Early Ib?d?? Theology

Early Ib?d?? Theology presents the critical edition of six Arabic theological texts recently discovered in two manuscripts in Mz?b in Algeria dating from the middle of the 8th century. The texts were sent by their author, the prominent K?fan Ib?d?? kal?m theologian 'Abd All?h b. Yaz?d al-Faz?r? to North Africa where he had a large following in the Ib?d?? community later known as the Nukk?r. They constitute the earliest extant body of Muslim kal?m theology and are vital for the study of the initial development of rational theology in Islam. The sophisticated treatment of the divine attributes in these texts indicates that this subject developed considerably earlier in Islamic theology than previously accepted in modern scholarship.