The theory of modes (aḥwal ; sing. ḥal) invented by the Basran Mu‘tazilite philosopher-theologian Abu Hasim al-Jubba'i (889-933 AD) is usually thought to have arisen as a theological compromise between two opposing explanations of how God’s attributes (ṣifat), such as His power, knowledge and life, relate to the divine essence or self (dhat). The problem, ultimately, was whether – for example – the assertion « God is powerfull » (Allahu qadirun) should be construed as implying that God is power (Allahu qudratun) or that God has power (Allahu lahu qudratun). Early Mu‘tazilites such as Abu al-Huhayl (d. 841) took the former tack and collapsed the attributes into God’s self, while early Sunnis – following Ibn Kullab (d. ca. 855) – took the latter tack and viewed the attributes as entities that were real enough to be meaningfully distinct from God’s self and from each other. Abu Hasim appealed to an element of classical Arabic grammar – the ḥal – for a solution. A ḥal, which often takes the form of an adverbial accusative, refers to a state or condition that modifies the subject or object of a verb at the moment (ḥal) when the event described by the verb is taking place. Thinking of a divine attribute as a ḥal, as a mode which describes God in His « act » of being, allowed Abu Hasim to hold (unlike the early Mu‘tazilites) that God’s being powerful (hawnuhu qadiran) is meaningfully distinct from, say, His being alive (kawnuhu ḥayyan), just as the ḥal « riding » in « Smith came riding » (ja’a Zaydun rakiban) is meaningfully distinct from the ḥal « walking » in « Smith came walking » (ja’a Zaydun mashiyan) ; but without implying (as the Sunnis had) the separate existence of real entities such as « power » and « life » or « riding » and « walking ».

In his book, Alami offers two provocative hypotheses. The first is that Abu Hasim meant for the mode-theory to constitute one part of a broader ontology, and did not invent modes in order to resolve a specific theological problem and then, almost as an afterthought, extend it to beings other than God. In order to demonstrate this, Alami focuses not only on modes but also on the two other major elements of Abu Hasim’s metaphysics, his theory of self or essence (dhat) and of existence (wujud). What Alami finds in all three theories – essence, mode and existence – is a strong univocalism. In other words, essence, mode and existence each retain precisely the same meaning regardless of whether they are applied to God or to creatures. The univocalism that Alami detects in Abu Hasim’s ontology is surprising, since scholars of Islamic intellectual history have often viewed Mu‘tazilite thought – and particularly the Mu‘tazilite tendency to strip away any separate reality from God’s attributes – as the natural extension of the theories of the early theologian Jahm b. Ṣafwan (d. 746), who insisted that God transcends all categories of comparison. Given that Jahm’s transcendentalism seems most compatible with an equivocalist position, one which holds that terms such as power retain absolutely no identity of meaning when applied to God and to creatures, Abu Hasim’s univocalism – construed by Alami as implying an ontology of immanence – marked a radical break with early Mu‘tazilite thought. This conclusion leads Alami to his second major hypothesis, which is that in Bahshamism we can detect the hidden pre-history of subsequent immanentist ontologies in Islamic intellectual history, and particularly that proposed by the great ṣufi thinker Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240), an ontology which was to have a profound and widespread influence in later Islamic philosophy.

Alami’s presentation of Bahshamite ontology is entirely plausible, and he deserves the gratitude of Islamicists for reconstructing it so meticulously and for articulating it so clearly. But Alami’s arguments, while compelling, are undermined by several weaknesses. One major weakness – not Alami’s own, of course, but an occupational hazard – is that the scantiness of the textual evidence (none of Abu Hasim’s own works survives) makes any theory about Bahshamism inevitably underdetermined. Even so, Alami’s eagerness to present Abu Hasim’s thought as systematic and seamless leads him, in my opinion, to sweep away obvious inconsistencies in the later sources’ use of Bahshamite terminology, particularly in the crucial discussions of distinction, difference and division. Alami also tends to lump together opponents of Bahshamism, and especially the Sunnis, who are all seen by him as advocating a bald anthropomorphism in their conception of the divine attributes. But significant differences in attribute-theory are evident between the three major Sunni schools, with – for example – later H9anbalites insisting on their sole proprietorship of the title « Attributists » (aṣḥab al-ṣifat), since by the Ḥanbalites’ reckoning the Ash‘arites and Maturadites were little better than the Mut‘azilites when it came to allegorizing away (ta’wil) the Qur’an’s anthropomorphic descriptions of God. Finally, Alami’s ability to seat his own interpretation of Bashamism in scholarly context is limited by the fact that he almost entirely ignores secondary works in languages other than French and Arabic.

Although these flaws are serious, they are not fatal for the arguments presented in his important book. Alami’s double-hypothesis – that Abu Hasim’s theory of modes was part of broader, univocalist ontology, and that this univocalist ontology counts as Islamic civilization’s first great metaphysics of immanence – is a profound and fertile insight, one whose ramifications will be much discussed by subsequent scholars of Islamic intellectual history.

Robert Wisnowski