The Dialectic of Political Thought in the Umayyad Period Al Hassan Al Basri as a Case Study

Abstract

This research paper examines the relationship between intellectual movement and the dynamics of context in terms of it being influenced or influential. The intellectual and cultural movement in the Umayyad Period was associated in one way or another with the then prevalent political schools of thought. Most of these intellectual movements were forms of reaction to political movements and they manifested the conflicts, intricacies and entanglements of such political views. This paper specifically addresses three issues: 1. The general features of the theological debate and its political, social and economic constraints. 2. The common epistemological paradigm 3. Al Hassan Al Basri as one of the prominent leaders of the intellectual movement of the time and as a witness to the profound transformations that took place in the Islamic history particularly in the era of the Guided Caliphs and the Umayyad era.