Between Ashʿarism and Salafism: The Contested Reception History of Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī’s Creed from the Fourth/Tenth Century to the Present

Abstract

This article analyses the reception history of the creedal chapter of Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī’s (d. 386/996) Risāla , a text that has generated more than 200 commentaries over the past millennium. Ashʿarī and Salafī scholars have been engaged in an intellectual tug-of-war over the creedal affiliation of the text and its author, each seeking to connect it with their respective traditions. Despite the scale of the Risāla corpus, Western academic scholarship has paid little attention to it. This study traces its reception through three phases: an initial indeterminate phase (375/985–421/1031), a long Ashʿarī phase (421/1031–1414/1993), and a recent surge of Salafī commentary-writing (1414/1993–present). The commentaries serve as case studies to compare the ways in which both factions attempt to build a textual tradition. Their commentary activity on the passage on divine elevation ( fawqiyya ) is used to elicit salient epistemological and hermeneutical underpinnings.