Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra: Eine Geschichte des religiosen Denkens im fruhen Islam, vols. 3-6.

• Author: Frank, R. M.
• Position: Review

By JOSEPH VAN ESS. Berlin and New York: WALTER DE GRUYTER, 1992, 1996, 1993, 1995. Pp. xii + 507, xviii + 1107, x + 457, viii + 490.

Here at length is the completion of what might well be termed Prof. van Ess' maximum opus, the first two volumes of which were reviewed in JAOS 114: 682ff. Volumes three and four complete the historical study; five and six contain the texts.

Volume three covers the period from the beginning of the Abbasid caliphate to the mihna, a time of intense activity, both religious and intellectual, in the course of which what are rightly to be considered the first theological school traditions took shape. Volume four, then, covers the aftermath of the mihna, dealing primarily with its effects on the Mu tazila and the school's consequent spread, with the various reactions to its basic rationalism, and finally (pp. 277-349) with "The Crisis" that results in "the Self-destruction of the Dialectical Method" (pp. 289-344). Here the chronologically ordered and geographically distributed account of religious figures, teachers, scholars, and leaders and of the divergent and convergent teachings, trends, movements, squabbles, and conflicts associated with them begun in volume three comes to a close and is followed by a "Summary" (pp. 353-737), in which the material that has been hitherto presented and discussed is topically reordered and reviewed in terms of the basic theological issues and questions as they were conceived and treated over the two centuries: Gottesbild (pp. 361-477), Menschenbild (pp. 479-541), Korper und Geist (pp. 513- 41), Eschatologie (pp. 543-61), der Glaube (pp. 563-672), and Theologie und Gesellschaft (pp. 673-737). There follow then, this being the last volume of the study and also the last to appear, additions and corrections to all six volumes (pp. 739-63), bibliography (pp. 766-892), and indices (pp. 893-1107).

The period examined in volumes three and four is quite different from that examined in one and two, which present an account of the religious growth of Islam as it began to take shape in a broadly evolving though tangled web of political, social, and religious events, groups, and individuals whose activities and interactions set the stage for the more cohesive and more lasting theological developments that were to follow. So, with volumes three and four the matter is quite different as one encounters denser, more self-contained elements that require careful attention and some reflection if their various features and significance are to be understood. Intellectual activity undergoes rapid development and, with the immigration of ambitious scholars, theologians, jurists, and intellectuals, becomes progressively centered in...