Abstract

Abū l-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī is considered as the last important representative of so-called “early” Ashʿarism, a school of Sunni “rational theology”. He was the teacher of the famous Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, with whom Ashʿarism entered a new phase and increasingly came under the influence of Avicennian philosophy. Yet the introduction of “philosophical” ideas into the doctrinal system of Ashʿarism was to some extent anticipated by al-Juwaynī: not only did he engage with the ideas of his opponents in kalām theology, but also with those of the falāsifa.