The importance of Zaydī sources for historical research on Muʿtazilī theology is generally acknowledged since the spectacular discoveries of unique manuscripts in Yemen in the 1950s. Yet the knowledge transfer and adoption of Muʿtazilī thought by the Yemeni Zaydiyya still remain an understudied field. Al-Ḥasan ar-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 1188) was one of the main promoters of Muʿtazilism in 6th/12th century Yemen. His works mainly focus on natural philosophy and include a systematic treatise on causality which is comprehensively examined and...

Al-Ḥasan ar-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 1188 C.E.) was one of the most prominent representatives of the emerging reception of Basran Muʿtazilism in 12th century Yemen. He composed highly sophisticated works on ontology, causality and the specific theory of attributes that has become known as the theory of "states" (aḥwāl). He is therefore a rare case of a Muʿtazilī thinker who left a comprehensive and systematised account of his natural philosophy. Jan Thiele's study makes extensive use of hitherto unexplored manuscripts, thereby providing new...

Philosophical Theology in Islam studies the later history of the Ashʿarī school of theology through in-depth probings of its thought, sources, scholarly networks and contexts. Starting with a review of al-Ghazālī’s role in the emergence of post-Avicennan philosophical theology, the book offers a series of case studies on hitherto unstudied texts by the towering thinker Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī as well as specific philosophical and theological topics treated in his works. Studies furthermore shed light on the transmission and reception of later Ashʿarī doctrines in periods and regions...