Islamic Scholars & Mystics Codexery

Jahm bin Safwan

Umayyad theologian whose doctrines shaped early Islamic debates on God's attributes.

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The term Jahmiyya is derived from the name of Jahm bin Safwan, a theologian active during the Umayyad period.[1] Salm ibn Ahwaz put Jahm to death in the year 745.[1] Later, hostile sources provide the only, and scarce, trustworthy details about Jahm's life.[2]

Life and work

Jahm was a proponent of extreme determinism, according to which a man acts only metaphorically.[3] Al-Harith ibn Surayj, a rebel active in Khurasan, had Jahm as a follower.[1] Jahm lost his life in 746 while the rebels made their initial attempt to capture Merv; this revolt, however, significantly eroded Umayyad authority.[4] According to reports, Jahm was the earliest Muslim to assert that the Qurʾān was created and to deny that Abraham was God's friend or that Moses spoke with Him.[5]

Jahm's doctrine held that only a limited set of attributes—like creation, power, and action—can be ascribed to God, while others, including speech, cannot.[6] Because he maintained that God is not a speaker, Jahm considered it incorrect to speak of the Qur'an as an eternal word.[6] No writings by Jahm survive; his teachings are known only through the works of later Muslim scholars.[7]

What the cited sources add

The same source reports that Jahm is said to have developed the most minimal definition of belief: belief is achieved by knowing God in one’s heart, without expressing it in correct Arabic speech.[8] The Encyclopaedia Iranica notes that Jahm’s concept of God could have been neo-Platonic, fitting well with Ḥarrān and the ideas of the Ṣābians living there.[8]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Jahm bin Safwan" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam p.83, Leiden 1974 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Jahm bin Safwan" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Suleiman, "Ibn Taymiyya und die Attribute Gottes", De Gruyter, 2019, p. 40–41 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Jahm bin Safwan" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: P. W. Pestman, Acta Orientalia Neerlandica: Proceedings of the Congress of the Dutch Oriental Society Held in Leiden on the Occasion of Its 50th Anniversary, 8– (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Jahm bin Safwan" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hawting, "The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate AD 661-750", Routledge, 2002-01-04 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Jahm bin Safwan" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Abdus Subhan, al-Jahm bin Safwan and his philosophy p. 221 in: Islamic Culture 1937, W. Montgomery Watt, Early Discussions about the Qur'ān p. 28 in: The Muslim; W. Madelung, The origins of the controversy concerning the creation of the Koran, p. 505 in: Orientalia hispanica sive studia F.M. Pareja octogenario dicata, Le; W. Montgomery Watt, Encyclopedia of Islam II, q.v. Djahm b. Ṣafwān. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Jahm bin Safwan" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Clinton Bennett, The Bloomsbury Companion to Islamic Studies, p. 126. . (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Jahm bin Safwan" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Sources on the Jahmiyya are largely tendentious, as is the case with all heresiographies of the past. For modern studies see: Jamal al-Din al-Qasimi, Tarikh al-; Richard M. Frank, "The Neoplatonism of Ğahm ibn Ṣafwān", Le Muséon, 1965, p. 395–424 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. van Ess, "JAHM B. ṢAFWĀN – Encyclopaedia Iranica", www.iranicaonline.org. facts only, no text reused. iranicaonline.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Jahm bin Safwan (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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