Jam al-Juyush wa al-Dasakir ala Ibn Asakir
- Author died
- 909 AH
- Editions
- Manuscript published in the free program Jawāmiʻ al-Kalim affiliated with Islamweb website
Jam' al-Juyush wa al-Dasakir 'ala Ibn 'Asakir (Gathering the Armies and Garrisons against Ibn Asakir) is a theological treatise written by the Damascene Hanbali traditionist and jurist Ibn al-Mubarrad (Yusuf ibn Hasan ibn Abd al-Hadi, d. 909 AH / 1503 CE) to refute Ibn Asakir's defense of Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari and to articulate the doctrinal stance of the traditionalist school (Ahl al-Hadith).
Background and Purpose
In the introduction to the book, Ibn al-Mubarrad states that he had encountered criticisms of Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari across multiple works, including those by Abu Ali al-Ahwazi and Abu Isma'il al-Harawi al-Ansari. Although he initially authored a treatise titled Kashf al-Ghita' bi-Mahd al-Khata' without examining Ibn Asakir's counter-arguments to al-Ahwazi, he later acquired Ibn Asakir's Tabyin Kadhib al-Muftari. Ibn al-Mubarrad remarked that while Ibn Asakir's work was composed with formal literary and hadith-methodological skill, he considered its underlying arguments misleading and flawed. He composed Jam' al-Juyush wa al-Dasakir from a Hanbali, traditionalist perspective specifically to critique Ibn Asakir's partisanship toward al-Ash'ari and to challenge the historical claim that the majority of Sunni scholars adhered to Ash'arism.
Structure and Content
The work critiques the biographical selections in Tabyin Kadhib al-Muftari, arguing that Ibn Asakir assembled fewer than fifty scholars and misattributed Ash'ari doctrines to many among them. In response, Ibn al-Mubarrad presents an abridged prosopography listing more than four hundred scholars—including hadith masters, jurists, ascetics, and theological authorities—who explicitly opposed, criticized, or distanced themselves from Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari and his followers from the 4th century AH down to his own lifetime.
Chronologically arranged, the biographical catalog opens with the Hanbali leader Abu Muhammad al-Barbahari (d. 329 AH) and concludes with the late Hanbali jurist Jamal al-Din Yusuf ibn Muhammad al-Mardawi (author of al-Insaf). Ibn al-Mubarrad noted that had he provided exhaustive biographical details for each figure comparable to Ibn Asakir's treatment, the compilation would have exceeded ten volumes, asserting that the total number of scholars historically opposed to Ash'ari theology surpassed ten thousand. Throughout the text, the author also cites traditionalist theological authorities, including Ibn Khuzayma and Abu al-Qasim al-Lalaka'i, on foundational doctrines such as divine transcendence above the Throne (al-istiwa').
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