Sunnism: From the origins to the constitution of schools, by Corentin PABIOT

Before beginning the study of Muslim Theology in its intrinsic content, it is necessary to review its history and explain its nature and method.

First, it is necessary to give a chronological account of Muslim Theology and the first questions asked because the set of circumstances in which this branch of Islamic sciences is inserted as for many in its birth and its constitution, and to neglect its context history is to run the risk of misunderstanding its process of formation and development.

It was therefore important to present to the reader the process of the elaboration of Muslim theology which, starting from the unified creed of the first Muslims, gradually gave birth to Sunni Theology and its dogmatic schools.

Then, it is appropriate to explain the nature and the method of Sunni Theology as a discipline, in order to define the role and the respective value that faith and reason have in its system, and to present the guarantees of the arguments that she employs. To undertake the study of Muslim Theology without this prerequisite is to take the risk of misunderstanding the place of the rational arguments given by dogmatic Theologians in favor of the truths of faith which, of course, are almost exclusively on the defensive level, but do not for all that exclude a deepening of these same truths according to an experimental and mystical mode.

It is precisely the object of this book to prepare the reader for the knowledge of Sunni Theology by initiating him to the primitive questions to which this part of the religious sciences owes its birth and by instilling in him the preliminary notions necessary for his intelligence.