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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Causality and Islamic Thought Causality and Islamic Thought The great disputants within the Islamic tradition, the Mutakallimun, laid down the basis for rational discussion of causality by affirming the right of reason to engage in independent research. This affirmation could not be absolute; it took the form of a division of the spheres of competence belonging, respectively, to reason and Law.

Reason was declared to be the judge in ontological and epistemological questions, whereas the sphere of ethics and legislation were left subject to religious Law. Certainly, this division should not be understood too rigidly. The Mutakallimun often remained loyal to the Law and did not permit reason to execute its rights to the full even when disputing ontological problems.

On the other hand, in the sphere of legislation they asserted the rights of reason to define new norms, not established in Revelation, on the basis of rational analysis of revealed Law, thus defying the Zahiriyya, "people of the manifest," who denied the legitimacy of rational procedures for determining new norms of law. To inquire about causality is to ask whether a phenomenon is subject to logical analysis that discriminates in its structure cause, effect, and a necessary relation between them.

The rights of reason asserted by the Mutakallimun provided an opportunity for such analysis. This does not mean, however, that the Mutakallimun carried out the task to the full. The term "cause" ('illa, sabab), as well as its derivatives ("causality" - 'illiyya, "to give reason" - i'talla), are too scarcely met in their writings. One would rather maintain that the Mutakallimun strove to define the spheres in which the search for causality is relevant.

Their basic method is negative, and its nature is best clarified through a comparison with the Qur’anic idea of the absolute Divine will. Without denying the Divine will and creativity as the last foundation of existence, the Mutakallimun nonetheless introduced logical restrictions on it. They did so while disputing the "permissibility" ( jiwaz) and "impossibility" (ihala) or certain acts, including acts of God, and establishing these on logical grounds.

The rational arguments here sometimes outweighed even Qur’anic evidence. According to the Mutakallimun, the subject matter of rational discourse falls into two parts: God and the world.