Abstract

Kalam 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 kalam. 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 kalam is known as a mutakallim and, in plural, as mutakallimUn. Often translated as “rationalist theology,’’ kalam is in Islam among the most important genres of theological literature. Muslim kalam can be divided into three periods: an early period of development as Mu'tazilite kalam, a middle period after the ninth century when the discourse and its method were adopted by Sunni Muslim theologians of the Ash'arite and Maturldite schools, and a late period after the eleventh century when kalam 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 Ash'arite authors, who were known in Latin as loquentes. In its third period, kalam engages in an active reception of Aristotelian philosophy in Arabic, most importantly the philosophy of Avicenna (Ibn Sina, d. 1038) and thus continued much of what had earlier been undertaken in falsafa.