Kalam describes a particular genre of theological and philosophical literature in Arabic. In its later period after the fourteenth century it also appears in other Islamic languages such as Persian or Ottoman Turkish, though even then Arabic remains the main language of kalam. As a genre of literature, kalam focuses on establishing and defending certain theological positions through the use of rational arguments. In doing so, mutakallimUn, that is, the practitioners of kalam, have developed elaborate and systematic views in such fields as epistemology, the natural sciences, metaphysics, ethics, and psychology, and it is a matter of debate whether and to what degree kalam should be considered part of philosophy in Islam (Frank 1979; Sabra 2006). The claim of kalam to be considered an integral part of the history of philosophy in Islam is clearest during its late period after the twelfth century, when it appropriates and continues much of the earlier discourse of falsafa. Kalam is often translated as ‘‘rational theology,’’ although this neglects the philosophical element particularly in its late period. Developed in Islam, kalam also establishes itself as a genre of Jewish and Christian Arabic literature (Wolfson 1979). It went through significant changes throughout its history, which can be classified into three main periods: early Mu'tazilite kalam, classical Sunni kalam particularly of the Ash'arite tradition, and the late kalam of the period after the eleventh century that incorporates techniques and teachings of falsafa.
As a genre of literature and a particular method of argumentation, kalam establishes during the mid-eighth century in Iraq. Although much about the early history of kalam is unknown, it appears that it originates in public religious debates (singular munazara) between members of different religions and different Muslim denominations that aimed at the conversion of one’s adversaries to one’s own theological views (van Ess 1991-1997, 1:48-56). Leading participants in these public disputes became
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Known as mutakallimun, ‘‘those who appear as speakers (of a certain group).’’ Kalam (‘‘to appear as speaker’’) is the verbal noun of that activity. During the earliest period it need not be connected to theology or even rationalist theology, as grammar and law were also subjects of debate. By the mid-ninth century, however, a mutakallim is a theologian who aims to convince his adversaries through rationalist arguments. Public debates between mutakallimun remained a staple of kalam for many centuries (van Ess 1976). The focus on rational evidence (singular hujja) may result from the fact that scriptural arguments are of little value in public disputes between members of different religions. Another etymology of kalam focuses on its original meaning as ‘‘speech,’’ and on the verb takallama fl (‘‘to speak about’’), from which the name of its practitioners derives. Mutakallimun spoke about and publicly debated subjects such as God and His attributes, where other, more traditionalist scholars in Islam practiced self-imposed restraint (Abdel Haleem 1996). Kalam is therefore also translated as “speculative theology,’’ in the sense of formal, conceptional, and theoretical reasoning into such subjects as God and questions of ontology and ethics (Frank 1992:9-12). Such reasoning was not unanimously accepted among the scholars of Islam and there have always been groups who opposed its practice and/or deemed it illegitimate.
During its early period up to the beginning of the tenth century, kalam is largely synonymous to Mu'tazilite kalam (see below) and even the Jewish and Christian theologians who adopted kalam during this period should be regarded as Mu'tazilite mutakallimun (Adang et al. 2007). The relationship of early kalam to the contemporaneous movement of translating Greek texts into Arabic is still unclear. There is a significant amount of common technical language that is used in these two movements, although the words do not always bear the same meaning. Both movements, that of early kalam and the translation movement from Greek into Arabic, are influenced by Aristotelian as well as Neoplatonic undercurrents in the scientific and religious scholarship that existed in pre-Islamic Iraq. Unlike in falsafa, however, there was no direct influence of Greek philosophical literature on early kalam and the type of connections we see appear to be mediated by such channels as the Christian Aramaic discourse on theology or Persian natural sciences. Also unlike falsafa, there are no textual connections of early kalam to any preceding theological or philosophical literature of the wider region and the lines of influences seem to go along oral transmissions, possibly by imitating the argumentative strategies and the technical language of non-Muslim theologians in public debates.
Early kalam theologians refer to their method as ‘‘disputation’’ (al-munazara) and ‘‘dialectic’’ (al-jadal) and thus describe the dialogical character of their works (Frank 1992). Most early kalam works cite the position of an opponent or an interlocutor and then present the model response to that position or challenge: ‘‘if someone says... then I respond’’ (in qlla... fa-qultu) (van Ess 1970). Often an adversary’s position is refuted by showing that one of its implications is either undesirable or leads to an impossibility. Thus, early kalam texts frequently employ the modus ponens where a position P is shown to be wrong through the impossibility of one of its implications Q (P)Q; — Q, therefore — P). Kalam texts tend to focus on a discussion of the implications of and the opposition to a given position, a practice that would lead philosophers of the Aristotelian tradition in Arabic (falasifa) to criticize mutakallimun for pursuing a non-apodictic method of inquiry (Gutas 2005). One of its methods is ‘‘exhaustive investigation and successive elimination’’ (sabr wa-taqstm), in which the presentation of one’s own solution to a problem is accompanied by a discussion and refutation of all known alternatives and all possible objections. Many mutakallimun were also active in the field of Islamic law and the dialectical methods developed in that field, particularly that of legal analogy (qiyas), had a strong influence on kalam.
One of the most important literary vehicles of the genre was the ‘kalam compendium,’’ a textbook or comprehensive summa where subjects discussed in kalam are dealt with according to the same basic scheme. Kalam compendia were produced up to the thirteenth century, when Fakhr al-Din al-RazI’s (d. 1210) activity changed this basic scheme and adapted it to the literary genres of falsafa. A classical kalam compendium would begin with the discussion of questions of epistemology (al-ilm wa-l-nazar), then proceed to proofs for the existence of God, then discuss the attributes of God and turn to the way God relates to His creation. At the end of such a compendium stood the discussion of prophecy (and thus revelation) as well as the afterlife, sometimes followed by an inquiry into the status of the individual and the order of society, including its leadership (imama) (Frank 1992, 12f.).
World History
