Theology of Acts or Metaphysics of Moral from Farabi's Viewpoint

Inspiring from Farabi’s definition of theology and jurisprudence, this paper will examine the ‘theology of acts’ (Kalām-i ‘af‘āl) usually known in Islamic thought as ‘morals metaphysics’ (ilāhīyyāt-iakhlāqī). Although jurisprudence is the science of divine law (fiqh) with the aim of paving the path toward happiness, it does not explain the philosophy behind the divine law. According to Farabi, it is the science of theology that -in addition to defending the creeds- is responsible for providing us with the philosophy and justification of divine law which is named in this paper ‘theology of acts’. The difficulty of this responsibility is the main reason of being undeveloped science in Islam, nevertheless there are still various methods of theology of acts some of which have been developed by Farabi. The aim of this paper is to elaborate some of these methods to the readers especially to those who believe in the existence of philosophy of religion and sharī‘a, but have overlooked the importance of this theology in divine law and morality.