The Ontology of Free Will in the Post-Classical Maturidite Kalām: Analysis, Critical Edition and Translation of Sa？aklizāde’s Treatise on Free Will

This article examines a treatise titled Risālat al-irāda al-juz？iyya by Sa？aklizāde Mehmed Efendi (d. 1145/1732), an eighteenth-century Ottoman scholar. It addresses how the dilemma between God’s creation of things and human free will is resolved through an investigation into the ontology of free will; it also includes a critical edition and translation of the treatise. Sa？aklizāde examined the problem of human agency, which had been one of the most debated subjects in kalām since the beginning, through a new theory of action that was developed by ？adr al-Sharī？a ‘Ubaydallāh b. Mas？ūd (d. 747/1346), a post-classical Maturidi theologian. Sa？aklizāde analyzed separately the infinitive meanings of action and the meaning of the infinitive’s outcome and inquired into their ontological meanings. According to this, the infinitive meaning of an action constitutes its “non-entity aspect,” whereas the meaning of the infinitive’s outcome constitutes its “entity aspect.” Therefore, the problem of jabr (determinism) from the beginning of theology, as formulated in the syllogism “Human actions are entities” / “Everything is created by God” / “Therefore, every human actions are created by God,” was solved by discovering a non-entity, i.e. non-existent, aspect of the action. In Risālat al-irāda al-juz？iyya, Sa？aklizāde appropriated ？adr al-Sharī？a’s theory of action and applied the separation of the two meanings of an action to the concept of free will (irāda). Thereby, while not contradicting God’s creation of everything, he tried to explain human free will through the concepts of will, choice and preference. Considering the action’s two meanings as an adjective determining one aspect (al-？ifa al-mu？a？？i？a) and creating this determining adjective (īqā‘), Sa？aklizāde argues that the second meaning corresponds to the preference that stands as the ultimate basis of human actions. The fact that the preference is the basis of free will and the action that comes out of free will raises the question to whom the preference is attributed ultimately. Sa？aklizāde argues that the preference is derived from human beings, but, just like īqā‘, it has an infinitive meaning, and therefore cannot be described by the attributes of existence, absence or being created and so it becomes neither a created thing by God nor human beings. In order to ground human responsibility, Sa？aklizāde turns to the action’s process of occurrence. He states that a human being first makes a preference, then God creates the will towards this preference. When the human being wills it, God brings this act into