Une doxographie sunnite du IVe/Xe siècle / Scientia Graeco-Arabica (PDF)

This book contains an edition and annotated translation of the remaining fragments of a maqalat treatise written by Abu al-¿Abbas al-Qalanisi at the end of the 3^rd/9^th or beginning of the 4^th/10^th c. Unlike al-Bal¿i and al-AS¿ari, the two main authors of maqalat from the same period, al-Qalanisi is a theologian who was never part of Mütazili circles but rather belongs to Ibn Kullab's school that aims to defend Sunni doctrines by the use of the dialectical method. These are the only remaining fragments of the great albeit little-known theologian who probably never left the city of Rayy. They reflect his intellectual agenda of integrating the traditionnist milieux in the main theological debates of the 3^rd/9^th c. The history he writes of early kalam differs from that of the Mütazilis and the Hanbalis, who both agree that theologians and traditionnists are two mutually exclusive professions. Through the category of « traditionnists theologians » which appears for the first time in these fragments, al-Qalanisi takes part with al-AS¿ari in the great synthesis of the 4^th/10^th c. However, despite all their similarities, their two historiographical projects differ greatly one from another. The study preceding the edition sheds a new light on the strategy of al-Qalanisi in order to explain the reasons behind the success of al-AS¿ari whose school relegated this early and flourishing period of Sunni kalam in the margins of orthodoxy.