This is how the science of the fundamentals of religion...

This is how the science of the fundamentals of religion emerged during the first century of the Islamic era. The embracing of Islam by non-Arabs, the existence of different ideologies and principles, and the co-existence of Muslims with the followers of other religions, such as Jews, Christians, Magians, and Sabians, had precipitated debate between Muslims.

Those developments and the interaction between all those peoples were instrumental in the appearance of groups, such as atheists, thanks to the general climate of freedom, especially at the time of the Abbasid caliphate. The latter did not mind the proliferation of such trends, provided that holding such views did not constitute any divergence from the ruling establishment’s general guidelines.

Philosophy, which called for freethinking and the casting of doubt and false arguments, also came to the fore. All those developments called for scrutiny in the fundamental structures of Islam, with a view of consolidating them, hence the emergence of great speculative theologians (mutakalimeen) in the second, third and fourth centuries of the Islamic era.

The early issues Perhaps, among the early issues, which became the bone of contention between Muslims, was the question of predestination and freewill. This was quite natural, not least because it has a bearing on man’s destiny, hence, the importance attached to it by any sensible person. There might not be a single intellectually mature society whose members do not engage in debate on these matters.

Moreover, since the Holy Qur’an discussed these issues in many verses, it has become the driving force behind the dialogue on such questions between people. Therefore, we should not go far in order to find a justification for the appearance of this issue in the world of Islam.

As for the orientalists, they always seek to refute the originality of Islamic sciences and thought, in any way possible, above all, by tracing such knowledge and scholarship to domains outside the realm of Islam, especially, Christianity. That is why, they try to attribute the science of kalaam (speculative theology) to some other ideology, i.e. not Islamic.

After all, this is what they tried to do with even purely Arabic sciences, such as grammar, metrics, rhetoric, figures of speech, and Islamic gnosis, or mysticism ( Irfan ). The research in predestination and freewill also deals with the question of decree and destiny ( qadha and qadr ).