An Early Historical Document on the Psychological Motives for Theological Divisions and Polemics

Abstract

The study intends to reveal that moral psychological motives as one of the important approaches in interpreting theological divisions. It seeks to understand the pivotal influence of psychological motives with moral dimensions such as intolerance, fear, greed, and the network of interests and relationships in the occurrence of theological schisms, intolerance towards beliefs, and bias towards evidence through an analysis of an early traditional text Ibn Qutaybah (276), Al-Ikhtilāf fi Al-lafz. This study demonstrates that Ibn Qutaybah adopts the psychological-moral approach through which he analyzes the phenomenon of division that occurred among the scholars of hadith during the third century AH/ninth century AD over the controversial issue known as the ‘issue of al-Lafz in the Qur’an’. The study concludes that this historical example reveals that these phenomena behind which psychological motives stand are human phenomena that can be verified within any doctrine, as long as the circumstances, environment, and conditions that motivate and stimulate them exist.