The fourth chapter examines Ibn Rushd’s account of causality. It will be argued that Ibn Rushd’s theory of causality comes very close to Neo-Platonistic participatory accounts, despite his strong Aristotelian tendencies. Ibn Rushd, like Ibn Sīnā, finds the basis of causal efficacy of entities in their participation in the pure existence-act of the First. The most important implication of this understanding of causality is that despite the occasionalist critique that we do not and cannot observe a necessary connection between cause and effect, for Ibn Rushd, the moment one defines existence as pure act, it metaphysically makes more sense to accept causal efficacy of entities, for they participate in the pure existence-act of the First. The chapter also examines the differences between Ibn Sīnā and Ibn Rushd that stem from the latter’s efforts to address some of Ghazālī’s challenges. Ibn Rushd agrees with Ghazālī in that plurality can emanate from the First without emanationist intermediation and solely based on the nature-capacity-form of beings. This view establishes a closer connection between the First’s existence-act and the world than Ibn Sīnā’s metaphysics allows.

The eighth chapter focuses on the thought of Jurjānī to understand later developments in the occasionalist tradition. Jurjānī was one of the most important Ashʿarite theologians who transformed occasionalism from a theory of causality into the central axis of all theological thinking. The notion of possibility made central by Ashʿarite occasionalism became the modus operandi for thinking about questions from prophetology and eschatology to theodicy and free will. More importantly, Jurjānī develops a critical philosophy of science to appropriate and criticize Aristotelian-Ptolemaic-Avicennian natural philosophy/sciences. An examination of this attempt reveals the complex relationship of Ashʿarite occasionalism with medieval natural philosophy and sciences.

The introduction presents main research questions, key concepts, and methodology. It introduces some of the reasons that make questions about causality and freedom fundamentally important for any religious tradition in general and Islamic tradition in particular. It discusses the reasons for the selection of thinkers examined in the book. It also provides short introductions to Platonic, Neo-Platonic, Aristotelian, and occasionalist accounts of causality to help the reader better understand the spectrum of ideas about causality and freedom examined in this book.

The second chapter examines Ibn Sīnā’s account of causality and freedom through an analysis of his concepts of existence (wujūd) and essence (māhiyya). It will be argued that these concepts allow Ibn Sīnā to make a distinction between metaphysical and physical causality and, then, to locate physical causality within the larger context of metaphysical causality. As such, he offers an integration of Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic theories of causality. The result is a participatory theory of causality with strong Aristotelian elements that affirms freedom both in the created order and in the First.