Do Accidents Need a Substrate? Critical Edition of al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ’s Masʾala fī kayfiyyat wujūd al-aʿrāḍ

Abstract

This article offers an editio princeps of al-Ḥasan al-Raṣṣāṣ’s Masʾala fī kayfiyyat wujūd al-aʿrāḍ. In this text, al-Raṣṣāṣ argues in accordance with the Bahshamī theory that not all accidents need a substrate (maḥall). Although most accidents depend on atoms as their locus of inherence, there are three exceptions: the accident of “annihilation” (fanāʾ), whose existence in a substrate is inconceivable, and “will” (irāda) and “aversion” (karāha), which either subsist in a human body or exist without a substrate in the case of God.