Abstract
The Sunnite atomistic cosmology which worked to prove God to be a Creator is often regarded one of the remarkable features in the Islamic theology, however, it is still vague who was the founder of this ontology, and by whom it was introduced into the Islamic theology and how it was developed among the Sunnite Kalām.
As al-Ash‘arī inherited the cosmology of his former Mu‘tazilite master, al-Jubbā’ ī, his atomism is said to be one of the most evident examples of his application of the Mu‘tazilite theory to the traditional position. It is regarded that he searched and produced the occasionalistic cosmology, and applied it to the traditional Islamic sphere, linking it with God’s Creationism.
Among the early successors of al-Ash‘arī, al-Bāqillānī is said to be a major factor and scholar who systematized and popularized the theories and teachings of the Ash‘arite. To examine the development of this atomistic cosmology in the Sunnite Kalām after al-Ash‘arī, I then follow al-Bāqillānī’s arguments and compare them with al-Juwainī’s, another Ash‘arite theologian after al-Bāqillānī.
This polemic seems to be quasi mechanistic view of the universe, and though the concepts of the atom and accident varied in each scholar and each time, this cosmology has created and developed the unique theology in anthropology, theory on the soul, and cosmology such as the continuous creation, all of which worked for the occasionalism in order to prove God’s omnipotence and the Creation ex-nihilo.
