Chapter 11 Reporting the Dualists: al-Ṯanawiyya as a Doxological Category in Classical Kalām
In: Received Opinions: Doxography in Antiquity and the Islamic WorldSearch for other papers by David Bennett in
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Abstract
Classical Muslim heresiographic sources like Kitāb al-Milal wa-l-niḥal (al-Šahrastānī, composed 521/1127 ce) describe a variety of dualist sects in the Umwelt of early Islam. Much of the material preserved on dualism appears to go back to a single tradition, quoting directly or by way of transmitters the (lost) work of Abū ʿĪsā al-Warrāq (third/ninth century). Much scholarship has been devoted to the comparison of this source material to other Near Eastern sources in order to produce historical studies of the dualists, or to textual criticism of the al-Warrāq material itself. Early Muslim hostility towards the zanādiqa (roughly, “heretics”) has been contextualized with respect to the heterogeneous sociological framework of the burgeoning ʿAbbāsid caliphate, and heresiological projects have been promoted as the dialectical engine of kalām. In this paper, we will demonstrate that the reports about Dualist sects in canonical Islamic heresiography represent a coherent formal account, without historiographical merit: the claims of the Dualists were interesting for theoretical reasons, which dictated the form of the ensuing taxonomies. Using this representation as a case study, we can point out some of the salient features of Islamic doxography more generally.