Doctrines
Jabriyya
Orthodoxy and Dissent
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Origin from 730
Jabriyya is the position, associated with early Islamic theologians from the early eighth century, that God is the sole and direct cause of every human act, so that human beings possess no real power of their own to choose or to cause their actions at all; a person apparent choices are, on this account, entirely compelled, jabr, by God. Its most closely associated figure is Jahm ibn Safwan, a theologian executed in 746 during the Umayyad period whose broader teaching on divine transcendence and the createdness of the Quran was also controversial. Its opponents, including Qadari and later Mutazilite theologians, held that a God who compels every human act while still holding that person morally responsible for it commits an injustice, and that scripture own commands and warnings presuppose a real human capacity to obey or disobey. No single council condemned it, but mainstream Sunni theology, while affirming divine decree strongly, rejected the position full determinism, settling instead on formulas, developed later by al-Ashari, that affirm both divine decree and a form of human acquisition, kasb, of the act.
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Held ByAn early eighth century position, most closely associated with Jahm ibn Safwan, holding that God is the sole and direct cause of every human act and that human beings possess no real power of their own to choose or cause their actions; not held by any major Sunni school in this full form today, though later Ashari theology retained a strong emphasis on divine decree while rejecting the position complete determinism. 2 Watt notes the label Jabriyya was applied broadly by opponents to several distinct positions on divine determination, not only to Jahm ibn Safwan own teaching, so the boundary of what belongs to the school is itself debated among historians. Status
Status Within the TraditionRejected, or not held, within this tradition 1Tradition: Islam Doctrinal CategoryDivine Decree and Human Freedom 2 Position Profile
Principal ProponentJahm ibn Safwan, a theologian executed in 746 during the Umayyad period for a combination of controversial teachings including this one. 1 Opposing PositionThat a God who compels every human act while still holding the person morally responsible for it would be unjust, and that scripture own commands and warnings presuppose a real human capacity to obey or disobey, argued by Qadari and later Mutazilite theologians. 2 Origins
Origin Period Defining MomentJahm ibn Safwan execution in 746 during the Umayyad period marked the teaching, along with his other controversial positions, as dangerous; mainstream Sunni theology settled gradually over the following centuries on formulas, developed later by al-Ashari, affirming strong divine decree while rejecting full determinism. 1 Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceThat God alone directly causes every human act, leaving no real independent human power to choose or to cause action, so that a person apparent choices are entirely compelled by God rather than genuinely their own. 2 Learn More
If God Alone Acts, What Is Left to Judge
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Jahm ibn Safwan argued from the opposite direction of the Qadari teachers. If they worried that an all determining God made room for injustice, Jahm worried that any independent human power at all made room for a second creator beside God. His answer, developed in the early eighth century, was to deny human beings any real causal power whatsoever: every act, down to the smallest motion, belongs to God alone, and what looks like human choice is compulsion, jabr, dressed up as freedom.
Jahm's teaching did not stop at this one point. He also held, more controversially still to his contemporaries, that the Quran was created rather than eternal, and that God's own attributes should be understood in ways that avoided any resemblance to created things. The combination of positions made him one of the more thoroughly condemned theologians of the early Abbasid transition, and the Umayyad authorities executed him in 746, in the political chaos of the dynasty's final year.
His opponents pressed an objection that recurs in nearly every tradition that has argued this question: if God alone causes an act, on what ground is the person who performed it morally responsible for it. Qadari and later Mutazilite theologians pressed exactly this point against him. Mainstream Sunni theology did not resolve the argument by adopting the Qadari answer either. Al-Ashari's later formula kept Jahm's insistence that God alone truly creates every event, while trying, more carefully than Jahm had, to leave room for the human being to acquire, rather than cause, the act, a distinction later theologians have argued for centuries over whether it is a real difference or only a fine one.
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