 118; Josef van Ess, TG,
2:18f.; Richard M. Frank, The neoplatonism
of ]ahm Ibn afwn, Le Muson 78 (1965),
50
395424; Albert Hourani, Arabic thought in
the liberal age (London 1962), 2459, 339;
Johannes J. G. Jansen, I suspect that my
friend Abdu . . . was in reality an agnostic,
in Pieter W. Pestmann (ed.), Acta Orientalia
Neerlandica, ed. (Leiden 1971), 714; Ysuf
Karam, Murd Wahba, and Ysuf Shallla,
al-Mu jam al-falsaf (Cairo 1966), 358; Fried-
rich Niewhner, Veritas sive varietas (Heidelberg
1988), 198253; Theodor Nldecke, Burzoes
Einleitung zu dem Buche Kalla wa-Dimna ber-
setzt und erlutert (Strassburg 1912), 91100,
esp. 15f.; Jaml alb, al-Mu jam al-falsaf
(Beirut 19713), 2:258; ke V. Strm et al.,
Agnostizismus, in Theologische Realenzyklopdie
(Berlin and New York 19772004), 2:91100;
Sarah Stroumsa, Freethinkers of medieval Islam.
Ibn al-Rawnd, Ab Bakr al-Rz and their impact
on Islamic thought, Leiden 1999; Dominique
Urvoy, Les penseurs libres dans lIslam classique,
Paris 1996.
Frank Griffel
Ahl al-ra y
Ahl al-ra y, also a b al-ra y, were the
proponents of the use of independent legal
reasoning to arrive at legal decisions. When
used by its proponents, who included many
early anaf and Mlik jurisprudents, the
term ra y had the positive connotation of
sound or considered reasoning. Legal
conclusions derived through ra y were
often elicited by means of a question-
and-answer dialogue characterised by the
use of the use of the terms qultu (I said)
and qla (he said). Typical techniques
of ra y-based legal discourse included reli-
ance on qiys (analogical reasoning), a
fortiori argumentation, and isti sn (juristic
preference), or appeals to equitable legal
principles and customary practices. The ahl
al- adth, those who sought to ground the
law in the Traditions of the Prophet and
his Companions, considered this unfettered
reliance on human reasoning illegitimate,
particularly when ra y was used in prefer-
ahl al-ra y
ence to, or in contradiction to, sound adth.
In the second/eighth and third/ninth
centuries, the ahl al- adth inveighed against
the use of ra y, and the term eventually ac-
quired the negative connotation of mere
opinion or arbitrary reasoning.
Although there was never a school of
Islamic legal thought that called itself ahl
al-ra y, the distinction between the ahl al-ra y
and the ahl al- adth was noted by Ibn al-
Muqaffa (d. 139/756) and then recognized
explicitly by Ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889?).
Despite this recognized distinction, the ahl
al-ra y did not eschew the use of adth as
a basis of legal authority. The anaf Ab
Ysuf (d. 182/798) relied upon the Tradi-
tions of the Prophet or his Companions to
support his position, and Nurit Tsafrir has
documented that anaf interest in adth
increased over the second/eighth century
and that legal opinions derived through
ra y were changed to bring them into
agreement with adth. Nor was the gap
between the adherents of these two forms
of jurisprudence irreconcilable. While it
is true that Ab anfa (d. 150/767) was
disparaged for his reliance on ra y, other
members of the ahl al-ra y, such as Ibn Ab
Layl (d. 148/765), were claimed as teach-
ers by both groups. Nevertheless, there are
important distinctions in the ways the ahl
al-ra y and their jurisprudential rivals used
adth. Christopher Melchert has observed
that anaf jurisprudents restricted their
use of adth to controversies with their
opponents, whereas internal school texts
rarely relied upon adth. Traditions relied
upon by the ahl al-ra y often omitted the
isnd (chain of transmitters) even though
these transmitters formed the basis for
adth criticism (and derivation of the law)
as developed among the ahl al- adth. For
example, in the A km al-waqf of the anaf
Hill al-Ra y (d. 245/859 or 249/863),