Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Carl W. Ernst, Teachings of Sufism

(Boston: Shambala, 1999); Ahmet T. Karamustafa, 

God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later 

Middle Period, 1200–1550 (Salt Lake City: University of 

Utah Press, 1994).

Ashari School

The Ashari School is the foremost school of 

the

-

ology

 in Sunni i

slam

. It is named after Abu al-

Hasan al-Ashari (873–935), who sought to define 

and defend core doctrines about God, the q

Uran

,

and 

Free

 

Will

 in terms of rational philosophy. 

Although we lack details about his life, we know 

he was from the southern Iraqi town of Basra and 

that he was a member of a respected family that 

claimed descent from one of Muhammad’s earliest 

followers. He was first an enthusiastic supporter 

of the m

Utazili

 s

chool

, which, armed with Greek 

rationalism, refuted traditional religious beliefs 

and argued instead that 1) the attributes assigned 

to God in the Quran (such as hearing and seeing 

or having face and hands) were not part of his 

essential being; 2) the Quran was created; and 3) 

humans could exercise free will independent from 

that of God. However, by the time he was 40 years 

old, al-Ashari had become convinced that these 

positions and related ones were wrong. Switch-

ing course, he used the Mutazili tools of rational 

disputation against them to argue instead that 1) 

God’s attributes were real, even if we do not know 

how they are so; 2) the Quran was God’s speech 

and therefore eternal and uncreated as he is; and 

3) human free will is impossible because God 

creates everything, including individual human 

actions.

The Ashari School grew in Basra and Baghdad, 

drawing its inspiration from al-Ashari’s theology 

K  66  

Ashari School

---

and method of rational argumentation. By the late 

12th century, it had become the dominant Sunni 

theological tradition and was officially taught as 

a subject in Sunni centers of learning. Among 

the most prominent members of this school were 

al-Baqillani (d. 1013), al-Baghdadi (d. 1037), 

al

-g

hazali

 (d. 1111), and al-Razi (d. 1209). For 

centuries, the Ashari School gave a rational basis 

to Sunni faith and provided an intellectual defense 

against speculative philosophy and Shii doctrines. 

During the 19th and 20th centuries, it gave way 

to currents of Islamic modernism and secularism 

that swept the Muslim world as a result of Euro-

pean colonial expansion and the influx of new 

ideas from the West. Many Ashari tenets, however, 

continue to hold an important place in contempo-

rary Muslim religious thought.

See also  a

llah

; 

anthropomorphism

; 

madrasa

; 

theology

.