Abu Hashim al-Jubba'i

Abu Hashim 'Abd al-Salam ibn Muhammad al-Jubba'i (traditionally c. 277/890–321/933) was a theologian of the Mu'tazila, a rationalist current of Islamic kalam (speculative or "dialectical" theology) centred in Basra. He was the son and chief pupil of the leading Basran Mu'tazili Abu Ali al-Jubba'i, and after his father's death (reported 303/915) he is said to have led the Basran school in turn. Around 314/926 he is reported to have settled in Baghdad — sources connect the move to financial hardship — where he died (321/933; one source gives 320 AH). According to a later tradition he was buried in the al-Bustan cemetery in the eastern part of the city, though early sources tell us little about his life. Encyclopaedic accounts note that almost nothing of his biography is firmly documented and that his birth year in particular is a traditional estimate that varies in the sources.

His followers formed a distinct wing of the Basran Mu'tazila called the Bahshamiyya, named after Abu Hashim, which became the dominant Mu'tazili school for later generations; the prominent qadi (judge) and theologian 'Abd al-Jabbar transmitted much of its teaching.

Abu Hashim is chiefly remembered for the theory of ahwal ("states" or "modes"). Borrowing a grammatical notion, he proposed that God's attributes — His being knowing, powerful, living — are real "states" that are neither existent things nor simply nothing. This was an attempt to affirm God's attributes without compromising divine oneness by positing eternal entities alongside God. The doctrine was debated and partly adopted beyond the Mu'tazila, including by the rival Ash'ari theologian al-Baqillani. Mu'tazili teaching was later regarded as heterodox by many Sunnis; this site presents these positions as held by particular schools, not as settled truths.