Dr Omar Anchassi, Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Bern on the SSC-funded Trajectories of Slavery in Islamicate Societies (TraSIS) project.
We recommend that readers explore our other blog contributions which are linked here.

Content warning: this blog post discusses issues of a highly sensitive nature, including the suffering of children (this- and otherworldly). Reader discretion is advised.

This month’s blog post departs from previous contributions by exploring a series of closely interrelated legal and theological questions in the longue durée, rather than focusing on a single text.

Introduction

In early kalām (Islamic theology), juristic debates on the lawfulness of killing children feature alongside discussions of children’s salvation in the Hereafter. It is easy to see how the two points are related: should one distinguish between unbelieving adult males and their offspring in the conduct of war, and if so, do the latter share the otherworldly fate of the former? In a word, are children punished—in this world and the next—for the sins of their fathers? In the second/eighth century, this proved to be a contentious point among Muslim theologians, and the various positions came to be embodied as competing ḥadīth. While the juristic debate seems to have been resolved relatively quickly in favour of the inviolability of children, the theological debate on their otherworldly fate was never settled.^[1] Moreover, over time the controversy became increasingly complex. What had begun as a discussion of the salvation and damnation of the children of non-Muslims (most commonly, awlād al-mushrikīn) broadened to encompass questions of children’s suffering generally, and thus of theodicy.^[2] These questions arose partly in response to the critiques of Zoroastrians and other dualists of the Muslim theologians (mutakallimūn).^[3] While there seems to have been unanimous agreement among the mutakallimūn that children are not moral agents (ghayr mukallafīn), at least in early life, there was corresponding agreement that they also shared certain this-worldly rulings with their fathers, a notion that was referred to as tabaʿiyya. This latter unanimity obtained notwithstanding the common view, based on various ḥadīth attributed to the Prophet, that “Every child is born in their [unspoiled] nature (kulli mawlūdin yūladu ʿalā al-fiṭra),” and is only subsequently corrupted from the true religion by their non-Muslim parents.^[4] No later than the fourth/tenth century, this list of shared rulings as discussed by theologians included the burial of non-Muslim children outside of Muslim graveyards, and the bar on intermarriage and inheritance between them and the Muslim community.^[5] Those who sought to categorically deny the otherworldly punishment of children appealed to numerous counterexamples, including the fact that non-Muslim children are (unlike their fathers) not subject to the poll-tax (jizya). It is in the course of these refutations and counter-refutations that a theme emerges that is germane to the research of TraSIS. As the Zaydī and Bahshamī Muʿtazilī Mānkdīm Shashdīw (d. 425/1034) puts it, expressing the argument of his anonymous interlocutor, “How can this [i.e. the children of non-Muslim being considered only nominal unbelievers] be the case, when it is known that the ruling applied to them is the same as their fathers in terms of captivity (al-sabī) …?”^[6] His response is instructive, “…this is not by way of punishment (ʿalā ṭarīq al-ʿuqūba), but is an affliction [to be endured] and a trial (ʿalā ṭarīq al-ibtilāʾ wa-l-imtiḥān) from God, for which God will compensate them richly.”^[7] Later theologians emphasised the importance of slavery to the debate more clearly. The great Qurʾān commentator and Muʿtazilī theologian al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1144) comments,

As for their [i.e. non-Muslims’ children’s] enslavement (istirqāquhum), it is a punishment for their fathers and a test and [form of] moral instruction [for others], for which [the children] are compensated [in the Hereafter], just as they are compensated for illness. This is likewise true for the application of their fathers’ rulings to them in the prohibition of burial and intermarriage [with Muslims] and the lack of the funeral prayer for them [when they die].^[8]

Thus, the suffering of children in this world, whether through enslavement or other means, is a punishment for their non-Muslim parents. For others, presumably, it imparts an important moral lesson (ʿibra) and, in accordance with the views of many of the Muʿtazila, God is obligated to compensate children for this suffering in the Hereafter. Though it is true in a sense that these children are—as the chief of the Baghdādī school of the Muʿtazila Abū al-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī (d. 319/931) reports of the early Sunnīs (ahl al-ḥadīth)^[9]—“unbelievers by virtue of their fathers’ unbelief (kuffār bi-kufr ābāʾihim),” the Muʿtazila and many others categorically refused to extend the consequences of this status beyond their worldly lives.^[10] Thus, even if the children of polytheists are treated for all intents as non-Muslims in this world, and are subject to the distinctions this entails, many theologians held that they would enter Paradise, as we will see. The final text translated in this blog post, a section from the massively popular Tajrīd al-ʿaqāʾid of the Imāmī theologian Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274), upholds the Muʿtazilī position while referring (according to some commentators, at least) to slavery with the phrase “…their servitude (khidma) is not a means of punishment.”^[11] Because this work—usually with its commentary by al-Ṭūsī’s student al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī (d. 726/1325)—came to be and remains widely studied in Twelver-Shīʿī circles, a preoccupation with the question of how the enslavement of children relates to theodicy entered the bloodstream of at least one of Islam’s major theological traditions.^[12]

The most common terms used to refer to children in these theological discussions are, in order of popularity: awlād, aṭfāl, dharārī and sharkh. The term sharkh is somewhat ambiguous, and can also refer to other categories of persons, as the idiosyncratic Ḍirār b. ʿAmr glosses it, “old men, women, children, servants, the insane and those devoid of reason (al-maʿtūh).”^[13]

Doctrine I: The Killing of Children

The doctrine permitting the killing of the children of polytheists is attributed with impressive consistency to the Azāriqa, an important Khārijī sub-group, the followers of Nāfiʿ b. al-Azraq (d. 65/685). Naturally, since the Azāriqa charged their Muslim opponents with unbelief, this ruling was extended to their children, too.^[14] This view is also attributed to the Najadāt, another Khārijī sub-group, albeit with less frequency.^[15] Ḍirār b. ʿAmr attributes the same view to the “Stranglers (al-khannāqīn)” among the (extremist Shīʿī) Manṣūriyya, and al-Kaʿbī ascribes it to the (Khārijī) Bayhasiyya and Bisṭām al-Shaybānī (fl. early 2^nd/8^th C.).^[16] Other Khārijite groups disagreed, including a group who forsook the Najadāt, the Maymūniyya, the Fuḍayliyya, the Ṣufriyya and the Ibāḍīs.^[17] A reader unused to kalām might expect that, as a strictly legal question, the killing of children would not figure so prominently in theological texts, but many issues that came to define sectarian identities did so, such as the wiping over boots (al-masḥ ʿalā al-khuffayn) in minor ritual purification (wuḍūʾ).^[18]

Doctrine II: The Damnation of Children

The Azāriqa are, unsurprisingly, consistently reported to have held that the children of the polytheists are damned, like their fathers.^[19] This view is also attributed to the Thaʿāliba, another Khārijī sub-group, who taught that this is because the children “belong to them (rukn min arkānihim) [i.e. their fathers], meaning by that that the [children] are part of them (baʿḍ min abʿāḍihim).”^[20] This doctrine is likewise attributed to other Khārijīs including the ʿAjārida, the Maymūniyya and the so-called Bidʿiyya, while the Ibāḍīs suspend judgement on the issue (i.e. tawaqquf): God can send the children of unbelievers to Paradise or Hell, as He wishes.^[21] Al-Ashʿarī seems to characterise this as the majority view among them, writing that

Many of the Ibāḍīs suspended judgement on the punishment of the children of the polytheists in the Hereafter. They held that God could punish them in the Hereafter, though not in return for sin (ʿalā ghayr ṭarīq al-intiqām). They likewise held that it was permissible for Him to admit them to Paradise without their having merited it (tafaḍḍulan). Others held that it was possible for God to make them suffer [by punishing them in the Hereafter], but not permissible [for Him to do so] (ʿalā ṭarīq al-ījāb lā ʿalā ṭarīq al-tajwīz).^[22]

The damnation of the children of polytheists is also ascribed to a group among the Imāmī Shīʿa, though others, including the associates of the star theologian Hishām b. al-Ḥakam (d. 179/795), allegedly dissented, holding that this was impermissible.^[23] Burghūth (d. 240/855 or 241/856) and Jahm b. Ṣafwān (d. 128/745–6) held that God may punish children in Hell if He so wishes, without this being unjust.^[24] Additionally, though the Ibāḍī Imām al-Muhannā b. Jayfar claims to know of no disagreement that the children of Muslims enter Paradise, things are, as it happens, more complex.^[25] Certain Khārijī sub-groups disagreed about whether young children could be considered Muslims at all, and therefore subject to “amity, enmity or disavowal (walāya wa-lā ʿadāwa wa-lā barāʾa).”^[26] This question of allegiance was occasionally linked to the children’s otherworldly salvation, with the implication that the children of Muslim parents had to be questioned about their beliefs and could not simply assumed to be Muslims.^[27]

By contrast, the Muʿtazila, the Zaydiyya, the Karrāmiyya, Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064), and some of the early Sunnīs who engaged in kalām (mutakallimī ahl al-ḥadīth) held the view that children would not be consigned to Hell, some of them adding that it would be unjust of God to do so.^[28] Ibn Ḥazm characterises this as the view of the “majority (al-jumhūr)” of Muslim theologians, and spends several pages refuting the counterarguments against this doctrine.^[29] There are contradictory reports on early Sunnīs, which seem to reflect a genuine disagreement among them, the result of conflicting ḥadīth reports.^[30] While their detractors generally focus on the view that condemns the children of polytheists to everlasting torment, self-professed Sunnīs typically acknowledge one of four positions: damnation, the view that they become the servants of the inhabitants of Paradise (khadam ahl al-janna), and the view that they are subjected to a test in the afterlife in which God commands them to enter a fire kindled for that purpose. If they obey, they are whisked away to Paradise, and if they refuse, they are condemned to Hell. A fourth, less common view, that they are admitted to Paradise, is also found among some Sunnī mutakallimūn, as we have seen previously.^[31]

Theodicy, Salvation and the Enslavement of Children: Texts in Translation

Having presented a brief overview of the various theological doctrines on questions relating to children, and the sects and individuals to which they are attributed, it is now time to allow the texts to speak for themselves, as it were. I have translated excerpts from ten works, displayed here in chronological order as far as I have been able to determine this. This is done with the aim of demonstrating how the debate became increasingly complex over time, eventually growing to encompass the question of slavery. In this section, I have repeated authors’ dates and bibliographical details mentioned above for the reader’s convenience. Where several extracts are presented from a single text, I have presented the page numbers immediately beforehand and have put the text in quotation marks. Where I present only a single extract, this is given as a single, continuous piece of prose with only direct speech marked with quotation marks. I have occasionally revised the formatting of the texts as I have seen fit. Owing to time constraints, I have had to resist the temptation to trace the variants of the ḥadīths in the footnotes: specialists will recognise them, and others may look them up by consulting works like A.J. Wensinck’s Concordance.^[32] I have tried to translate technical terms consistently, but with other less exacting notions, such as pain (alam, pl. ālām), I have felt freer to translate according to context. As Abdulrahman al-Salimi has already called attention to the similarities between the first and second texts, I refer readers to his discussion of this point.^[33] Both of these works were written to undermine the reliability of the great mass of the ḥadīth corpus, and thus present contradictory reports embodying competing perspectives on every question. Only occasionally does the author’s perspective emerge in the main section of the text.

Text 1: ʿAbd Allāh b. Yazīd al-Fazārī (d. after 179/795), “Kitāb al-Rudūd,” in Early Ibadi Theology: New Material on Rational Thought in Islam from the Pen of al-Fazārī, ed. Adbulrahman al-Salimi (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 25–103.^[34]

50: [On those sectaries who come to their leader (raʾīs) asking whether killing women and children is lawful, to which their leader responds]: “He [the Prophet is reported to have] said regarding abstaining from [the killing of] women and children: the Prophet dispatched an expedition (sariya) [to raid the enemy], who killed women and children. When he was informed of that, his colour changed. They proclaimed, ‘O Prophet of God, they are the children of polytheists (dharārī al-mushrikīn)!’ He answered, ‘Are the best among you not children of the polytheists?’ He [the Prophet] forbade killing women and children, and said, ‘The children of the polytheists are the servants of the inhabitants of Paradise (khadam ahl al-janna)’: they committed no sin such that they should be punished, nor did they do any good act such that they should be rewarded. He [God] said [Q. 35:18] ‘No bearer of sins shall bear another’s burden,’ and [Q. 17:15] ‘Never do We punish a people until we send them a Messenger,’ and He said [Q. 6:164] ‘No soul reaps except what it sows.’ He [the Prophet] said, ‘The prophet is in Paradise; the martyr is in Paradise; the child that is prematurely born or dies in early infancy (al-mawlūd) is in Paradise, and the infant girl buried alive (al-mawʾūda) is in Paradise.’”

92: [On the Compulsionists (jabriyya)]: “They allege that God punishes children, to whom religious obligations (al-aḥkām) do not apply—nor are they so obligated by the sins of their fathers—and that He punishes them for [their fathers’] sins. Then they claim that that which they have ascribed to their God is just to His creation, and that it confirms His lordship and power. What slander against God is greater than this! This is the opinion of the Compulsionists (al-jabriyya wa-l-qadariyya). ^[35] By my life, their brother polytheists in the time of the Prophet said just the same, so repulsive is their doctrine! Whoever ascribes justice to God in a general way suffices [in refuting this view], for those who have a mindful heart and give ear attentively [Q. 50:37]. There is no power nor might save in God, He suffices for us, and great is He as our protector [Q. 3:173]! God sent the Prophet, and the generality of the polytheists were Compulsionists. When he called them to faith and the abandonment of unbelief, they answered, as God reported of them [Q. 6:148]: ‘The polytheists will say, ‘Had it been God’s will, neither we nor our forefathers would have ascribed partners to Him, nor would we have prohibited anything [He made lawful]’: so did those before them lie, until they tasted Our punishment. Say, ‘Do you have any [certain] knowledge of that, that you can bring us? You follow naught but conjecture, and do nothing but lie’,’ meaning, not tell the truth.”

93–94: “He [God] said [Q. 17:15]: ‘Whoever chooses guidance, then it is for his own good, and whoever goes astray, it is to his own [loss]. No bearer of sins shall bear another’s burden, and never do We punish a people until we send them a Messenger.’ God [thus] informs us that children do not bear any burden [of sin], nor are they punished for others’ sins; God does not punish anyone until He sends them a Messenger summoning them to Him, and debating them. If they disobey the Messenger, [God] punishes them. As for children, the Messengers do not address them, nor do they debate with them, and nor are [the Messengers’] proofs binding on them.” 

Text 2: Ḍirār b. ʿAmr al-Ghaṭafānī (d. c. 200/815), Kitāb al-Taḥrīsh, ed. Hüseyin Hansu and Mehmet Keskin (Istanbul: Dār al-Irshād, 2014), 93–94.^[36]

Then a group come to him [the faqīh],^[37] asking “What do you say regarding the killing of women and children?” He answers, “Write down [what I dictate]: al-Ṣaʿb and al-Ṣāmit b. Ḥabāba (al-Ṣaʿb b. Jathāma) report,^[38] ‘The Prophet was asked about the children of polytheists, regarding [their killing in] nighttime raids, in the darkness of the night. He said, ‘Kill them, [for] they are with their fathers (iqtulūhum fa-innahum maʿa al-ābāʾ).’ He [the Prophet] commanded Usāma b. Zayd, when he directed him [to lead an army to conquer] greater Syria, to kill them by fire and to drown them. ʿĀʾisha, the Mother of the Believers, was asked about the children of the polytheists and answered, ‘If you wished, I would let you hear their anguished screams (taḍāghīhim) in Hell.’ The Prophet besieged the people of Ṭāʾif and a woman [among the besieged climbed to the] top of the fortress and exposed her pudendum in the Prophet’s direction. He ordered the archers to loose at her; Saʿd b. Abī Waqqāṣ loosed and did not fail to hit her in the pudendum, whereupon she fell down from the fortress, dead.” These [reports] were accepted by the Azāriqa and the ‘Stranglers’ among the Manṣūriyya, and they interpreted [the Qurʾān accordingly, Q. 71:26], “Do not leave a single unbeliever on the earth,” [Q. 4:89] “Kill them wherever you find them,” and [Q. 2:193] “Kill them until there is no more fitna.” They adopted the killing of the women and children of Muslims (ahl al-qibla) as part of their religion.

Then [another] group go to [their faqīh], asking, “What do you say regarding the Azāriqa and the Manṣūriyya’s permitting the shedding of the blood of women and children?” He answers, “Be wary of them, for they are people of innovation and misguidance (ahl bidaʿ wa-ḍalāl). Write [what I dictate to you]: ‘The Prophet dispatched an expedition [to raid the enemy], who killed women and children. When he was informed of that, his colour changed, so they said, ‘They are the children of polytheists, O Prophet of God!’ He answered, ‘Are the best among you not children of the polytheists?’ And so he forbade the killing of women and children.’ He said, ‘Kill the fighters among the polytheists and spare their sharkh.’ The sharkh are old men, women, children, servants, the insane and those devoid of their reason (al-maʿtūh). He [also] said, ‘The children of the polytheists are the servants of the inhabitants of Paradise.’ They committed no sin such that they should be punished, nor did they do any good act such that they should be rewarded. [God said, Q. 17:15] ‘No bearer of sins shall bear another’s burden: never do We punish a people until we send them a Messenger.’ He did not dispatch Messengers to them, and [thus] did not charge them with [good] actions. The Prophet said, ‘The prophet is in Paradise; the martyr is in Paradise, and the infant buried alive (al-mawʾūd) is in Paradise.’ God is magnanimous and forbearing (al-karīm al-ḥalīm), overlooking and forgiving those who spend their whole lives insulting Him and fabricating lies [against Him] and then repent: so what of those whom He does not command or forbid, and who do not commit any sins?” They [the group in question] accepted this and adopted it as their religion. They are the Maymūniyya of the Khawārij, the Fuḍayliyya and the upholders of the doctrine of free will (qadariyya) among all the sects (al-aṣnāf), for in every group there are those who [uphold the doctrine of] freewill (fī jamīʿ al-aṣnāf qadr).

Text 3: al-Muhannā b. Jayfar (r. 226/841–237/851), “Epistle of Imam al-Muhannāʾ [sic] b. Jayfar to Maʿādh [sic] b. Ḥarb,” in Ibadi Texts in Oman from the 3rd/9th Century, ed. Abdulrahman al-Salimi (Leiden: Brill, 2022), 138–56 (at 148–49).

As for what you asked regarding children (al-aṭfāl), then the children of believers are, according to our doctrine, with their fathers [in Paradise], and we know of nobody who has disagreed with us in this regard, and God knows best. This is what the wise Qurʾān states, for [God] says [Q. 52:21]: “Those who believe, and their descendants who follow them in faith, We will join them with their descendants.” 

As for the children of the polytheists, the Hypocrites among those who profess [Islam], opinions (al-āthār) diverge concerning them, as do authoritative reports (ḥadīth). We find no description of [their condition] in the Book of God. It is reported from the Prophet that Khadīja his wife asked him, “O Prophet of God, where are our children?” He answered, “In Paradise.” She asked, “What about my children from others [i.e. previous husbands]?” He replied, “In Hell: if you wished, I would let you hear their screams (ṣurākhuhum).” This was reported from him, as was [another ḥadīth]—and God knows best—in which he is asked about the children of the polytheists. He responded, “Servants of the inhabitants of Paradise.” Neither of these two views attributed to the Prophet are correct, in our view (lam yaṣiḥḥ ʿindanā): whatever the Prophet of God says is true, just as he says, but when matters differ [and reports contradict], then it becomes possible for us to suspend judgement regarding them (ittasaʿa ʿalaynā al-wuqūf ʿanhum). Our doctrine is that God knows best their destination and dwelling-place. We hold that this matter is one which it permissible for us to remain ignorant of until sure knowledge reaches us. This is our doctrine regarding the children of the polytheists and Hypocrites.

Text 4: al-Nāshiʾ al-Akbar (d. 293/906), “al-Kitāb al-Awsaṭ fī al-maqālāt,” in Frühe muʿtazilitische Häresiographie: Zwei Werke des Nāšiʾ Akbar (gest. 293 H.), ed. Josef van Ess (Beirut: al-Maʿhad al-Almānī li-l-Abḥāth al-Sharqiyya, 1971), 71–127 of Arabic section (at 98–99).^[39]

They [anonymous group] held that [children] do not suffer pain, because God only causes those deserving of punishment to feel it. They added that they [children] feel pain according to their natural constitutions (bi-l-ṭabīʿa), rather than by virtue of God imposing it on them. Such pain does not constitute injustice (ẓulm), as that [pain] which must necessarily be experienced by physical constitution is not injustice, as injustice is that which cannot be considered wise (al-ẓulm mā laysa bi-jāʾiz min al-ḥikma).

The Muʿtazila hold that children suffer pain and that this is God’s action, for which they are compensated [i.e. ʿiwaḍ]. They claim that the wisdom behind this suffering is moral instruction for those of insight (an yuʿtabar bi-dhālik ūlū al-baṣāʾir), and as a trial [i.e. imtiḥān] for their fathers and mothers.

Al-Naẓẓām [d. between 220/835 and 230/845] held that it was God’s doing, through the means of their natural constitutions (bi-ījāb al-ṭabīʿa lahu).^[40]

The partisans of reincarnation (aṣḥāb al-tanāsukh) hold that children and animals are punished for sins they committed previously, because God created them [in previous lives] and commanded them and they disobeyed [Him], so when He caused their souls to migrate [to new forms], whatever pain they incur occurs in accordance with sins they committed previously. This is just like the Compulsionists (al-mujbira), who say that the pain of children results from God’s action, because He can do whatever He wills, without that constituting injustice. The believers in reincarnation do not hold that they will be compensated [for their suffering].

Others hold that it is permissible for them to be compensated, and likewise, not compensated, as the pleasures they experience in life (al-ladhdha bi-l-ḥayā) far outweigh any pain.

ʿAbd Allāh [b. Muḥammad al-Nāshiʾ, the author] holds that a single [experience of] pleasure is ease (ṭiwal), whereas a single [experience of pain] is oppression (jawr), and an equal balancing of the two is just (ʿadl).

The companions of [Hishām b. ʿAmr] al-Fuwaṭī [d. before 218/833] hold that it is not permissible for a child to be compensated for suffering pain, for if they were so compensated, it would be [correspondingly] permissible for [God] to punish them for whatever pleasure [the child] experienced, and this is absurd (fāsid).^[41]

The upholders of the doctrine of divine justice (al-ʿadliyyūn) hold that children are not punished [in the Hereafter], nor are they called to account or tested on the Day of Resurrection.

Text 5: Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/935), Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn wa-ikhtilāf al-muṣallīn, ed. H. Ritter (Beirut: al-Maʿhad al-Almānī li-l-Abḥāth al-Sharqiyya, 1426/1980), 253–54.

253–54: The Muʿtazila disagreed regarding the suffering of children (īlām al-aṭfāl), dividing into three camps.

Some [of them] held that God does not make them suffer for any particular cause (ʿilla), adding that He does not compensate them for making them suffer. They rejected this [belief in compensation], and [likewise] rejected the view that God would punish them in the Hereafter.

Most of the Muʿtazila held that God makes [children] suffer for the moral instruction of adults, and then compensates [the children in the Hereafter]: and if He did not compensate them, His causing them to suffer would constitute an injustice.

The upholders of the doctrine of divine grace (aṣḥāb al-luṭf) hold that He caused them to suffer in order to compensate them. [They likewise hold that] it is possible that His compensating them without causing them to suffer would be optimal (aṣlaḥ), but God is not obligated to do that which is optimal.

They [the Muʿtazila] disagreed regarding whether it is permissible for God to compensate children without their experiencing prior suffering, dividing into two camps: some of the Muʿtazila accepted this and others rejected it.

They disagreed regarding the compensation which children [who have suffered] are entitled to, whether it is everlasting compensation (ʿiwaḍ dāʾim) or not, [different groups] supporting [one of] two doctrines. Some held that they are entitled to everlasting compensation. Others held that everlasting compensation occurs without [the children] having merited it (tafaḍḍulan), rather than by way of entitlement.

The Muʾtazila all agreed that it is not permissible for God to cause children to suffer in the Hereafter, nor is it permissible [for Him] to punish them [in Hell].

Text 6: Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Qalānisī (fl. 3^rd/9^th C.), Kitāb al-Maqālāt, ed. and trans. Ziad Bou Akl (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021), 44–46.^[42]

They [theologians] disagreed regarding the eternality (dawām) of the punishment of those who have committed no sin.

Some of the theologians of the Partisans of ḥadīth (mutakallimī ahl al-ḥadīth) and some of the Muʿtazila held that God would not prolong to eternity the punishment of those who had committed no sin.

Al-Najjār [d. c. 220/835] held that it is permissible for God to prolong the suffering of children in Hell, and if He did so, it would not constitute a place of punishment (dār ʿiqāb) [for them].^[43]

Burghūth [d. 240/855 or 241/856] and Jahm [b. Ṣafwān, d. 128/745–6] held that God is entitled to cause children to suffer and to punish them eternally in the fire of Hell [if He so wishes], and if He did so, that would be wise [of Him].

People disagreed regarding pain (al-ālām).

The wise eminences (al-faṭṭān) among the Partisans of ḥadīth and the Najjāriyya, and some of the Muʿtazila and others held that God causes children and animals to suffer without their having committed a sin or act of disobedience, and He is wise in doing so.

The dualists (thanawiyya) held that a wise agent (al-ḥakīm) does not create pain, hunger or illness.

Abū Bakr b. ukht ʿAbd al-Wāḥid [d. fl. second half of the 2^nd/8^th C.] held that animals and children do not feel pain or suffer.^[44]

They [theologians] disagreed regarding compensation for pain suffered. Some of the wise eminences of the Partisans of ḥadīth said that children and animals whom God causes to suffer pain do so to offer moral instruction to others, increasing believers in faith and testing whichever moral agents (al-mutakallifīn) He wills among the children’s parents, one or both of them, the owner of the animal, or anybody else among His creation. Then, He compensates the child and the animal as He wishes to equal (yūwāzī) the pain that occurred, or to [graciously] exceed it. 

Any moral agent that God causes to suffer pain…^[45]such pain could be a punishment or requital [for sins committed], and his pain [is a consequence of] his [own] evil, and a trial, and this is the view of most of the Muʿtazila.

Some of them [i.e. Muʿtazila] held that God causes his slaves to suffer pain in order to increase their rank in Paradise, and it is not permissible for God to cause them to arrive at such lofty ranks without suffering. Nor can God be described as having the power (qudra) to make them attain those ranks without the requisite suffering.

ʿAbbād [b. Sulaymān, alive in 260/874] held that children are not entitled to compensation, and that children and animals are not compensated for the suffering which they experience, as compensation is only merited by those who have earned it through [good] actions.^[46]

Al-Najjār held that God would not cause children to suffer without compensating them, and this [view] was shared by the theologians among the Partisans of ḥadīth (ahl al-naẓar min anṣār al-ḥadīth).

Text 7: Abū al-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī (d. 319/931), Kitāb al-Maqālāt wa-maʿahu ʿUyūn al-masāʾil wa-l-jawābāt, ed. Hüseyin Hansu, Rājiḥ Kurdī, and ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Kurdī (Amman: Dār al-Fatḥ, 1439/2018), 337–40.^[47]

All of the upholders of the doctrine of divine justice, the Zaydiyya, groups among the Khawārij—all of them or some of them, as far as I can tell—and some of the Compulsionists hold that it is not in accord with God’s wisdom to punish any child in the Hereafter for whatever reason (bi-wajhin min al-wujūh), whether it is the child of a believer or a polytheist. [Such children] are in Paradise, according to the reports which mention they are the servants of the inhabitants of Paradise. God blesses them thereby, out of His bounty (yatafaḍḍalu bi-dhālik), as well as their believing fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, and He compensates [the children] for the suffering they experienced in their worldly lives. They held that the difference between their [children’s] suffering in this world and in the Hereafter is that the former occurs for their and others’ benefit (maṣlaḥa), moral instruction and as a trial for their fathers and mothers. The [children] merit (yastaḥiqqūn) their compensation Hereafter by [means of this suffering], such that they would wish [in the Hereafter] to have experienced even greater pain, to increase their compensation. Their punishment in a fiery pit in Hell would be devoid of such a meaning [and thus, purposeless]. 

They [theologians] add that one sees a man cause his child pain for the sake of some [ultimate] comfort (rāḥa) he wishes for him by means of it, which is wise of him [such as bloodletting or cupping, the usual examples]. It is not permissible for him to cause [his child] to suffer for the whole course of his life for no benefit, or as a trial for him or others, or for some comfort he hopes for [aimlessly]. They mention that God says, [Q. 6:164] “No bearer of sins shall bear another’s burden.” They add [Q. 81:8–9] “When the infant girl is asked for what sin she was buried alive”: how strange is the one who kills her for no sin [she has committed]—what then of punishing her and making her suffer in Hell, given that the infant girl is a child of polytheists?

Most of the Compulsionists (al-mujbira al-qadariyya), a group of the Khawārij, the Imāmī Shīʿa and the ignoble masses (al-ḥashw al-ṭughām) [i.e. ahl al-ḥadīth] hold that the children of the polytheists are with their fathers [in Hell]. The Compulsionists explain this by [saying that] granting [those children] pleasure is an [act of divine] bounty (bi-faḍlin): and if doing so is bountiful, then it is permissible for [God] to deprive them of [it] to enrage their fathers. It is said to them [in response]: between pain and pleasure exists an intermediate state, annihilation (al-ifnāʾ), so it is possible [for God] to choose to deprive them of his bounty without causing them to suffer. So they wander [blindly] and persist [in their error], and [that group among the] Khawārij insist that they belong to their fathers, and [so] they are subject to the same ruling in the Hereafter, just as they are subject to the same ruling in this world: they are unbelievers by virtue of their fathers’ unbelief (kuffār bi-kufr ābāʾihim). The masses who ascribe themselves to the ḥadīth report from ʿĀʾisha that the Prophet said, “If you wished, I would let you hear their anguished screams in Hell.”

It is held by a group that God will kindle a fire for children and the residents of the Abode of War [whom the summons to Islam never reached] and order them to enter it; whoever enters it goes to Paradise, and whoever refuses it enters Hell.

A[nother] group holds that God knows what they would do were He to test them, so whoever He knows would have obeyed Him in such a test He admits to Paradise, and those whom He knows would have disobeyed Him, He sends to Hell.

Most of the upholders of the doctrine of divine justice held that the goodly things (al-naʿīm) that children experience in the Hereafter are in compensation for their sufferings in worldly life. They add that compensation may be unmerited (min ghayri kasbin) by those compensated. Someone might say, “I compensated so-and-so for what was taken from him by thieves, and for what they usurped of his property.” This is not compensation that is merited by the person [so] compensated.

ʿAbbād [b. Sulaymān] held that compensation can only be [awarded in exchange for] merit and good deeds committed by the compensated person, and by virtue of the patience with which he forbears with his suffering and by which he draws closer to God. Children have neither [good deeds] meriting [such compensation], nor encounter what suffering they meet with patiently, drawing them closer to God. He [ʿAbbād] claimed that the goodly things children receive [in Paradise] are received by virtue of [God’s] bounty and are not compensation at all.

A group held that God causes them to suffer [in this world] for the moral instruction of their fathers and mothers and others around them, and so He may try them thereby. Then, He compensates [the children] in the Hereafter. This is the view of the great majority (jumhūr) of the Muʿtazila.

The upholders of the doctrine of divine grace hold that [God] causes them to suffer in order to compensate them. It is possible that His compensating them might occur without His inflicting suffering on them, which would be optimal, but God is not obligated to do that which is optimal.

The Compulsionists hold that He causes them to suffer because He owns them (yamlikuhum), and a [goodly] end transpires by virtue of [His] bounty, and whoever does not bestow such a bounty is not guilty of injustice (ghayru ẓālim).

Bakr [?] held that children do not experience pain, and he said the same regarding animals, which do not possess speech.

Text 8: Mānkdīm Shashdīw (d. 425/1034), Sharḥ al-uṣūl al-khamsa, ed. ʿAbd al-Karīm ʿUthmān (Cairo: Maktabat Wahba, 1416/1996), 482.^[48]

Our response is that we do not concede that the ruling (al-ḥukm) concerning [the children of polytheists] is the same as the ruling for their fathers in terms of category (al-ism), as it is known beyond doubt that a two-day old infant cannot be called a polytheist, a Jew or a Christian. As for the ruling [applied to such children], they are not charged with the unbelief of their fathers, nor is the poll-tax (jizya) levied on them, and other such things. As for their being forbidden from marrying or inheriting [from Muslims], or from being buried in Muslim graveyards, this is merely to distinguish them (tamyīzan) from the children of Muslims—and nothing else.

They [the Compulsionists] respond: how can this be the case, when it is known that the ruling applied to them is the same as their fathers in terms of captivity and killing (al-sabī wa-l-qaṭl)? We say: as for their captivity, this is not by way of punishment (ʿalā ṭarīq al-ʿuqūba), but it is an affliction [to be endured] and a trial (ʿalā ṭarīq al-ibtilāʾ wa-l-imtiḥān) from God, for which God will compensate them richly. So this case is like the case of children’s and adults’ suffering [generally]. As for their killing [in war], we do not concede this, as the Prophet forbade the killing of the children, women and animals of the unbelievers. When [the unbelievers] take their children as human shields, it becomes permissible to kill them [i.e. the children], in order to punish them [their fathers], out of severity towards the unbelievers. God compensates them [the children] amply [for their suffering in the Hereafter].

Text 9: Abū al-Qāsim Maḥmūd b. ʿUmar al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1144), Kitāb al-Minhāj fī uṣūl al-dīn, ed. Sabine Schmidtke (Beirut: al-Dār al-ʿArabiyya li-l-ʿUlūm, 1428/2007), 30.^[49]

As for the doctrine of the ḥashwiyya [i.e. Sunnīs] on the [otherworldly] punishment of the children of the polytheists, this is false, as punishment in the absence of sin is injustice. They are not punished for the sins of their fathers; thus, they are not punished with the canonical punishments [such as] lapidation or amputation if their fathers commit illicit sex or theft. As for their enslavement (istirqāquhum), it is a punishment for their fathers and a test and [form of] moral instruction [for others], for which [the children] are compensated [in the Hereafter], just as they are compensated for illness. This is likewise true for the application of their fathers’ rulings to them regarding the prohibition of burial and intermarriage [with Muslims] and the lack of the funeral prayer for them [when they die].

Text 10: Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274), Tajrīd al-ʿaqāʾid, ed. ʿAbbās Muḥammad Ḥasan Sulaymān (Alexandria: Dār al-Maʿrifa al-Jāmiʿiyya, 1993), 123. Punishing someone who is not a moral agent is unjust (qabīḥ), and the words of Noah [Q. 71:27, “They [the unbelievers] beget none but wicked unbelievers (fājiran kaffāran)”] are figurative. Their [children’s] servitude (khidma) is not a means of punishment, and their sharing (tabaʿiyya) some of the rulings [to which their fathers are subject] is permissible [for God, without constituting an injustice]

---

^[1] Later jurists of all schools largely take it for granted that the deliberate targeting of non-combatant women and children in war is prohibited (as opposed to, say, their accidental killing in night-raids or as collateral damage). Instead, they discuss the debated status of other targets such as monks and old and infirm men. See, for example, Ibn al-Mundhir (d. 318/930), al-Ishrāf ʿalā madhāhib al-ʿulamāʾ, ed. Abū Aḥmad Ṣaghīr Aḥmad al-Anṣārī, 10 vols. (Raʾs al-Khamya: Maktabat Makka al-Thaqāfiyya, 1426/2005), 4:21–24; al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī (d. 726/1325), Mukhtalaf al-Shīʿa (Qom: Muʾasassat al-Nashr al-Islāmī, 1433), 4:392; Ibn Miftāḥ (d. 877/1472), al-Muntazaʿ al-mukhtar min al-Ghayth al-midrār al-maʿrūf bi-sharḥ al-Azhār, 10 vols. (Ṣaʿda: Maktabat al-Turāth al-Islāmī, 1424/2003), 10:450. It is worth noting that the notion of “non-combatants” is broader in Islamic than modern international law: see Ella Landau-Tasseron, “Non-Combatants” in Muslim Legal Thought (Washington D.C.: Hudson Institute, 2006).

^[2] On the theology of pain, illness and compensation (including children’s), see Margaretha T. Heemskerk, Pain and Compensation in Muʿtazilite Doctrine: ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s Teaching and its Adoption by Mānkdīm and Ibn Mattawayh (Nijmegen: Quickprint, 1995).

^[3] For an important example of this critique, the Škand Gumānīg-Wizār (“The Doubt-Dispelling Disquisition”), which focuses heavily on the theme of theodicy, see Christian C. Sahner, The Definitive Zoroastrian Critique of Islam: Chapters 11–12 of the Škand Gumānīg-Wizār by Mardānfarrox son of Ohrmazddād (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2023).

^[4] On the notion of fiṭra, see Jon Hoover, “Fiṭra,” in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_27155 (accessed 18/7/2023).

^[5] The assumption here is clearly that male children are the referent, since Sunnī jurists typically permit marriage to female Scriptuaries (kitābiyyāt). For an overview of the debate on intermarriage, see Yohanan Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 54–86.

^[6] Mānkdīm Shashdīw, Sharḥ al-uṣūl al-khamsa, ed. ʿAbd al-Karīm ʿUthmān (Cairo: Maktabat Wahba, 1416/1996), 482.

^[7] Ibid.

^[8] Abū al-Qāsim Maḥmūd b. ʿUmar al-Zamakhsharī, Kitāb al-Minhāj fī uṣūl al-dīn, ed. Sabine Schmidtke (Beirut: al-Dār al-ʿArabiyya li-l-ʿUlūm, 1428/2007), 30.

^[9] Here and throughout this blog post, I have referred to the ahl al-ḥadīth using the shorthand Sunnīs, reflecting the fact that, no later than the second/eighth century, the followers of this movement referred to themselves and were referred to by others as the ahl al-sunna wa-l-jamāʿa: see, e.g., Ḍirār b. ʿAmr al-Ghaṭafānī, Kitāb al-Taḥrīsh, ed. Hüseyin Hansu and Mehmet Keskin (Istanbul: Dār al-Irshād, 2014), 130.

^[10] Abū al-Qāsim al-Kaʿbī, Kitāb al-Maqālāt wa-maʿahu ʿUyūn al-masāʾil wa-l-jawābāt, ed. Hüseyin Hansu, Rājiḥ Kurdī, and ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd Kurdī (Amman: Dār al-Fatḥ, 1439/2018), 338.

^[11] Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī, Tajrīd al-ʿaqāʾid, ed. ʿAbbās Muḥammad Ḥasan Sulaymān (Alexandria: Dār al-Maʿrifa al-Jāmiʿiyya, 1993), 123. For discussions of this passage in the commentaries, see al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī, Kashf al-murād fī sharḥ Tajrīd al-iʿtiqād (Beirut: Muʾasassat al-Aʿlamī, n.d.), 296–97; al-Muqaddas al-Ardabīlī (d. 993/1585), al-Ḥāshiya ʿalā ilāhiyyāt al-Sharḥ al-jadīd li-l-Tajrīd, ed. Aḥmad al-ʿĀbidī (Qom: Markaz Intishārāt Daftar Tablīghāt Islāmī, 1417), 158; Muḥammad Jaʿfar Sharīʿatmadār al-Astarābādī (d. 1263/1846), al-Barāhīn al-qāṭiʿa fī sharḥ Tajrīd al-ʿaqāʾid al-sāṭiʿa, 4 vols. (Qom: Markaz al-Abḥāth wa-l-Dirāsāt al-Islāmiyya, 1382 sh.), 2:446; al-Sayyid Muḥammad al-Ḥusaynī al-Shīrāzī (d. 1422/2001), al-Qawl al-sadīd fī sharḥ al-Tajrīd (Qom: Dār al-Īmān, 1381/1961), 304–305. On the Tajrīd, which circulated under several titles, see Reza Pourjavady, “Jalāl al-Dīn al-Dawānī (d. 908/ 1502), Glosses on ʿAlāʾ al- Dīn al-Qūshjī’s Commentary on Naṣīr al- Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s Tajrīd al- iʿtiqād,” in The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. Khaled El-Rouayheb and Sabine Schmidtke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 415–37.

^[12] For al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī’s views on theodicy, pain and compensation, see Sabine Schmidtke, The Theology of al-ʿAllāma al-Ḥillī (d. 726/1325) (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 1991), 104–24.

^[13] Ḍirār b. ʿAmr, Kitāb al-Taḥrīsh, 94.

^[14] See Sālim b. Dhakwān (fl. late 1^st/7^th or 2^nd/8^th C.), The Epistle of Sālim b. Dhakwān, ed. and trans. Patricia Crone and Fritz W. Zimmerman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 101, also the references on 163 (fn. 67); Ḍirār b. ʿAmr, Kitāb al-Taḥrīsh, 93; Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/935), Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn wa-ikhtilāf al-muṣallīn, ed. H. Ritter (Beirut: al-Maʿhad al-Almānī li-l-Abḥāth al-Sharqiyya, 1426/1980), 87; Abū Manṣūr ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī (d. 429/1038), al-Farq bayn al-firaq, ed. Muḥammad ʿUthmān al-Khishn (Cairo: Maktabat Ibn Sīnā, n.d.), 79; Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Shahrastānī (d. 548/1153), al-Milal wa-l-niḥal, ed. Aḥmad Fahmī Muḥammad, 3 vols. (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1413/1992), 1:115. On the Azāriqa generally, see Keith Lewinstein, “Azāriqa,” in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_0171 (accessed 14/7/2023).

^[15] Sālim b. Dhakwān, The Epistle of Sālim b. Dhakwān, 107.

^[16] Ḍirār b. ʿAmr, Kitāb al-Taḥrīsh, 93. On the Manṣūriyya, see William F. Tucker, Mahdis and Millenarians: Shīʿite Extremists in Early Muslim Iraq (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 71–87. As Tucker puts it, “The Manṣūriyya were especially identified with the practice of strangulation…The impression given by all of this information [on the sect recounted by al-Jāḥiz, d. 255/868] is that the followers of Abū Manṣūr were merely common criminals” (ibid., 75–76). For the Bayhasiyya, see al-Kaʿbī, Kitāb al-Maqālāt, 130. On Bisṭām al-Shaybānī, see Josef van Ess, Theology and Society in the Second and Third Centuries of the Hijra, trans. Gwendolin Goldbloom and John O’Kane, 5 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2016–20), 2:526–27.

^[17] On those who forsook the Najadāt, “namely Dāwūd, ʿAṭiyya and Abū Fudayk,” see Sālim b. Dhakwān, The Epistle of Sālim b. Dhakwān, 113. For the Maymūniyya and the Fuḍayliyya, see Ḍirār b. ʿAmr, Kitāb al-Taḥrīsh, 94. For the Ṣufriyya, see al-Baghdādī, al-Farq bayn al-firaq, 84. For the Ibāḍīs, see my previous blog post, here.

^[18] See Charles Pellat, “al-Masḥ ʿAlā ’l-K̲h̲uffayn,” in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_5001 (accessed 14/7/2023).

^[19] ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-īmān, ed. Ibrāhīm Muḥammad Ramaḍān (Cairo: Dār al-Hilāl, n.d.), 206; idem, al-Farq bayn al-firaq, 79; idem, Kitāb al-Milal wa-l-niḥal, ed. Albert Nader (Beirut: Dār al-Mashriq, 1970), 69; Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064), al-Fiṣal fī al-milal wa-l-ahwāʾ wa-l-niḥal, 5 vols. (Cairo: Maktabat al-Islām al-ʿĀlamiyya, n.d.), 4:60. For a very strange contradictory account of the views of various Khawārij, see Al-Kaʿbī, Kitāb al-Maqālāt, 141.

^[20] Al-Ashʿarī (d. 324/935), Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn, 100. See also Abū Tammām (fl. 4^th/10^th C.), An Ismaili Heresiography: The “Bāb al-shayṭān” from Abū Tammām’s Kitāb al-Shajara, ed. Wilferd Madelung and Paul E. Walker (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 27.

^[21] For the ʿAjārida and the Maymūniyya, see al-Shahrastānī, al-Milal wa-l-niḥal, 1:125. On the ʿAjārida, see also Abū Tammām, An Ismaili Heresiography, 23. For the so-called Bidʿiyya, the followers of Yaḥyā b. Aṣram (fl. 2^nd/8^th C.), see Abū Tammām, An Ismaili Heresiography, 25. See also van Ess, Theology and Society, 2:697–98.

^[22] Al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn, 111. See also al-Muhannā b. Jayfar (r. 226/841–237/851), “Epistle of Imam al-Muhannāʾ [sic] b. Jayfar to Maʿādh [sic] b. Ḥarb,” in Ibadi Texts in Oman from the 3rd/9th Century, ed. Abdulrahman al-Salimi (Leiden: Brill, 2022), 138–56 (at 148–49); al-Shahrastānī, al-Milal wa-l-niḥal, 132; Abū Tammām, 28.

^[23] Al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn, 55–56. Al-Ashʿarī is somewhat sceptical of the report.

^[24] Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Qalānisī (fl. 3^rd/9^th C.), Kitāb al-Maqālāt, ed. Ziad Bou Akl (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021), 44. On Burghūth, see van Ess, Theology and Society, 4:184–88. On Jahm b. Ṣafwān, see “Jahm b. Ṣafwān (d. 128/745–6) and the ‘Jahmiyya’ and Ḍirār b. ʿAmr (d. 200/815),” in The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. Sabine Schmidtke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 55–80.

^[25] Al-Muhannā b. Jayfar, “Epistle of Imam al-Muhannāʾ,” 148.

^[26] Al-Kaʿbī, Kitāb al-Maqālāt, 139.

^[27] E.g. al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-īmān, 207. For the question of disavowal from the children of Muslims, see al-Kaʿbī, Kitāb al-Maqālāt, 139; al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-īmān, 206–207; idem, al-Farq bayn al-firaq, 90–93; idem, Kitāb al-Milal wa-l-niḥal, 72–73; al-Shahrastānī, al-Milal wa-l-niḥal, 124–26, 128; Abū Tammām, An Ismaili Heresiography, 23.

^[28] For the Muʿtazila, see Al-Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn, 254; al-Qalānisī, Kitāb al-Maqālāt, 44 (where this is said to be the view of only some of them); al-Kaʿbī, Kitāb al-Maqālāt, 337; al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-īmān (for an attempt to point to the self-contradictions in this doctrine and ultimately to deny that they held it in a meaningful sense), 207. For the Zaydiyya, see al-Kaʿbī, Kitāb al-Maqālāt, 337. For the Karrāmiyya, see al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-īmān, 206. On the mutakallimī ahl al-ḥadīth, see Harith Bin Ramli, “The Predecessors of Ashʿarism: Ibn Kullāb, al-Muḥāsibī and al-Qalānisī,” in The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, 215–24. For an extensive list of relevant theologians, see ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī, ʿIyār al-naẓar fī ʿilm al-jadal, ed. Aḥmad Muḥammad ʿArrūbī (Kuwait: Asfār, 2019),724–25.

^[29] Ibn Ḥazm, al-Fiṣal fī al-milal, 4:60–66. For his condemnation of the Azāriqa as “ignorant bedouins (aʿrāb juhhāl)” see ibid., 61. On Ibn Ḥazm generally, see Ibn Ḥazm of Cordoba: The Life and Works of a Controversial Thinker, ed. Camilla Adang, Maribel Fierro, and Sabine Schmidtke (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

^[30] This point is made persuasively by al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-īmān, 207–208. See ʿAbd Allāh b. Yazīd al-Fazārī (d. after 179/795), “Kitāb al-Rudūd,” in Early Ibadi Theology: New Material on Rational Thought in Islam from the Pen of al-Fazārī, ed. Adbulrahman al-Salimi (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 25–103 of the English pagination (at 63, 92); al-Kaʿbī, Kitāb al-Maqālāt, 338; Mānkdīm Shashdīw, Sharḥ al-uṣūl al-khamsa, 482; al-Zamakhsharī, Kitāb al-Minhāj fī uṣūl al-dīn, 30.

^[31] Al-Baghdādī, Uṣūl al-īmān, 207–208; Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751/1350), Kitāb al-Rūḥ, ed. Muḥammad Ayyūb Ajmal al-Iṣlāḥī, 2 vols. (Riyadh: Dār ʿĀlam al-Fawāʾid, n.d.), 1:265–68; Ibn al-Mabrid (d. 909/1503), Tuḥfat al-wuṣūl ilā ʿilm al-uṣūl ed. Khālid b. Qāsim al-Radādī (Doha: Dār al-Imām al-Bukhārī, n.d.), 185.

^[32] For the online version of this work, see here.

^[33] Abdulrahman al-Salimi, “Introduction,” in Early Ibadi Theology, 1–22 (at 7–9). Al-Salimi holds that al-Fazārī wrote the work some years before Ḍirār wrote his.

^[34] On al-Fazārī, see Wilferd Madelung, “Early Ibāḍī Theology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, 242–50 (at 244–48); idem, “al-Fazārī, ʿAbdallāh b. Yazīd,” in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_30960 (accessed 18/7/2023).

^[35] Most likely a reference to the early Sunnīs, though other theologians also subscribed to the doctrine of divine predestination (qadr). As is well known, the epithet qadariyya was applied to both the believers in and opponents of this doctrine.

^[36] On Ḍirār and the Kitāb al-Taḥrīsh, see Sean Anthony, “Kitāb al-Taḥrīsh. By Ḍirār ibn ʿAmr al-Ghaṭafānī [Review],” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 76 (2017), 199–203; van Ess, Theology and Society, 3:34–68; idem, Der Eine und das Andere: Beobachtungen an islamischen häresiographischen Texten, 2 vols. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 1:132–40 (esp. 133–34).

^[37] In the Kitāb al-Taḥrīsh the term faqīh is used to refer generically to a religious authority, as the term had not yet come to assume its sense of jurist in an exclusive fashion.

^[38] There seems to be some confusion in the manuscript, and this repetition of names appears in the printed text, too. In later works this report was attributed to the Companion al-Ṣaʿb b. Jathāma (d. between 11/632 and 13/634).

^[39] On al-Nāshiʾ al-Akbar, see van Ess, Theology and Society, 4:161–66; idem, Der Eine und das Andere, 1:197–204.

^[40] On al-Naẓẓām, see Josef van Ess, “al-Naẓẓām,” in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_5883 (accessed 18/7/2023); idem, Theology and Society, 3:320–482.

^[41] On al-Fuwaṭī, see Charles Pellat, “Hishām b. ʿAmr al-Fuwaṭī,” in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_2905 (accessed 18/7/2023); van Ess, Theology and Society, 4:4–19.

^[42] On al-Qalānisī, see van Ess, Theology and Society, 2:715; idem, Der Eine und das Andere, 1:293–94.

^[43] On al-Najjār, see van Ess, Theology and Society, 4:540–41.

^[44] On Abū Bakr b. ukht ʿAbd al-Wāḥid, see van Ess, Theology and Society, 2:125–36.

^[45] This omission is present in the manuscript.

^[46] On ʿAbbād b. Sulaymān, see Suleiman A. Mourad, “ʿAbbād b. Sulaymān,” in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_23209 (accessed 18/7/2023); van Ess, Theology and Society, 4:20–51.

^[47] On al-Kaʿbī, see Racha El Omari, The Theology of Abū l-Qāsim al-Balkhī/al-Kaʿbī (d. 319/931) (Leiden: Brill, 2016); van Ess, Der Eine und das Andere, 1:328–75.

^[48] On Mānkdīm Shashdīw, see Heemskerk, Pain and Compensation in Muʿtazilite Doctrine, 62–63.

^[49] On al-Zamakhsharī, see C.H.M. Versteegh, “al-Zamak̲h̲s̲h̲arī,” in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_8108 (accessed 18/7/2023); Kifayat Ullah, al-Kashshāf: al-Zamakhsharī’s Muʿtazilite Exegesis of the Qurʾan (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017).