al-Shahham, Abu Yakub Yusuf b. Abd Allah b. Ishak, Mutazili theologian of the Basran school (3rd/9th century). His exact dates are unknown. His biographers only say that he was the youngest, or among the youngest, of the disciples of Abu'l Hudhayl (d. ? 227/841), that he died aged 80 and that his death was after 257/871, when he was for a while prisoner of the Zanj, when these last overran Basra.

As his name implies, he was a seller of fat, and under al-Wathik held administrative posts in the taxation office or Diwan al-Kharadj. According to Ibn al-Nadim (cited in Ibn Hajar Lisan, vi, 325), he is said to have even headed this department. According to other sources, he was reportedly simply charged as a "religious figure", and in the general framework of the suppression of abuses, to oversee in this regard the conduct of al-Fadl b. Marwan.

He was a disciple both of Abu'l-Hudhayl and, it seems, of Muammar (thus according to al-Khayyat, Intisal, ed. Nader, 45, ll. 15-17), and eventually became head of the Mutazili school in Basra. He was the chief master of Abu ali al-Jubbai. A trenchant polemicist, he is said to have written numerous refutations, as well as, notably, a Kuran commentary (for all biographical details, see Abd al-Jabbar, Fadl al-itizal, Tunis 1974, 280-1; al-Hakim al-Jushami, Sharah 'uyun al-masa'il,ms. Sana, Great Mosque, ilm al-kalam, no. 212, fol. 59a; Ibn al-Murtada, Tabakat al-Mutazila, Beirut-Wiesbaden 1961, 71-2; and on the episode of the Zanj, Abd al-Kannar. Tathbit dala'il al-nubuwwa, Beirut 1966, 341).

He is characterised by two main theses:

(1) Concerning the science of God, on the question whether God has known things from all eternity (lam yazal aliman bi'l-ashya)--a question debated at length in al-Ashari, Makalat, Wiesbaden 1963, 158-63--he was amongst those answering
affirmatively (see ibid., 162, ll. 8-17). This means that he admitted that, given the fact that the universe is created, "things are things even before they come into existence", in other words, that "what is not yet in existence is a thing" (al-madum shay), a thesis which the majority of later Mutazilis, Basrans as well as Baghdadis, made their own. A relatively late tradition holds that, within the Mutazili school, al-Shahham was the first to uphold such a principle (see al-Juwayni, Shamil, Alexandria 1969, 124, ll. 6-7; al-Shahrastani, Nihaya, Oxford 1934, 151, ll. 2-5). In reality, his contemporary and compatriot Abbad b. Sulayman held the same view (see Makalat, 158, ll. 16 ff. and 495, ll. 9 ff.). Al-Shahham simply went further, saying that bodies even are bodies before they come into existence, a viewpoint which was later taken up by the Baghdadi al-Khayyat (in his Fark, ed. Abd al-Hamid, Cairo n.d., 179, ll. 15 ff., al-Baghdadi attributes to al-Khayyat the reasoning that, in Makalat, 162, ll. 12-16, 504, ll. 16 ff., al-Ashari attributes to al-Shahham).

(2) Regarding God's power, considered in its connection with human acts, al-Shahham upheld, against all the other Mutazilis (thus in Makalat, 549, ll. 9-11; but if one believes Ibn Mattawayh, Madjmu, Beirut 1965, i, 379, ll. 9-13, Abu'l-Hudhayl and Muhammad b. Shabib are said to have thought the same) that "God has power over what He gives power to mankind" (yakdiru ala ma akdara alayhi 'ibadahu) cf. Makalat, 199, l. 7, 549, l. 12), thus admitting the idea of "one object of power for the two wielders of power" (makdur wahid li 'l-kadirayn) (cf. Fark, 178, ll. 4-6). Although, moreover, like Dirar, al-Najjar and, later, the Sunni theologians, al-Shahham apparently distinguished between "to create" (khalaka), which would be proper to God, and "to acquire" (iktasaba), which would be proper to man (cf. Makalat, 550, ll. 2-3), one should not understand that, for him, as these other theologians thought, it was the very same act at the very same instant which is, at the same time, "created" by God and "acquired" by man. It appears in fact to be a question of an alternative (cf. Fark, 178, ll. 7-9): this common possibility is, whether it is God who produces it and it is then an act of God alone, or whether it is man, and in this case it is exclusively an act of man (see Makalat, 199, ll. 8-9, 549, ll. 13 ff.; Madjmu, I, 379, ll. 11-12, 15-16; #Abd al-Jabbar, Mughni, Cairo 1963, viii, 275, ll. 16-18).

(D. Gimaret)