Abu Mansur al-Maturidi | |
|---|---|
أبو منصور الماتريدي | |
 Tomb of al-Maturidi,Samarkand | |
| Title | Shaykh al-Islam ('Shaykh of Islam') Imam al-Huda ('Leader of Guidance')[1] |
| Personal life | |
| Born | 852 CE (238 AH)[2] |
| Died | 944 CE (333 AH; aged 90–91)[2] |
| Resting place | Chokardiza cemetery,Samarkand,Uzbekistan |
| Era | Islamic Golden Age (midSamanid) |
| Region | Samanid Empire |
| Main interest(s) | Theology Jurisprudence Philosophy |
| Notable idea(s) | Maturidism |
| Notable work(s) | |
| Occupation | Scholar Jurist Theologian |
| Religious life | |
| Religion | Islam |
| Denomination | Sunni |
| Jurisprudence | Hanafi |
| Muslim leader | |
Influenced by | |
Influenced | |
| Arabic name | |
| Personal (Ism) | Muḥammad محمد |
| Patronymic (Nasab) | ibn Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd بن محمد بن محمود |
| Teknonymic (Kunya) | Abū Manṣūr أبو منصور |
| Toponymic (Nisba) | al-Māturīdī al-Samarqandī الماتريدي السمرقندي |
Abu Mansur Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Mahmud al-Maturidi as-Samarqandi | |
|---|---|
Tomb of al-Maturidi,Samarkand | |
| Venerated in | Sunni Islam[3] |
| Majorshrine | Mausoleum of Imam al-Maturidi,Samarkand |
Imam Abu Mansur al-Maturidi[a] (Arabic:أبو منصور الماتريدي,romanized: Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī; 853–944) was aHanafijurist andtheologian who is the eponym of theMaturidi school ofkalam inSunnism. He got hisnisba from Māturīd, a district inSamarkand. His works includeTafsir al-Maturidi, a classicexegesis of theQur'an, andKitab al-Tawhid.
His doctrinal school remains amongst the three main schools of theology alongsideAsh'arism andAtharism.
Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī's epithet ornisba refers to Māturīd or Māturīt, a locality inSamarkand (todayUzbekistan).[3] His full name was Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd and he adopted thenisbaal-Māturīdī and al-Ḥanafī.[4] he is also known by the titlesShaykh al-Islam ('Shaykh of Islam'),Imam al-Huda ('Imam of Guidance'), andImam Ahl al-Sunna wa-l-Jama'a ('Imam of the People of the Prophetic Way and Community').
He studied under his teachers, Muhammad bin Muqatil al-Razi (d. 248 H/ 662 CE), Abu Nasr al-Ayadi "al-Faqih al-Samarqandi" (d. 260 H?), Nusayr bin Yahya al-Balkhi (d. 268 H/ 881 CE), andAbu Bakr al-Juzjani (d. 250 H?).[5][6][7][8] He narrated all of Abu Hanifa's books such as Kitab al-Alim wa Mut'alim and Al-Wasiyya from his teachers in authentic chains which Al-Bazdawi mentions in his book Usul al-Deen.
His chains to Abu Hanifa are given as follows:[9][10]
Among his students: Ali bin Said Abu al-Hasan al-Rustughfani, Abu Muhammad Abdal-Karim bin Musa bin Isa al-Bazdawi, andAbu al-Qasim al-Hakim al-Samarqandi.[8]
Al‑Maturidi was born at Maturid, a village or quarter in the neighbourhood ofSamarkand. According to one biography he is known for being a descendant ofAbu Ayyub al-Ansari, Relatively little is known about the life of Maturidi, as the sources available "do not read as biographies, but rather as lists of works that have been enlarged upon by brief statements on his personage and a few words of praise."[11] What is evident, however, is that the theologian lived the life of a pure scholar, as "nothing indicates that he held any public office, nor that he possessed more disciples, popularity, or association with the Sāmānid court of Bukhārā than anyone else."[11] It is accepted, moreover, that Maturidi had two principal teachers, namely Abū Bakr al-Jūzjānī and Abū Naṣr Aḥmad b. al-ʿAbbās al-ʿIyāḍī (d. ca. 874–892), both of whom played significant roles in the shaping of Maturidi's theological views.[11] Maturidi is said to have lived the life of an ascetic (zāhid),[12] and various sources attribute numerousmiracles (karāmāt) to him.[12] Although he is not usually considered amystic, it is nevertheless very possible that Maturidi had some interaction with the Sufis of his area, as "Hanafite theology in the region could not always be sharply separated from mystical tendencies,"[12] and many of the most important Hanafi jurists of the area were also Sufi mystics.[12]
Maturidi definedfaith (īmān) astaṣdīḳ bi ’l-ḳalb or "inner assent, expressed by verbal confession (ịḳrār bi ’l-lisān)."[13] According to Maturidi, moreover, Islamic actions (practices or worship) (aʿmāl) are not a part of faith.[13] Additionally, Maturidi held that "faith cannot decrease nor increase in substance, though it may be said to increase through renewal and repetition."[13]
Maturidi supported using allegorical interpretation with respect to the anthropomorphic expressions in theQuran, though he rejected many of the interpretations the Mutazilites would reach using this method.[3] In other instances, Maturidi espoused using the traditionalistbilā kayf method of reading scripture, which insisted on "unquestioning acceptance of the revealed text."[3] Maturidi further refuted the Mutazilites in his defense of theAttributes of God "as real and eternally subsisting" in the Essence of God (ḳāʾima bi ’l-d̲h̲āt).[3] His chief theological divergence from Ashʿarī was that he held the attributes of essence and action to be "equally eternal and subsistent in the Divine Essence."[3] Thus, "he insisted that the expressions 'God is eternally the Creator' and 'God has been creating from eternity (lam yazal k̲h̲āliḳan)' are equally valid, even though the created world is temporal."[3] Furthermore, Maturidi staunchly defended the notion of non-theophanic vision of God (ruʾya) against the Mutazilites, and "consistently rejected the possibility ofidrāk, which he understood as grasping, of God by the eyes."[3]
Contrary to popular assumption, Al-Maturidi was not a student ofAl-Ash'ari. The historian al-Bayadi (d. 1078 H) emphasised this saying, "Maturidi is not Ash'ari's follower, as many people would tend to think. He had upheld Sunni Islam long before Ashari, he was a scholar to thoroughly explain and systematically develop Abu Hanifa's and his followers' school".[5][14]
When Maturidi was growing up there was an emerging reaction[15] against some sects, notablyMu'tazilis,Qarmati, andShi'a. Maturidi, with other two preeminent scholars,[16] wrote especially on the creed of Islam, the other two beingAbu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari in Iraq, andAhmad ibn Muhammad al-Tahawi in Egypt.[17]
WhileAl-Ash'ari were Sunni together with Maturidi, he constructed his own theology taking fromAbu Hanifa's school and systematized it which differed from his contemporary imam al-Tahawi who affirmed the beliefs of Abu Hanifa. Regardless, both were Hhanafi in their creed but with different approaches. Gimaret argued thatAl-Ash'ari enunciated that God creates the individual's power (qudra), will, and the actual act,[18] which according to Hye, gives way to afatalist school of theology, which was later put in a consolidated form byAl Ghazali.[19] According to Encyclopædia Britannica however, Al-Ashari held the doctrine of Kasb as an explanation for how free will and predestination can be reconciled.[20] Maturidi, followed inAbu Hanifa's footsteps, and presented the "notion that God was the creator of man's acts, although man possessed his own capacity and will to act."[21] Maturidi andAl-Ash'ari also separated from each other in the issue of the attributes of God,[22] as well as some other minor issues.
Later, with the impact ofTurkic society states such asGreat Seljuq Empire[23] andOttoman Empire,[24] Hanafi-Maturidi school spread to greater areas where theHanafi school of law is prevalent, such asPakistan,Afghanistan,Central Asia,South Asia,Balkan,Russia,China,Caucasus andTurkey.
Maturidi had immense knowledge ofdualist beliefs (Sanawiyya) and of otherold Persian religions. HisKitāb al-Tawḥīd in this way has become a primary source for modern researchers with its rich materials about IranianManicheanism (Mâniyya), a group ofBrahmans (Barähima), and some controversial personalities such asIbn al-Rawandi,Abu Isa al-Warraq, and Muhammad b. Shabib.[25][26]
His school became the dominant Sunni school of Islamic theology[3][27][28][29][30] inCentral Asia,[3] and later enjoyed a preeminent status as the theological school of choice for both theOttoman Empire and theMughal Empire.[3]
Al-Maturidi was known asShaykh al-Islām andImām al-Hudā ("Leader of Right Guidance").[3] He was one of the two foremost Imams of theSunni Islam in his time, along withAbū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī in matters of theological inquiry.[8] In contrast al-Ashʿarī, who was aShāfiʿījurist, al-Māturīdī adhered to theeponymous school of jurisprudence founded byAbū Ḥanīfa al-Nuʿmān, and to hiscreed (ʿaqīdah) as transmitted and elaborated by the Ḥanafī Muslim theologians ofBalkh andTransoxania.[3] It was this theological doctrine which al-Māturīdī codified, systematized, and used to refute not only the opinions of theMuʿtazilites, theKarramites, and other heterodox groups, but also non-Islamic theologies such as those ofChalcedonian Christianity,Miaphysitism,Manichaeanism,Marcionism, andBardaisanism.[31]
Although there was in the medieval period "a tendency to suppress Maturidi's name and to put Ashʿarī forward as the champion of Islam against all heretics,"[32] except inTransoxiana, Maturidism gradually "came to be widely recognised as the second orthodox Sunni theological school" besides Ashʿarīsm.[33] It is evident from the surviving fifteenth-century accounts of Maturidi's tomb in the cemetery of Jākardīza in Samarkand that the theologian's tomb was "visited ... and held in honor for a long time" throughout the medieval period.[34] This veneration of the theologian seems to have arisen out of traditions preserved by several later scholars which detailed Maturidi's wisdom and spiritual abilities. For example, Abul Muīn al-Nasafī (d. 1114) stated that Maturidi's spiritual gifts were "immeasurably plentiful"[12] and that "God singled him out with miracles (kāramāt), gifts of grace (mawāhib), divine assistance (tawfiq), and guidance (irshād,tashdīd)."[12]
ContemporarySalafism andWahhabism, however, tends to be very critical of Maturidi's legacy in Sunni Islam due to their aversion towards using any rational thought in matters oftheology, which they deem to be heretical,[3] despite this antagonism being a position that conflicts with the consensus of Sunnism throughout history.[3][35] As such, it is often said that mainstream "orthodox Sunnism" constitutes the followers of the theological traditions of Maturidi and Ashʿarī,[3][36] while Salafism and Wahhabism have often been interpreted by the proponents of the two major schools to be minority splinter theological traditions opposed to the mainstream.[3][35] Furthermore, the minor theoretical differences between the theological formulations of Maturidi and Ashʿarī are often deemed by their respective followers to be superficial rather than real,[36] whence "the two schools are equally orthodox" in traditional Sunnism.[36] The traditional Sunni point of view is summarized in the words of the twentieth-century Islamic publisher Munīr ʿAbduh Agha, who stated: "There is not much [doctrinal] difference between the Ashʿarīs and Māturīdīs, hence both groups are now called People of the Sunna and the Community."[37]
ReferenceA2 was invoked but never defined (see thehelp page).
