Religious and Philosophical Views of’Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ṣūrī I. God and His Attributes

The history of Samaritan religious and philosophical thought is a true terra incognita of modern humanities: While most of Samaritan scribes remain unpublished, the philosophy of their community has not yet attracted the attention of specialists. The series of articles offered to the reader is intended to fill this gap of philosophical oriental studies and shed light on the heritage of the founder of Arab-speaking Samaritan theology,’Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ṣūrī (11th century). The first article provides an analysis of fragments from the “Book of Slaughter” (Kitāb al-Ṭabbāẖ), containing the teachings of al-Ṣūrī about God and His attributes. The author concludes that al-Ṣūrī’s arguments for the existence of the First Principle and Its oneness are similar to the Mu‘tazili theological paradigmatics and, in particular, to the teachings of ‘Abd al-Ǧabbār (d. 1025). At the same time, al-Ṣūrī’s theology of the attributes, which is the result of inter-religious polemics of the 9th–11th centuries, synthesizes the Peripatetic doctrine of categories with Asharite realism. The author examines the influence of al-Ṣūrī’s theology on later Samaritan thinkers, and represents the biography of al-Ṣūrī and handwritten sources that formed the basis of the study. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.