Prologue in Al-Asha'ira

Abstract

Abstract A later generation of the Ash;arites,named after ‘Al-Ash airborne ( A.D. 873 –260 H) in Basrsh . They are forced by the weight of evidence to admit a certain irrationality in theological’ and their philosophical speculatio, Largely based on Stoicism, are strongly mixed with Skeptical theories . They hold the middle way between the traditionalists who want to forbid all reasoning on religious matters and those who affirm that reason unaided by revelation is capable of attaining religious truths. since Ghazali founds his attack against the philosophers on Ash’arite principles,we may consider for a moment some their theories. The difference between the Ash’arite and Mu’tazilite conceptions of cannot be expressed then by the following passage which is found twice in Ghazali in his Golden Means of Dogmatics and his Vivification of Theology is and to which by tradition ascribed the breach between AL Ash’ari and the Mu’tazilites.{Let us imagine a child and a grown-up Heaven who both died in the True Faith, but the grown-up a higher place than the child. And the child will ask God,“ Why did you give that man a higher place ?” And God will answer," He has done many good work.” Then the child will say," Why did you let me die so soon so that I was prevented from doing well?” God will answer,” I knew that you would grow up a sinner, therefore it was better than you should die a child.” Then a cry goes up from the damned in the depths of Hell, “Why O Lord, did you not let us die before we became sinner?”}