Name Abd ibn | Died 1025 | |
'Abd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad ibn 'Abd al-Jabbar al-HamaJani al-Asadabadi, Abu 'l-Hasan (935 - 1025) was a Mu'tazilite theologian, a follower of the Shafi'i school. Abd al-Jabbar means "servant of the powerful." He lived in Baghdad, until he was invited to Rey, in 367 AH/978 CE, by its governor, Sahib Ibn Abbad, a staunch supporter of the Mu'tazila. He was appointed chief Qadi of the province. On the death of Ibn 'Abbad, he was deposed and arrested by the ruler, Fakhr al-Dawla, because of a slighting remark made by him about his deceased benefactor. He died later in 415 AH/1025 CE.
His comprehensive "summa" of speculative theology, the Mughni, presented Mu`tazili thought under the two headings of God's oneness (tawhid) and his justice (adl). He argued that the Ash'arite separation between the eternal speech of God and the created words of the Qur'an made God's will unknowable.
Tathbit Dala’il
Abd Al-Jabbar produced an anti-Christian polemic text Tathbit Dala’il Nubuwwat Sayyidina Muhammad, (‘The Establishment of Proofs for the Prophethood of Our Master Mohammed’). Shlomo Pines (1966) proposed that part of this work incorporated a polemical text written by Jewish Christians of the fifth or sixth century against followers of Paul, and insisting on the necessity of Gentile believers' conversion to Judaism and adherence to Mosaic law. Pines noted that the Arabic text showed departures from the Peshitta, and may have used an alternative Syriac or Aramaic source that had been preserved by this community of Jewish Christians.