Fanā’ al-Nār Within Early Kalām and Mysticism

An Analysis Covering the Eighth and Ninth Centuries

  • Marco Demichelis
DOI: https://doi.org/10.47979/aror.j.83.3.385-410
Keywords: kalām, mysticism, fanā’ al-nār, Mu‘tazila, eschatology, hell

Abstract

The annihilation of the fire (fanā’ al-nār), is an expression used by Ibn Taymiyya in Al-Radd ‘alā man Qāla bi-Fanā’ al-Janna wa-l-Nār.  It acts as a rejoinder to those who maintain that the annihilation of the Garden and the Fire within Islamic theology is a fascinating theory that could quite easily be confused with the Christian Patristic apokatastasis  or the falsafa  cosmological hypothesis, which emerged in the works of al-Kindī (d. 873) and Fakhr ad-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1209).

Jane I. Smith and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, in The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection (New York: OUP, 2012), supported the argument that the nature of Heaven and Hell has been subjected to a range of interpretations stretching from the purely literal to the utterly allegorical. Hell is a place of just chastisement for sin, an everlasting location for sinning believers; whether or not any punishment there would be truly eternal, has been the subject of considerable dispute.

My objective in this article is not to focus on al-Ghazālī or Ibn al-Taymiyya, but on those scholars who, at an earlier stage, had elaborated a rational speculation on the fanā’ al-nār. At the same time, this article does not set out to provide a comparative analysis linked with the late Patristic authors or Manichean and Zoroastrian influences which, conversely, appear as possible theories. The main goal is to uncover the backgrounds of the authors in Islamic kalām and mysticism who, preceding the Ghazalian phase, were engaged in elaborating the annihilation of the fire. Al-Baghdādī (‘Abd al-Qāhir b. Ṭāhir, d. 1037) in Al-Farq bayna al-Firaq, argues that the Mu‘tazilite Abū al-Hudhayl al-‘Allāf (d. 850), probably influenced by Ḍirār ibn ‘Amr (d. unknown) and Jahm Ibn Safwān (d. 746), were the first to theorise on the finiteness of both Heaven and Hell. However, it  is plausible that different early Muslim mystics from the same century also supported the annihilation of at least the latter. All options remain open to debate.

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Author Biography

Marco Demichelis

MARCO DEIMCHELIS, PhD, is a research fellow in Islamic Studies and History of the Middle East within the Department of Religious Studies at the Catholic University of Milan. His work is in the field of Fana’ al-Nar (the Annihilation of Hell) within Islamic Eschatology and Kalam. During 2014 he was engaged as Visiting Research Fellow within the Council of Middle Eastern Studies of Yale University. Before this, he obtained a PhD in the History of Islamic Thought University of Genoa (MA at Dalarna Hogskolan, MA at the University of Turin, BA at the University of Turin). Dr Demichelis has already published Storia dei Popoli Arabi. Dal Profit Muhammad all Primavere Arabe (Torino: Ananke, 2013), a pedagogical text for undergraduates; this publication followed the release of his PhD thesis Il Pensiero Mu‘tazilita. Region e Fede tea Basra e Baghdad new primi secoli dell ’Islam by Harmattan (Torino 2011), which addressed the theological and political thought of the Mu‘tazilite school between the eighth and ninth centuries. Marco Demichelis has also had academic articles published in the following peer reviewed journals: Oriente Moderno, JNES, Annali di Scienze Religiose, Arab Studies Quarterly and Parole de l ’Orient.

Published
2015-12-04
How to Cite
Demichelis, M. (2015). Fanā’ al-Nār Within Early Kalām and Mysticism: An Analysis Covering the Eighth and Ninth Centuries. Archiv orientální, 83(3), 385-410. https://doi.org/10.47979/aror.j.83.3.385-410
Issue
Vol. 83 No. 3 (2015)
Section
Research Article

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