The problem of the divine attributes in theological and philosophical thought of Islam

The present article is devoted to the study of problem of divine attributes in Muslim rational theology and Islamic Peripatetic School. The author offers an analysis of rational approaches of Muslim theologians and peripatetic Islamic philosophers to the nature of the divine attributes. The author argues that due to the efforts of the early Muslim theologians prerequisites were created for the discussions on divine attributes. He states that the discussions of God’s Essence and attributes in theological and philosophical thought of Islam grew out of a combination of both internal and external influence. The article examines classification schemes of divine attributes developed by Muslim theologians. It is shown that peripatetic Islamic philosophers’ understanding of divine attributes in the monistic and apophatic sense made classification schemes of divine attributes unnecessary.