History Of Hadith

1. In week 2, we finished looking at the positive arguments for God's existence. Next, we explored why God is necessary for ethics. We recognized that only a God-Centric Ethic has any foundations and that can withstand an assault by the question Ð''why' or Ð''sez who?'. It transpires that it is God's will that is ethical (decides the oughts and shoulds of life). From this it follows that we have to discern God's will to determine what is Ethical. The process of discerning God's will is called in Islam Ijtihad.

2. We looked at the Kalam cosmological argument for God:

a. Something is necessary if it is in its nature to exist i.e., exists all on its own without any dependency.

b. Something is contingent or has contingency if its existence is dependent on something else.

c. The Kalam cosmological argument works as follows:

i. Each thing that exists in our world exists either due to it being necessary or contingent.

ii. Each thing cannot exist for the first reason (i.e., being necessary) because if it did there could not be a time when it did not exist, and this contradicts our experience in the world of having things coming into existence after having not existed.

iii. Therefore, each thing exists because something other than it has brought it into existence.

iv. Having reached the conclusion that things exist by contingency, we move to the next level. That to which a thing owes its existence must itself be either necessary or contingent. If it is contingent, then what caused it must be either necessary or contingent. If the latter holds true, the same disjunction (necessary or contingent) once again arises. If we continually choose the second element in the disjunction (i.e., contingency), one ends up with an infinite regression: X owes its existence to W, W owes its existence to V, V owes its existence to U, and so on ad infinitum.

v. But an infinite regression is impossible. Let us say it was possible. Then going backwards we would be at negative infinity. Now anything added to negative infinity would still leave us at the same place: negative infinity. We would never reach the present moment. However, since we have reached the present moment means that our initial premise (negative infinity) is false. The regression has to be finite otherwise we would not reach the present moment. In other words, sooner or later the first element (necessary) in the disjunction must hold true (to avoid infinite regression). When it does we find ourselves in the face of an eternal, necessary being that is (or who is) independent, exists on His own, and is not contingent or owes its existence to or on anything else. And God is often the name we reserve for that Being.

vi. Some may object and say that if all events need causes, then what caused God? The question "What or who made God" is a logical fallacy (called a category fallacy) such as the question "What colour is note C, or what colour is this sound?' The question Ð''What made X' can be asked only of Xs that are by definition makeable. To ask this question of God would be like asking what made the unmakeableÐ'--an incoherent thought like the statement black is white. Remember, God, which we hold to exist, is a necessary being, not contingent or dependent on anyone or anything, the uncreated Creator of all else. This is the definition that both atheists and theists use for Ð''God'. Now if that is what is meant by God, then the question Ð''What made God?' turns out to be "What made the unmakeable?". This question is incoherent and has no meaning like the phrase Ð''What is the smell of colourless green ideas?'

vii. As you can see the kalam argument revolves around the concepts of necessary, contingency, and the impossibility of traversing (crossing) an actual infinite (anything added or subtracted to an actual infinite would leave you exactly at the same place; therefore an infinite can never be crossed or traversed).

viii. In fact, the concept of an actual infinite for the universe (e.g., the world having existed forever, without beginning) is absurd. We gave at least three examples in class to point out this:

1. Imam Ghazali's argument: Moon does 12 revolutions per year. Sun does 1. If an actual infinite time has passed, then the number of revolutions of the moon would be infinite. The number of revolutions of the sun would be infinite. Both the sun and the moon would have the same number of revolutions. How could this be the case if the lunar revolutions occur 12 times more frequently than the solar revolutions?

2. Imagine a library with an infinite number of red books and an infinite number of black books. Does it make any sense to say that there as many red books as there are red and black books together? Moreover, I could withdraw all the red books and not change the library's total holding (it would still be infinite).Does this make sense?

3. Assume also that each book has an actual infinite number of pages. There would be just as many pages in the first book (infinite) as there are in the entire infinite collection! If a person had read the first book, she would have read just as many pages as a person who read every page of every book in the library.

4. Given the concept of an actual infinite leads to such unacceptable and absurd results/consequences (as stated in 1-3), there is thus no such thing as a really existent actual infinite.

3. The Arthur Leff and Phillip Johnson's readings state that only an Ethics based or grounded on God has a basis. Otherwise, all other bases are subject to the question Ð''Why this standard/why this basis/sez who?'. To answer, they will posit some other standard to justify themselves. This standard in turn will entail the same question: why this standard. Only a standard founded in God can escape this for God being the most perfect evaluator will produce the most perfect evaluation. We can now appreciate your predecessor Shah Wali Allah's choice of title for his magnum opus:Ð''HujjatAllah al Baligha' = The Conclusive argument is from God.

In class, we looked at the niqab controversy in the UK and listed many of the possible standards that can be used to argue against niqab. We also looked at a pro-cheating argument and found that the same standards (e.g., economic efficiency, pluralism, diversity, freedom of expression, being modern, progressive, career progression, etc.) can be deployed there to justify cheating. In both cases,

...