Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale

Abū Bakr al-Fūrakī, Unknown ašʿarite Reference to Averroes’ Treatise on Theology

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Abstract

Averroes’ kalām treaty, the Kitāb al-kašf ʿan manāhiğ al-adilla is one of the most controversial texts from the Andalusian philosopher. Its writing relied vastly on Aristotelian texts and opuses from the aš‘arite kalām, of which Averroes wanted to deconstruct and refute the doctrines. Most of its references – whether they are Aristotelian or ašʿarite are not explicitly quoted – are consistent with the medieval Islamic customs. Having published between 2005 and 2007 an analysis of the Aristotelian sources of this text, this contribution aims at studying the ašʿarite authors critiqued by Averroes and broadly mentioned as the ‘modern ašʿarites’. The main source discovered through this textual comparison is the Kitāb al-Niẓāmī fī usūl ad-dīn by Abu-Bakr Al-Fūrakī, author of a kalām treaty of which a single copy has been conserved in Istanbul. A transcription and a translation of its most salient excerpts have been included in this contribution, in order to show the relationship between those two kalām treaties.


open access | peer reviewed

Submitted: April 11, 2025 | Accepted: June 30, 2025 | Published July 31, 2025 | Language: fr

Keywords Al-Andalus • Prophecy • Ibn Rušd • Almohades • Aš‘arism • Kalām

Copyright © 2025 Barbara Canova. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/AnnOr/2385-3042/2025/01/002