The Physical Theory of Kalam: Atoms, Space and Void in Basrian Mu'tazili Cosmology.

• Author: Frank, R.M.

The primary focus of the present study is explicitly restricted to "one component of kalam cosmological speculation, namely physical theory" (p. 2), and, at that, within a fairly narrow scope. The work is based principally on Ibn Mattawayh's Tadhkira fi ahkam al-jawahir wal-arad together with an unpublished commentary by an unknown author, and on the Masail of Abu Rashid al-Nisaburi, though other pertinent texts are regularly cited. A brief introduction concerning the most important mutakallimun from the ninth into the eleventh centuries A.D. is followed by a relatively long presentation (pp. 15-54) of "epistemology, the theory of attributes, and the theory of accidents," which, though superficial, on the whole contains some very useful information in the sections on "the theory of change" and on how various classes of accidents are known (pp. 47ff.). The core of the book and its primary contribution to the study of classical Mutazilite atomism begins, thus, with chapter three: "Atoms, Space, and Void" (pp. 54-89). Here the author begins with a discussion of the origin and contextual background of the use of jawhar to name the atom and of its common equivalence, as such, with juz (sc., al-juzu l-ladhi la yatajazza: the particle which is indivisible into parts), followed by a brief presentation of Ibn Mattawayh's listing of the essential characteristics of the atom. Dhanani is basically correct in suggesting (p. 59) that what ultimately underlies the kalam use of jawhar is "the concept of the atom as the material substrate of change," and that the mutakallimun employed it to "denote the atom as the material substrate for inherent accidents." Within the historical context, jawhar and arad were given (inherited as elements in the lexica of a number of theoretical systems) and appropriated by the mutakallimun as, so to speak, names for the two main categories of primary created beings. Juz, by contrast, is a descriptive name of the atom as the ultimate, irreducible and indivisible quantum of spatial extension. One notes that juz is also employed of the accident, both by leading Mutazilite authorities of the classical period (e.g., Abd al-Jabbar, Ibn Mattawayh, and al-Nisaburi) and by Asharites as well. That accidents are thus also conceived to exist as discrete "particles" is significant, particularly in the Mutazilite system, according to which more than one unit or quantum of certain classes of accidents can reside in a single atom. Though not mentioned by Dhanani, this is particularly important in their understanding of the nature and operation of force or momentum (itimad), something which is important to the physical theory and which comes up in a number of the texts he discusses. While Dhanani's discussion of "the theory of space" is uncertain, largely due to the absence of adequate data, that of "void space" (pp. 74ff.) is particularly thorough as, beginning with an outline of the larger background of divergent contemporary views on the matter (among them those of Avicenna and al-Kindi), he goes on to present, analyze, and discuss a series of arguments offered by Abu l-Qasim al-Balkhi against the existence of a void and thence to a series of arguments put forth by the Basrians in support of it.

In chapter four, then, in the context of Ibn Mattawayh's account of the ontological origin of lines, surfaces, and volumes (of the dimension of real magnitudes), Dhanani examines Pines' interpretation of kalam atomism and then, at some length, the Epicurean doctrine which seems to have viewed not only matter, but also space, time, and motion as constituted of...