The Three Kinds of Existence, Point 6 and the Muʿtazilah

Some of these questions are simply matters of clarification.

One concerns the three stages of existence set out in the previous chapter. They are wājib al-wujūd, or necessarily existent; mustaḥīl al-wujūd, or impossibly existent, or impossible existence; and the third, in Arabic, is mumkin al-wujūd. Mumkin al-wujūd: or possible existence.

Another concerns point 6: He neither perishes nor ceases to exist. How can that be explained to non-Muslims? It is hard to be sure, really, because it just depends on what kind of confusion the non-Muslim has. Not all non-Muslims are going to have the same kind of confusion about something. A lot of them, surely, will not even reject it. As far as can be understood, the Christians and the Jews believe that Allah is forever. So it would seem to be quite simple, unless there is a particular type of confusion that somebody has; and a confusion of that kind would need to be written down and put forward before it could be taken up.

Would it follow, then, that the Muʿtazilah, Jabriyyah, Khawārij and the like are kāfir? It is a very good question. That is not to be said just off the bat like that. The ʿulamāʾ have never done that; the majority of the ʿulamāʾ have never done that. There is another question, below, that relates to this as well. What is said is that anybody who holds a particular belief of this kind is going to be a kāfir: if anybody says that Allah (swt) has a body, for instance.

The dilemma that the Muʿtazilah had, of rejecting these attributes, was a sincere dilemma that they had. It is not something that they had done out of selfishness or conspiracy. This was a genuine dilemma that they had, because of the rationalism that they followed. So this is called an innovation in religion. It is a bidʿah in ʿaqīdah: bidʿah in ʿaqīdah. Normally, bidʿah is actually applied to actions only, but this is bidʿah in ʿaqīdah, where someone believes in something that is off the mainstream. The ʿulamāʾ have not considered them kāfir based on these things.

There are some groups whom they did call kāfir, because of the things they believed in: the Karrāmiyyah, for example, believed in Allah (swt) actually having a body, touching the throne, and so on. That is a serious problem. But these are deviances.

And the hadith which speaks of the 73 sects, only one being the saved sect and the rest of them going into the Fire, does not mean that they will be in Hellfire forever. What it means is that they are worthy of the Fire because of their deviance. If Allah wants to forgive, if Allah wants to do whatever, that is fine; and they will eventually come into Paradise, unless they have really extreme beliefs. Those 73… the Prophet said: My Ummah will split into 73 sects. This is not even taking others into consideration, necessarily, according to the one understanding of it. So it is a deviance, it is an innovation, it is a problem; but it is only called kufr if it is really extreme.