Ilahiyat in the thoughts of Sheikh Salih Chinese (Liu Zhi)

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore through the thoughts of Sheikh Salih Chinese (Liu Zhi) (刘智) about Ilahiyat as one of the major branches of 'Ilm al Kalam which mainly includes the ontological order from the prospect of unitary essence articulating its three levels: essence, attributes, and acts. This article elaborates the idea of absolute existence and the unitary essence considering inferences made by Sheikh Saleh Chinese (Liu Zhi) in detail. It also comprehends the relationship between them besides concentrating on explaining the kalami argument about the initial phase of creation compounds due to the acts of God, that manifests the attributes as exemplified through Essence. Moreover, this issue has been vitally analyzed in the views of other scholars. Sheikh Salih Chinese (Liu Zhi) has pioneered in the promulgation of the issues pertaining to the divines of God in cope with traditional structure of Chinese society. Therefore, this study will also reflect his methodology in treating with various creed issues as per socio-religious environment of his own society to see the argumentative application in presentation of theology according to the religious background of other societies. It is established in drawing literature review of this study that various authors have covered mostly the autobiography of Sheikh Salih Chinese and not his scholarly work. To explore his analogies the two fold methodologies have been applied; descriptive and analytical, aiming at narrating his deep comprehension of kalami issues and to analyze his work with classical body of scholarship of others. To address these points this study is divided in two main chapters; starting from the idea of the absoluteness of God’s existence: His attributes and Actions in the thoughts of Sheikh Salih Chinese.