Abu-l-Hassan Al-Ash’arī on Faith

Abstract

According to Abu-l-Hassan Al-Ash’arī, faith means acknowledgement literally, while in terms of Islamic scholars, it means acknowledging the existence of God, His prophets, and His commands and prohibitions. From his point of view, the only pillar of faith is the acknowledgement. So, the verbal confession and putting the Law in practice are considered to be secondary and excluded from the conceptual elements of faith. To explain this view point, he considers faith to be the subject to the augmentation and deficiency. Besides, he believes that faith should be based upon reason, for, according to him, the imitator`s faith is undesirable. He thinks that God creates human acts and human being merely acquires God’s created act and he is devoid of choice in its occurrence.

Keywords

• faith
• acknowledgement
• imitation
• action
• abu-l-hassan al-ash’arī