Scepticisms in the Formation of Islamic Rational Theology: Abū al-Qāsim al-Balkhī and Ibn al-Malāḥimī Providing a Window on the Transmission of Arguments from Late Antiquity

Abstract

Newly accessible source material calls for a revision of our picture of the more technical transmission of sceptical epistemologies in the intellectual landscape of early Islam. Abū al-Qāsim al-Balkhīʼs (ninth/tenth century) Book of Doctrines shows that naẓar as the basic argumentative method of kalām is defined by the encounter with a broad spectrum of sceptical strategies. By the beginning of the tenth century, Greek traditions were amalgamated in a complex way with other intellectual traditions, most notably dualist ontologies. This situation has shaped the evolution of kalām methodology decisively. Based on extensive paraphrases in Ibn al-Malāḥimī (twelfth century) going back to Nawbakhtī (tenth century), it can be seen that arguments of the Greek sceptical tradition were accessible in Arabic in the early tenth century. The scarcity of coherent information on sceptical approaches before that time rather has to do with the problem that in general few sources of this earlier formative period of Islamic theology are preserved. Early Muʿtazilī treatises from this period are superseded by Ashʿarī texts in the later transmission. Sceptical approaches, being systematically involved in the very formation of early Muʿtazilī theology, are particularly invisible due to this process.