Interesting, though a bit deep for me. However, one thing struck me: in your post of Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:39 am, you quote GS Reynolds as sayingIbn Rushd wrote:I have been able to recover my Old Forum posting from the Wayback Machine.
I just happened to come across this context a couple of days ago and found this in WikipediaMeanwhile, the Mutazilite doctrine of the un-createdness of the Qur'an discouraged scholars from finding temporal or secular qualities therein
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Waqidi(Immediately before the contents panel)Al-Waqidi's works are known through his scribe and student, Ibn Sa'd, who also worked under Al-Mamun and was a proponent of the Muʿtazila doctrine of the created Quran
We seem to have two contradictory ideas as to what the Mutazilites believed! There is another Wikipedia entry dealing directly with Mu'tazilites:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu%CA%BFtazilaMu'tazila (Arabic: المعتزلة al-muʿtazilah) is a school of Islamic theology[1] that flourished in the cities of Basra and Baghdad, both in present-day Iraq, during the 8th–10th centuries. The adherents of the Mu'tazili school—known in English as Mu'tazilites —are best known for their denying the status of the Qur'an as uncreated and co-eternal with God,[2] asserting that if the Quran is the word of God, logically God "must have preceded his own speech".
So we have Reynolds saying they hold the Koran to be uncreated, Wikipedia 1) and 2) saying created. What's a poor infidel to think? It's as contradictory as the Koran itself!
EDIT:
Not sure if this sort of discussion is allowed - someone let me know if not and I'll move it to the thread where I mentioned Mu'tazilites
