Lan astaslam

I am still on the case of al-Qâsim through Ryan Schaffner's thesis. Last night I reached page 152, which summarises al-Qâsim's theology. Al-Qâsim devoted his first section to his interpretation of the Qurân's kalam.

As I've been mentioning here, mostly the Qurân assumes a theology rather than argue for it. Most suwar appeal to the cheap-seats, to argue against other Muslims who claim the same assumptions down to shared preceding suwar. These rarely argue that theology against Christianity, and almost never against (say) Judaism. But sometimes the odd sura will float up an argument of its own - largely because it must, lacking earlier precedent.

For his kalam, al-Qâsim went with suwar 2, 5, 19, 43, and 112. He also cited suwar 6, 23, 30, 34, 42; here, I think in context he might have been better served by 17 and 21, maybe 3. Conspicuously absent is sura 4: a wise Muslim knows he cannot argue the Crucifixion, and that he doesn't need to.

I am aware that al-Qâsim was a Zaydi, now a minority sect. But as Schaffner points out, al-Qâsim's arguments against Christianity require no text nor hadith strange to mainstream Egyptian (Sunnite) Islam. The Zaydi Shi'a although following Oriental praxis never took wing on Iranian flights of fancy, as contemporary Ithna'Ashari Shi'ites were doing.

Every attempt to make sense of a religion must start with a creation-myth. Al-Qâsim starts with a stark division between the Creator and His creation. Whatever we can experience in this cosmos, beside God, is creation so nonDivine. From that, the Creator cannot beget: more exactly, cannot allow substance independent of Himself access into this Creation. A rival god would quickly throw the creation into chaos or usurp God's throne. To put it another way, the only possible sons of Allâh are the satans.

Another assumption al-Qâsim makes is that only a nonlimited God can be a creator.

I cannot speak for Muslims today; but as al-Qâsim described the multiverse, that one Muslim was ignorant of mathematical infinities. I cannot blame him; before Cantor we all were jahili, from Numenius to Marcion. Of religions the only exceptions I'd allow, in the Western Biblical tradition, are Christianity and certain strains of Judaism, which (somehow) have stumbled onto Cantor. As a result I have had to constrain al-Qâsim's thought, to focus the Creator and this creation together.

Any sentient and sane god might be boundless but he is countable. So is whatever He can create. Whatever He blunders across as isn't countable, amounts to a discovery - not creation. As the sane god is inferior to the great Multiverse, this god is Himself vulnerable to the chaos without.

Already we have exploded al-Qâsim's logic (muntiq): here is an alternative to Allâh, potentially not as mighty as He could be. This does not (yet) explode al-Islâm...

Next, as Philip Pullman pointed out, the question to ask any god is whether He is worth the following. To the extent the Christian God is constrained and weak; Muslims assert Allâh as less constrained. Perhaps we were better with The Stronger Horse.

Except that, as not being bound to muntiq itself, Allâh isn't just associated with chaos, It is ruled by it. Allâh is crawling chaos. A cosmic horror.