Works by Thiele, Jan as author 14
Abū Hāshim al-Jubbāʾī's (d. 321/933) theory of (states) (aḥwāl)
Editions 1 Translations 1
Between Cordoba and Nīsābūr: the emergence and consolidation of Ashʿarism
Editions 1 Translations 1
The Chapter on analogy (Qiyās) from the Ḥāshiyat al-Fuṣūl al-luʾluʾiyya of Aḥmad b. ʿAbdallāh Ibn al-Wazīr (d. 985/1577)
Editions 1
Relationships with other works 1
Commonness and derivative work in Ašʿarite literature
This article compares two extensive kalām works from the first half of the 6th/12th century: al-Ġunya fī al-kalām by the chief authority of Ašʿarism in Nīsābūr, Abū al-Qāsim al-Anṣārī, and Nihāyat al- This article compares two extensive kalām works from the first half of the 6th/12th century: al-Ġunya fī al-kalām by the chief authority of Ašʿarism in Nīsābūr, Abū al-Qāsim al-Anṣārī, and Nihāyat al-marām by his student Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn al-Makkī. The two works were recently published almost simultaneously—the Ġunya in a critical edition and the Nihāya as facsimile of the autograph manuscript, a codex completed in Rayy in 550/1155. Ayman Shihadeh, the editor of the Nihāya, already pointed out that al-Makkī’s work is based closely on his teacher’s Ġunya. The aim of this article is to study the precise extent of this textual dependency. It shows that more than the half of the Nihāya consists of literal or almost literal quotations from the Ġunya. Over long passages, the Nihāya may therefore be considered as al-Makkī’s recompilation of textual material from his teacher’s theological summa rather than an independent work.
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Relationships with other works 2
Conceptions of self-determination in fourth / tenth-century Muslim theology
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Discussing al-Bāqillānī’s theology in the Maghrib
This paper presents a unique manuscript copy of a fifth/eleventh-century Maghribī commentary on al-Bāqillānī’s Kitāb al-Tamhīd. The work, entitled al-Tasdīd fī sharḥ al-Tamhīd, was written by ‘Abd al- This paper presents a unique manuscript copy of a fifth/eleventh-century Maghribī commentary on al-Bāqillānī’s Kitāb al-Tamhīd. The work, entitled al-Tasdīd fī sharḥ al-Tamhīd, was written by ‘Abd al-Jalīl b. Abī Bakr al-Dībājī —also known as Ibn al-Ṣābūnī— who had studied the Kitāb al-Tamhīd with al-Bāqillānī’s disciples in Qayrawān. The present study first reviews the transmission of al-Bāqillānī’s work to the Islamic west. It then continues to present the author of the commentary, to reconstruct the work’s genesis and to describe its content. The final section focuses on a sample chapter and argues that al-Dībājī follows al-Bāqillānī’s later position on a specific theory —the so-called theory ofaḥwāl— of which the Tamhīd strongly disapproved. The Tasdīd is one of the oldest texts of Maghribī Ash‘arism that has come down to us and provides valuable new insights into the school’s early history in the Islamic west.
Editions 1
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The Jewish and Muslim reception of ʿAbd al-Jabbār's Kitāb al-Jumal wa-l-ʿuqūd
The Muʿtazila was not an exclusively Muslim phenomenon, since their teachings were also adopted by medieval Jewish savants. In recent years, a number of Muʿtazilī works were rediscovered or substanti The Muʿtazila was not an exclusively Muslim phenomenon, since their teachings were also adopted by medieval Jewish savants. In recent years, a number of Muʿtazilī works were rediscovered or substantially completed by adopting a comparative methodology, which was based on both Muslim and Jewish sources. This article deals with a lost work composed by qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, entitled al-Jumal wa-l-ʿuqūd. I will give an overview of the sources in Zaydī and Karaite collections that provide us with a more detailed picture of the dissemination of the text. On the basis of quotations by later theologians, I will propose a hypothesis on the content of al-Jumal wa-l-ʿuqūd. I will then discuss a possible relationship between ʿAbd al-Jabbār’s text and a manuscript from the Firkovitch collection in the National Library of Russia, which has recently been identified as a work entitled Taʿlīq al-Jumal wa-l-ʿuqūd.
Editions 1
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Recent scholarship in the field of kalām
This article reviews recent scholarship on kalām-theology and attempts to briefly describe some tendencies that appear to be promising for opening new perspective for future work. Scholarship has made This article reviews recent scholarship on kalām-theology and attempts to briefly describe some tendencies that appear to be promising for opening new perspective for future work. Scholarship has made significant attempts to transcend previous limitations of the field along the confines of religious communities and scholarly disciplines (theology vs. philosophy) and has extended the geographical scope and timeframe of investigation.
Editions 1
Theological compendia in late 6th/12th and early 7th/13th century Zaydism
Editions 1
Theologie in der jemenitischen Zaydiyya
Al-Ḥasan ar-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 1188 C.E.) was one of the most prominent representatives of the emerging reception of Basran Muʿtazilism in 12th century Yemen. He composed highly sophisticated works on ontolog
Al-Ḥasan ar-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 1188 C.E.) was one of the most prominent representatives of the emerging reception of Basran Muʿtazilism in 12th century Yemen. He composed highly sophisticated works on ontology, causality and the specific theory of attributes that has become known as the theory of “states” ( aḥwāl). He is therefore a rare case of a Muʿtazilī thinker who left a comprehensive and systematised account of his natural philosophy.
Jan Thiele’s study makes extensive use of hitherto unexplored manuscripts, thereby providing new insight into a largely unknown chapter of Zaydī and Muslim doctrinal history. Focusing on the later Muʿtazila, this book conveys a nuanced understanding of diachronic developments in the school’s teachings in order to refine a rather static perception that prevails in modern scholarship.
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