Comment bien définir un ordre ? Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī et al-Ghazālī au sujet de la sincérité du locuteur

Abstract

This article investigates the dispute opposing, in the classical Arabic period, the two main theological schools over the best definition of an order. By presenting and analyzing some excerpts from the two legal theory treatises by the late Muʿtazilite Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī (d. 436/1044) and the ashʿarite al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), I mainly focus on the speaker’s sincerity (or will to see the act accomplished), and on the shifts that this condition operates in the different definitions and conceptions of this speech act.

Keywords

• Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī
• al-Ghazālī
• Arabic philosophy
• Islamic legal theory
• kalām
• rational theology