Athena
TR
Tradition / schoolRootsc. 912

Ashʿarism and occasionalism

Ebü'l-Hasen el-Eş'arîBâkıllânîCüveynîal-GhazālīFakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī

This page delivers no verdict; it presents claims and evidence with their sources. No theory in science is absolute. Method

For everyone

Al-Ashʿarī broke with the Muʿtazila and founded a school that sought to reconcile transmitted texts and reason. For the Ashʿarīs the only true agent in the world is God: fire burning cotton is a "custom" (ʿāda) that God creates anew at every moment, not a necessary result of fire's own nature. This view is known in Western philosophy as occasionalism, and has resurfaced in current debates about evolution and science.

For specialists

In Ashʿarī ontology the world consists of substances (atoms) and accidents recreated at every moment; causal regularities are divine custom, not logical necessity, so miracles are logically possible. Human acts are created by God and "acquired" (kasb) by humans. Parallels with Hume's critique of causality have been discussed.

Claims

Evidence

Supporting

Philosophical / theological argument

Observation shows only that two events occur together, not that one necessitates the other.[3]

Challenging

Philosophical / theological argument

If things had no natures and causal powers of their own, defining them and acquiring knowledge would become impossible.[4]

Connections

Parent

Kalām (Islamic theology)

Argues against

The Muʿtazila

Related

Al-Ghazālī's Incoherence of the PhilosophersIbn Rushd and The Incoherence of the IncoherenceTheistic evolution (evolutionary creation)Views on the origin of living things in Islamic thoughtFree willFakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and the meeting of kalām and philosophy

This topic is a stop on these journeys

Reason and revelation: a debate in Islamic thought · stop 3/9

Show in tree →

Sources

  1. EncyclopediaEş'ariyye. TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisiislamansiklopedisi.org.trarchive
  2. EncyclopediaOccasionalism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophyplato.stanford.eduarchive
  3. BookGazzâlî / al-Ghazālī; Marmura, M. E. (trans.) (2000). The Incoherence of the Philosophers. Brigham Young University Press, Provo (Discussion 17)
  4. Bookİbn Rüşd / Ibn Rushd; van den Bergh, S. (trans.) (1954). Averroes' Tahafut al-Tahafut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence). E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Trust / Oxford University Press

Search the literature

Look for scholarly work on this topic in other indexes:

Google Scholar ↗Semantic Scholar ↗BASE ↗CORE ↗PhilPapers ↗JSTOR ↗DergiPark ↗

Cite this page

APA

Athena contributors. (2026). Ashʿarism and occasionalism. Athena: The tree of human knowledge. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://latifkedi.github.io/athena/en/d/esarilik/

BibTeX
@misc{athena_esarilik,
  title        = {Ashʿarism and occasionalism},
  author       = {{Athena contributors}},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://latifkedi.github.io/athena/en/d/esarilik/}},
  note         = {Athena: The tree of human knowledge. Accessed: 2026-11-01}
}

Added: September 27, 2026 · Last changed: September 28, 2026 · Page history

✎ Suggest a correction