Māturīdiyya
Māturīdiyya, a theological school named after its founder Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī [q.v.] which in the Mamlūk age came to be widely recognised as the second orthodox Sunnī kalām school besides the As̲h̲ʿariyya. The name Māturīdiyya does not appear to have been current before al-Taftazānī (d. 792/1390), who used it evidently to establish the role of al-Māturīdī as the co-founder of Sunnī kalām together with his contemporary al-As̲h̲ʿarī. In view of the late appearance of the name, the reality of a theological school founded by al-Māturīdī has been questioned. In earlier times, the school was commonly called that of the scholars of Samarḳand or of Transoxania. It claimed to represent the doctrine of Abū Ḥanīfa and sometimes identified itself as the ahl al-sunna wa ’l-d̲j̲amāʿa and “the great mass”, al-sawād al-aʿẓam. The dominant influence of al-Māturīdī’s thought and works on the later representatives of the school is, however, evident, and the latter did not deviate more substantially from his doctrine than did the later As̲h̲ʿarīs from the doctrine of al-As̲h̲ʿarī. The latter was more readily recognised as the founder of a new school both because he was originally a Muʿtazilī and because he was repudiated by the Ḥanbalī traditionalists whose doctrine he claimed to defend, while al-Māturīdī was considered fully representative of traditional Transoxanian Ḥanafism whose theology he elaborated. ¶
The theological doctrine of the Ḥanafī scholars of Samarḳand spread in the 4th/10th and 5th/11th centuries throughout Transoxania, eastern K̲h̲urāsān, Balk̲h̲ and among the newly converted Turks in the Ḳarak̲h̲ānid territories of Central Asia. In the 4th/10th century there were some differences on a few theological questions with the Ḥanafī scholars of Buk̲h̲ārā, who were more strongly influenced by traditionalist, anti-rationalist tendencies. These were mostly harmonised by later Māturīdī scholars with compromise solutions. Māturīdī teaching remained virtually unknown west of K̲h̲urāsān, where the Ḥanafīs adhered to other theological schools, many of them to Muʿtazilism. Only the Sald̲j̲ūḳ expansion into the central Islamic world since the middle of the 5th/11th century brought a radical change. As̲h̲ʿarī authors now took note of Māturīdī doctrine concerning the divine attributes, characteristically describing it as an innovation propounded only after the year 400/1009. The militant support of the Turks for eastern Ḥanafism including its theological doctrine led to a major clash with the S̲h̲āfiʿīs, now identified with As̲h̲ʿarī theology. This is the background of the official cursing of al-As̲h̲ʿarī from the pulpits in K̲h̲urāsān ordered by the Sald̲j̲ūḳ Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l Beg in 445/1053 and of the persecution of As̲h̲ʿarīs and the extensive factional warfare between Ḥanafīs and S̲h̲āfiʿīs in the major towns of Iran in the later Sald̲j̲ūḳ age. Māturīdī works of this period are highly critical of As̲h̲ʿarism, excluding the As̲h̲ʿariyya from the ahl al-sunna wa ’l-d̲j̲amāʿa and describing some As̲h̲ʿarī doctrines as kufr. As a result of the Turkish expansion, eastern Ḥanafism and Māturīdī theological doctrine were spread throughout western Persia, ʿIrāḳ, Anatolia, Syria and Egypt. Numerous Transoxanian and other eastern Ḥanafī scholars migrated to these regions and taught there from the late 5th/11th to the 8th/14th century. Māturīdī doctrine thus gradually came to prevail among the Ḥanafī communities everywhere. In Damascus and Syria it was first propagated by Burhān al-Dīn ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan al-Sikilkandī al-Balk̲h̲ī (d. 548/1153), to whom the Ḥanafī scholars of Samarḳand send a copy of Abū Ḥafṣ al-Nasafī’s ʿAḳāʾid with their explanations, describing it as the creed of the ahl al-sunna wa ’l-d̲j̲amāʿa on which they had agreed.
As the antagonism between the Ḥanafīs and S̲h̲āfiʿīs subsided in the Mamlūk age, the As̲h̲ʿarī S̲h̲āfiʿī Tād̲j̲ al-Dīn al-Subkī (d. 771/1370) composed a nūniyya poem about the points of difference between al-As̲h̲ʿarī and “Abū Ḥanīfa”, meaning Māturīdī doctrine. He listed thirteen such points, defining seven of them as merely terminological (lafẓiyya ) and six as objective (maʿnawiyya ). The latter were in his view so minor that they could not justify mutual charges of infidelity or heresy ( tabdīʿ ). A commentary on the Nūniyya was composed by al-Subkī’s student Nūr al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Abi ’l-Ṭayyib al-S̲h̲īrāzī. This commentary with al-Subkī’s thirteen points of difference was largely copied by Abū ʿUd̲h̲ba, writing ca. 1125/1713, in his well-known K. al-Rawḍa al-bahiyya fī mā bayn al-As̲h̲āʿira wa ’l-Māturīdiyya (a summary of the thirteen points is given by A. S. Tritton, Muslim theology, London 1947, 174-6).
Notable representatives of the school of al-Māturīdī in the later 5th/11th century were Abū S̲h̲akūr al-Sālimī al-Kis̲h̲s̲h̲ī, author of a K. al-Tamhīd fī bayān al-tawḥīd , and Abu ’l-Yusr al-Bazdawī (d. 593/1099), kāḍī of Samarḳand and author of the K. Uṣūl al-dīn. Most influential in expounding and elaborating the doctrine of al-Māturīdī was, however, Abu ’l-Muʿīn al-Nasafī al-Makḥūlī (d. 508/1114), who wrote the largest comprehensive work of Māturīdī theology ¶ entitled K. Tabṣirat al-adilla , a shorter K. Baḥr al-kalām and a K. al-Tamhīd li-ḳawāʿid al-tawḥīd.
Most important in the dissemination of Māturīdī dogma was the creed ( ʿAḳāʾid ) of Nad̲j̲m al-Dīn Abū Ḥafs al-Nasafī (d. 537/1142) which closely followed Abu ’l-Muʿīn’s formulations in his Tabṣirat al-adilla. It received many commentaries and glosses for scholastic teaching and was repeatedly versified. Another popular Māturīdī creed in verses, known as al-Lāmiyya fi ’l-tawḥīdor Badʾ al-amālī , was composed by ʿAlī b. ʿUt̲h̲mān al-Ūs̲h̲ī (d. 569/1173) and was later explained in numerous commentaries, some in Persian and Turkish. Also in the 6th/12th century, there wrote Nūr al-Dīn al-Ṣābūnī al-Buk̲h̲ārī (d. 580/1184), whose K. al-Bidāya min al-kifāya , extracted from his larger K. al-Kifāya fi ’l-hidāya , has been published.
Among the later Māturīdī authors, Abu ’l-Barakāt al-Nasafī (d. 710/1310) composed a popular brief treatise ʿUmdat al-ʿaḳīda li-ahl al-sunnawith his own commentary entitled K. al-Iʿtimād fi ’l-iʿtiḳad , both strongly influenced by Abu ’l-Muʿīn al-Nasafī’s Tabṣirat al-adilla. A theologian with a more personal profile was ʿUbayd Allāh b. Masʿūd al-Maḥbūbī (d. 747/1346), who dealt with theological questions in the context of both his K. Taʿdīl al-ʿulūm and his K. al-Tawḍīḥ , a work on legal methodology ( uṣūl al-fiḳh). Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftazānī (d. 792/1310) wrote the best known commentary on Abū Ḥafṣ al-Nasafī’s ʿAḳāʾid. A student of ʿAḍud al-Dīn al-Īd̲j̲ī, representative of the philosophical kalām of late As̲h̲ʿarism, he himself seems to have progressively moved towards As̲h̲ʿarī positions. This is apparent in his later K. al-Maḳāṣidand his own commentary on it, which were patterned after al-Īd̲j̲ī’s K. al-Mawāḳif , and its commentary by the S̲h̲arīf al-D̲j̲urd̲j̲ānī. The Egyptian Ḥanafī theologian Kamāl al-Dīn Ibn al-Humān (d. 861/1457), author of a K. al-Musāyara fi ’l-ʿaḳāʾid al-mund̲j̲iya fi ’l-āk̲h̲ira , fully accepted the now prevailing view of the equal orthodoxy of As̲h̲ʿarism and Māturīdism, but showed a degree of independence in regard to both schools. In contrast, the Ottoman Ḥanafī Kamāl al-Dīn al-Bayāḍī (d. 1078/1687) in his K. Is̲h̲ārāt al-marām min ʿibārāt al-imāmemphasised the independence and priority of Māturīdī kalām, founded on the teaching of Abū Ḥanīfa, in relation to As̲h̲ʿarism.
Unlike Muʿtazilism and As̲h̲ʿarism, Māturīdī theology always remained associated with only a single legal school, that of Abū Ḥanīfa. It also generally lagged behind the other two kalām schools in methodical sophistication and systematisation, especially in the questions of natural science treated by them, and was less subject to the pervasive influence of the terminology and concepts of falsafa on later As̲h̲ʿarism and later, particularly Imāmī S̲h̲īʿī, Muʿtazilism. While the conflict of the Māturīdiyya with the Muʿtazila was obviously most fundamental, the differences with the As̲h̲ʿariyya were more substantial than the later harmonising theologians would admit. They involved mainly Māturīdī doctrine affirming the eternity of God’s attributes of act subsisting in His essence, the rational basis of good and evil, the reality of free choice (ik̲h̲tiyār ) of man in his acts, and the Murd̲j̲iʾī definition of faith as assent and confession excluding works (aʿmāl ). However, other, less significant points of difference dominated at times the controversy between the two schools.
(W. Madelung)
Bibliography
In addition to the works cited in al-māturīdi, see L. Gardet, De quelques questions posées par l’étude du ʿIlm al-kalām, in SI, xxxii (1970), 135-9.
- Madelung, The spread of Māturīdism and ¶ the Turks, in Actas do IV Congresso de Estudos Árabes e Islâmicos Coimbra-Lisboa 1968, Leiden 1971, 109-68.
- M. Watt, The formative period of Islamic thought, Edinburgh 1973, 312-16.
- idem, The problem of al-Māturīdī, in Mélanges d’Islamologie. Volume dédié à… Armand Abel, Leiden 1974, 264-9.
- idem, The beginnings of the Islamic theological schools, in Islam et Occident au Moyen Âge: l’enseignement en Islam et en Occident au Moyen Âge, Paris 1976, 19-20.
- Gimaret, Théories de l’Acte humain en théologie musulmane, Paris 1980, 171-234.
- M. Pessagno, The uses of evil in Māturīdian thought, in SI, lx (1984), 59-82.
Reference:
Madelung, W., “Māturīdiyya”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. 1960-2007. (1,445 words)