Abd al-Jabbar 1025

As illustration only: African people in the land of Islam

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Abd al-Jabbar (935-1025) Sharh al-Usul al-Khamsa

(Commentary on The Five Fundamentals) Mu’tazilite (1) theologian from Rayy near Teheran

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Taken from : people.cas.sc.edu

This is why we said that God’s speech (He is exalted) cannot fail to convey meaning. He cannot even address us by an

address and then not mean anything by it, or mean by it something other than its apparent meaning without making that

clear, for that would be just as bad as addressing a Zanji in Arabic, or an Arab in Zanjiyya (2). Just as this is not good, but

rather is considered pointless, so it is in the matter (of God’s speech).

(1) Mu'tazilite: Originally; Those who would neither condemn nor sanction Caliph ʿAli or his opponents but took a middle position. Later: By the 10th century CE the term had also come to refer to an Islamic school of speculative theology in Basra and Baghdad.

(2) Zanjiyya: here the Zanj language; but also a Zanj woman.