THE
MATURIDI
SCHOOL
from Abu Hanifa to al-Kawthari
THE
MATURIDI
SCHOOL
from Abu Hanifa to al-Kawthari
Gibril Fouad Haddad
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Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Haddad, Gibril Fouad, 1960-
The Maturidi School from Abu Hanifa to al-Kawthari.
1. Islam -- Doctrines -- Early works to 1800. 2. Islam -- Doctrines. 3. Islamic theol-
ogy. 4. Islam -- Theology -- History. 5. God (Islam) -- History of doctrines.
6. God (Islam) -- Attributes. 7. Islamic sects. 8. Sunnites -- Doctrines. 9. Sunnites
-- Doctrines -- History. 10. Māturīdī, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad, -944 or 945 --
Influence. 11. Maturidites. 12. Asharites. 13. Muslim Scholars -- Biography.
14. Islam -- Bibliography. I. Haddad, Gibril Fouad, 1960- . II. Title.
Cover image: The monument featured on the front cover is the final resting place of
Imam al-Maturidi. In 1947, the cemetery was razed to the ground. After decades of
neglect, the current mausoleum was built and opened on the 17th of November 2000,
commemorating 1130 years since the birth of the Imam.
#%!
In the Name of the One God,
the All-Beneficent, the Most Merciful
CO N T EN T S
Contents
Abbreviations ......................................................................................... xi
Introduction ........................................................................................... 1
SALIENT THEMES OF MATURIDISM .............................................. 3
Imitative belief (īmān al-muqallid), speculative study (naẓar), and acquired
knowledge (maʿrifa)......................................................................................5
Kasb as a Māturīdī concept and not only an Ashʿarī one ...............................6
The Māturīdī differentiation between divine contentment (riḍā) and divine
will (irāda) ...................................................................................................6
Synonymity of irāda and mashī’a (will); near-synonymity with ikhtiyār
(choice) ........................................................................................................7
Māturīdīs mostly reject the possibility that Allah can task servants beyond
capacity ........................................................................................................7
The Māturīdī view that īmān (faith/belief ) neither increases nor decreases..10
The Orientalist construct of Māturīdīs as near to Muʿtazilīs ........................10
The Wahhābī construct of Māturīdīs as ‘denying all’ but a handful of divine
attributes ....................................................................................................12
The Māturīdī condemnation of the philosophers (falāsifa) .........................13
The Muʿtazilī and Deobandi position that ‘Allah is described as having power
to lie’ ..........................................................................................................14
Table 1. Māturīdī condemnations of the claim that ‘Allah can lie’ as
Muʿtazilism ..........................................................................................15
Māturīdīs and the sub-genre of ‘blasphemous expressions’ (alfāẓ al-kufr) ...18
VII
The heart’s taṣdīq as the core of faith for both Māturīdīs and Ashʿarīs..........19
Works of Ashʿarī-Māturīdī systematic comparative theology .......................21
Spurious attributions/ascriptions in Māturīdī scholarship ...........................22
Two Māturīdī Golden Ages ........................................................................25
Table 2. Chronology of mostly Māturīdī authors and doctrinal works
(together with comparative Ashʿari-Māturīdī texts in bold)
2nd–14th centuries ..............................................................................26
SYNOPTIC BIO-BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................... 31
Second/Eighth Century ........................................................................ 33
Abū Ḥanīfa
Fourth/Tenth Century .......................................................................... 39
al-Ṭaḥāwī
al-Māturīdī
Abū Salama al-Samarqandī
Ibn al-Ḥakīm al-Samarqandī
Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī
Fifth/Eleventh Century ......................................................................... 57
al-Ustuwā’ī
Abū Shakūr al-Sālimī
Abū al-Yusr al-Pazdawī
Maymūn al-Nasafī
Sixth/Twelfth Century .......................................................................... 73
al-Ṣaffār
[Pseudo-]ʿUmar Abū Ḥafṣ al-Nasafī
al-Lāmishī
al-Usmandī
al-Ūshī
al-Ṣābūnī
al-Ghaznawī
VIII
Seventh/Thirteenth Century ................................................................. 97
al-Tūrabashtī
Burhān al-Dīn al-Nasafī
al-Khabbāzī
Muḥammad b. Ashraf al-Samarqandī
Rukn al-Dīn al-Samarqandī
Eighth/Fourteenth Century ................................................................ 109
Abū al-Barakāt ʿAbd Allāh Nasafī
Ḥusām al-Dīn al-Sighnāqī
Najm al-Dīn al-Ṭarasūsī
Tāj al-Dīn Ibn al-Subkī
Ibn Abī al-ʿIzz
Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī
Ninth/Fifteenth Century ..................................................................... 125
ʿIzz al-Dīn Ibn Jamāʿa
Badr al-Dīn al-Maqdisī
ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn al-Bukhārī
Ibn al-Humām
Tenth/Sixteenth Century..................................................................... 131
Ibn Kamāl Bāshā
Nawʿī Efendi
Eleventh/Seventeenth Century ............................................................ 133
Mullā ʿAlī al-Qārī
Ḥasan Kāfī al-Aqḥiṣārī
[Pseudo-]Shaykh Zadah
al-Shurunbulālī
al-Bayāḍī
Twelfth/Eighteenth Century ............................................................... 149
al-Isbīrī
Abū al-Ḥasan al-Sindī
al-Nābulusī
al-Khādimī
Abū ʿAdhaba
IX
Thirteenth/Nineteenth Century .......................................................... 159
Khālid Baghdādī
al-Badāyūnī
Fourteenth/Twentieth Century ........................................................... 175
al-Qāwuqjī
al-Kumushkhānawī
Ibrāhīm al-Wāfī
Bājahjī Zādah
Wahbī al-Khādimī
al-Kawtharī
al-Ṣaʿīdī
Contemporary Literature (in order of publication) ............................ 213
Supplements: Chains of Transmission of Some of the Māturīdī
Masters ............................................................................................... 217
Table 3. al-Ṭaḥāwī, al-Māturīdī, al-Ṣābūnī and the Nasafīs ................217
Table 4. The Pazdawīs, the Samarqandīs and the Nasafīs ....................218
Table 5. Kawtharī’s Isnāds in Ashʿarī Kalām (I–II), Māturīdī Kalām
and Ḥanafī Fiqh/Uṣūl (III), Qurʾān and Hadith (IV–V) ....................219
Theme-to-Source Index ....................................................................... 223
X
A B B R E V I AT I O N S
Abbreviations
AA al-Rawḍat al-bahiyya fīmā bayna al-Ashāʿira wal-Māturīdiyya (Abū
ʿAdhaba)
AM al-ʿĀlim wal-mutaʿallim (Abū Ḥanīfa)
ʿAqd ʿAqāʾid al-Nasafī (Burhān al-Dīn Nasafī)
Bad’ Bad’ al-amālī fī uṣūl al-dīn (Ūshī)
Baḥr Baḥr al-kalām (Maymūn Nasafī)
Bar Barīqa Maḥmūdiyya fī sharḥ ṭarīqa Muḥammadiyya (Khādimī)
Bid al-Bidāya min al-kifāya fīl-hidāya (Ṣābūnī)
FAk al-Fiqh al-akbar (Abū Ḥanīfa)
FAb al-Fiqh al-absaṭ (Abū Ḥanīfa)
Güm Jāmiʿ al-mutūn fīl-ṣifāt wal-ʿaqā’id al-Māturīdiyya (Gümüşhanevi)
HUD al-Hādī fī uṣūl al-dīn (Khabbāzī)
Ifāda al-Ifādat al-Madaniyya fīl-irādat al-juzʾiyya (Abū al-Ḥasan al-Sindī)
IKB Masā’il al-ikhtilāf bayna al-Ashāʿira wal-Māturīdiyya (Ibn Kamāl
Bāshā)
ʿIqd al-ʿIqd al-jawharī fīl-farq bayn al-kasbayn (Khālid Baghdādī)
Ish Ishārāt al-marām min ʿibārāt al-imām (Bayāḍī)
Iʿtmd al-Iʿtimād fīl-iʿtiqād (ʿAbd Allāh Nasafī)
Iʿtqd al-Iʿtiqād: ʿAqīdatun marwiyya ʿan Abī Ḥanīfa (Ustuwā’ī)
Lubāb Lubāb al-kalām (Usmandī)
MfA Masā’il fīl-ʿaqīda (Abū al-Layth Samarqandī)
Minḥ Minaḥ al-rawḍ al-azhar (Qārī)
MinḥS Minaḥ al-rawḍ al-azhar Supplements (Qārī)
Minḥẓ Minaḥ al-rawḍ al-azhar – Alfāẓ al-kufr (Badr al-Rashīd)
Mumz Mumayyizāt madhhab al-Māturīdiyya (Isbīrī Qādīzāde)
Musyr al-Musāyara fī ʿilm al-kalām wal-ʿaqā’id al-tawḥīdiyya (Ibn al-Humām)
Muʿtq al-Muʿtaqad al-muntaqad (Badāyūnī)
Naẓm Naẓm al-farāʾid fīl-ikhtilāf fīl-ʿaqāʾid (Shaykhī Zādah)
XI
Qawl al-Qawl al-faṣl sharḥ al-Fiqh al-akbar (Bahāʾ al-Dīn Shaykh Zādah)
RJ Rawḍat al-jannāt (Aqḥiṣārī)
Ruk al-ʿAqīdat al-rukniyya (Rukn al-Dīn Samarqandī)
Sawd al-Sawād al-aʿẓam fīl-kalām (Ibn al-Ḥakīm al-Samarqandī)
Tabṣ Tabṣirat al-adilla (Maymūn Nasafī)
Taft Sharḥ al-ʿaqā’id al-nasafiyya (Taftāzānī)
Talkh Talkhīṣ al-adilla li-qawāʿid al-tawḥīd (Ṣaffār)
TamL al-Tamhīd li-qawāʿid al-tawḥīd (Lāmishī)
TamN al-Tamhīd li-qawāʿid al-tawḥīd (Maymūn Nasafī)
Tawḥ Kitāb al-Tawḥīd (Māturīdī)
UṣGh Uṣūl al-dīn (Ghaznawī)
UṣPz Uṣūl al-dīn (Abū al-Yusr Pazdawī)
Zubad Kitāb zubad al-ʿaqā’id al-Nasafiyya (al-Ṣaʿīdī)
XII
INTRODUCTION
ﮁﮀﮁﮂﮃﮄﮅﮆﮇﮈﮉﮊﮋﮌ
ﮍ ﮎ ﮏﮐﮑ ﮒﮓﮀ
سورة يوسف عىل نبينا وعليه الصالة والسالم
Introduction
This work is a survey of the salient themes and comparative translation
of the bullet points of the most important Māturīdī authorities and their
doctrinal textbooks with a synoptic (i.e. presenting a condensed overview)
bio-bibliography of Māturīdī scholars and scholarship in descending order of
antiquity. It highlights their resolutions (taqrīrāt) as the defining parameters of
Sunnism and can serve both as an introductory synopsis of the great themes of
Maturidism and as a tool for the study of the school’s theology from its early
founders to our time.
The doctrinal creed of the largest denomination of Muslims that came
to be known as ‘The Adherents to the Sunna and the Congregation’ found
staunch defenders in the school of the ‘Arch-master of guidance’ (Imām al-
hudā) and ‘Standard-bearer of guidance’ (ʿAlam al-hudā) of Samarqand, Abū
Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d. 333/945),1 who codified the theology of ‘the Greatest
Leader’ (al-imām al-aʿẓam) Abū Ḥanīfa (80–150/699–767) that dominated
the central Asian region of Transoxiana (present-day Uzbekistan and parts of
Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan). As the chief clearing-house of Sunni
kalām and Sunnicentric heresiology together with Ashʿarism, Maturidism
catalogues, on the one hand, the spectrum of Sunni and non-Sunni doctrines
and, on the other, all creeds other than Islam. The purpose was not intellectual
1 See, on his life, the works of al-Ghālī (1989), Kutlu (2003), al-Maghribī (2009), Rudolph
(2015), Chaker (2016), Sālim (2017) and Damanhūrī (2018) listed in the section on con-
temporary literature at the end of this book.
1
T H E M AT U R I D I S C H O O L
research on ‘religions’ but rather the production of knowledge and certainty
regarding Sunni Islamic identity and orthodox (‘doctrinally sound’) Muslim
belief and practice. Māturīdī theology thus defined itself in contrast both
with Sunna-contrariant doctrines and Islam-contrariant ones, furthermore
doing so on the kalām dialectic-theological bases which form the definitional
foundations of tawḥīd to which people were summoned by Prophets ‘with full
insight’ (ʿalā baṣīra, Sūrat Yūsuf 12:108).
2
S A L I E N T T H E M E S O F M AT U R I D I S M
Table 1. Māturīdī condemnations of the claim
that ‘Allah can lie’ as Muʿtazilism
al-Māturīdī in al-Tawḥīd, 2001 ورضبوا لتقدير فعهل بفعل غريه مثال مبا ل جيوز أ�ن يكون منه
ed., pp. 295–301 (‘Question on الكذب أ�و اجل َْور ...فثبت أ�ن تقدير فعهل عىل فعل احلكامء يف
)’wisdom and foolishness الشاهد لزم ،اإل أ�هنم دفعوا عنه ا إلرتفاع ابلفعل والإحنطاط برتك
فعل ما.
Rukn al-Islām Ibrāhīm b. Ismāʿīl ل جيوز أ�ن يذكر يف معىن امس من أ�سامء هللا تعال ما يوجب نقص ًا
al-Ṣaffār (d. 534/1139) in Talkhīṣ الظ ْل ،ول يُقال ُ
غري قادر؛ أل ّن قادر عىل ُّ
يف ذاته ...فال يُقال هو ٌ
al-adilla, pp. 395, 397 هذا الوصف عنه مسستحيل.
Nūr al-Dīn Aḥmad b. Maḥmūd الظل والسفه والكذب هل يه مقدور ٌة هلل تعال أ�م ل؟ فعندان
al-Ṣābūnī (d. 580/1184) in al- يه مسستحيةل ،ل يوصف هللا تعال ابلقدرة علهيا ،خالف ًا للمعزتل،
Bidāya, p. 84 فاإهنّ م قالوا :يَق ِد ُر ول يفعل.
Jalāl al-Dīn ʿUmar b. Muḥammad ا ّإن هللا تعال ل يوصف ابلقدرة عىل الظل والكذب؛ وعند امجلهور
Khabbāzī (d. 691/1292) in al- من املعزتل :يقدر ،ول يفعل.
Hādī, p. 259
Rukn al-Dīn ʿUbayd Allāh b. ل جيوز أ�ن يوصف هللا ابلقدرة عىل الظل والكذب ،ألهنّ ام من
Muḥammad al-Samarqandī املُحالت؛ وعند املعزتل أ�ن ّه ٌ
قادر علهيام ولكن ل يفعل.
(d. 701/1301 in al-ʿAqīdat al-
rukniyya, p. 75
Ḥāfiẓ al-Dīn ʿAbd Allāh al-Nasafī وعندان ل جيوز ،ول يوصف هللا تعال ابلقدرة عىل الظل والسفه
(d. 710/1310), ʿUmdat al-ʿaqāʾid, والكذب ،أل ّن املُحال ل يدخل تت القدرة؛ وعند املعزتل :يَق ِدر
p. 25 ول يفعل.
The same Ḥāfiẓ al-Dīn al-Nasafī ول يوصف هللا تعال ابلقدرة عىل الظل والسفه والكذب ،أل ّن
in al-Iʿtimād, p. 425 املُحال ل يدخل تت القدرة؛ اإذ احملال :ما ميتنع وقوعه؛ واملقدور:
ما ميكن وقوعه؛ وامجلع بيهنام حمال .وعند املعزتل :يَق ِدر ول يفعل.
و ّ
النظام معنا.
Mullā ʿAlī al-Qārī (d. 1014/1605), ل يوصف هللا تعال ابلقدرة عىل الظل ،أل ّن املُحال ل يدخل
Minaḥ al-rawḍ al-azhar, p. 392 تت القدرة؛ وعند املعزتل أ�ن ّه يَق ِدر ولكن ل يفعل.
15
T H E M AT U R I D I S C H O O L
Shaykhī Zādah (d. 1078?/1667?) وب�أنه... احتج مشاخي احلنفية ب�أن اخللف يف الوعيد تبديل للقول
in Naẓm al-farā’id, pp. 29 (no. 19) وقد قام الإجامع عىل،يلزم جواز الكذب عىل هللا يف وعيده
and 33 (no. 22) لو جاز الكذب وخلف الوعد من هللا تعال...ّتزنه خربه منه
.لرتفعت الرشائع
al-Bayāḍī (1044–1098/1634– .ويسستحيل عق ًال ات ّصافُه تعال ابجلَور وما ل ينبغي
1687) in Ishārāt al-marām
Koca Ragıp Pasha (1110–1176/ فال جيوز أ�ن يوصف هللا ابلقدرة،واملُحال ل يدخل تت القدرة
1699–1763) in Safīnat al-rāghib1 . ول يفعل، يقدر:عىل الظل والكذب؛ وعند املعزتل
al-Badāyūnī (1213–1279/1798– ،وكذا يسستحيل الكذب وسائر ِسامت النّقص عليه تعال
1862) in al-Muʿtaqad al-muntaqad .والنّجدية [ أ�ي ادليوبندية] قد فارقوا أ�هل الإسالم يف هذا املقام
1 Muḥammad Rāghib Bāshā, Safīnat al-rāghib wa-dafīnat al-maṭālib (Bulāq: Dār al-Ṭibāʿat
al-ʿĀmira, 1255/1839), p. 464
Ibn al-Humām in the Musāyara faulted Ḥāfiẓ al-Dīn al-Nasafī for saying
in al-ʿUmda that the attribution of the power to lie to Allah was the Muʿtazilī
position and asserted that he should have attributed it to the Ashʿarīs instead.
This was apparently endorsed by some later scholars (such as al-Bayāḍī and
Shaykhī Zādah) but was an error on the part of Ibn al-Humām for several
reasons. First, Ḥāfiẓ al-Dīn reasserts his statement in his own commentary
on the ʿUmda entitled al-Iʿtimād and adds that al-Naẓẓām, a major Muʿtazilī
authority, dissents with them and is one with the Māturīdīs on that point,
which shows this is well-researched and far from being a slip of the pen or an
‘alteration’ as speculated by Ibn al-Humām. Second, Ḥāfiẓ al-Dīn al-Nasafī’s
report is very much the Muʿtazilī position as expounded verbatim by Qāḍī
ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Muʿtazilī in his Sharḥ al-uṣūl al-khamsa, namely that ‘He—
may He be exalted—is described as able to do what would be ugly if He indeed
ٌ
did it’ (موصوف ابلقدرة عىل ما لو فعهل لاكن قبيحا )اإنه تعال, including lying, ‘because if He
is able to be truthful then it is necessary that He is able to lie’ (وكذكل احلال يف
وجب قدرته عىل الكذب، اإذا قدر عىل الصدق:)القدمي تعال.24 Third, Ḥāfiẓ al-Dīn’s statement is
the standard Māturīdī understanding as shown before him by al-Māturīdī,
24 ʿAbd al-Jabbār b. Aḥmad, Sharḥ al-uṣūl al-khamsa, ed. ʿAbd al-Karīm ʿUthmān, 3rd ed.
(Cairo: Maktabat Wahba, 1416/1996), p. 313–314, cf. p. 303.
16
S A L I E N T T H E M E S O F M AT U R I D I S M
al-Ṣaffār, al-Ṣābūnī, al-Khabbāzī, and Rukn al-Dīn al-Samarqandī; and by al-
Qārī, Shaykh Zādah, al-Bayāḍī, Muḥammad Rāghib Bashā and al-Badāyūnī
after him. Fourth, one of the foremost Ashʿarī exegetes of the Qurʾān, Qadi
al-Bayḍāwī (d. 708?/1308?) in his Anwār al-tanzīl, under al-Baqara 2:80,
states that the verse forms proof that ‘for Allah to contravene His own
report is an impossibility’ (al-khulf fī khabarih muḥāl). Al-Qūnawī in his
supercommentary (Ḥāshiyat al-Qūnawī ʿalā Tafsīr al-Bayḍāwī) said (3:452):
‘Because to contravene His own report is to lie, of which Allah is obligatorily
declared exempt by consensus’ i.e. of Ahl al-Sunna.
Another major Ashʿarī, Ibrāhīm al-Laqānī (bef. 960–1041/bef. 1553–
1632) in his large commentary on his own poem Jawharat al-tawḥīd entitled
ʿUmdat al-murīd discusses the Ashʿarī position as the impossibility of lying for
Allah from three perspectives, and the Muʿtazilī position likewise from two
(Burhān al-Dīn Abū al-Imdād Ibrāhīm b. Ibrāhīm b. Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-Laqānī,
ʿUmdat al-murīd: Sharḥ Jawharat al-tawḥīd, wa-huwa al-Sharḥ al-kabīr lil-
nāẓim, ed. ʿAbd al-Mannān Aḥmad al-Idrīsī et al., 4 vols., Amman: Dār al-Nūr
al-Mubīn, 2016, 2:957–962, see also mā yastaḥīl ʿalā Allāh 2:596–597 and mā
yajūz ʿalā Allāh 2:603). Another major Ashʿarī and one of the foremost scholars
of his time, Wajīh al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad Balfaqīh
(1089–1162/1678–1749) states in the first section of his long poem رشفات رشب
أ�هل الكامل ونسامت قرب أ�هل الوصال:
ِ ك َحا ِد ٍث َود
ُون ّ ِ ُ ون *** َوغَ ِمي ّ ِ ُ َ ْي ُر ُج ِم ْن
ِ ُك َعنَا َوب
ِون *** ع َْن ُخلْ ِف َ ْت ِق ٍيق أ� ِو ا ْخ ِتالل ِ ا َل عُلُو ِم عَا ِل ٍم َم ُص
إ
He shall come out from all exhaustion and estrangement,
and from the fog of every created ‘other,’
To the sciences of an All-Knowing Who is exempt
of any breach of averment or untruth.25
25 ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAbd Allāh Balfaqīh, Majmūʿ al-aʿmāl al-kāmila li-muʾallafāt wa-fatāwā
wa-rasāʾil al-Imām al-ʿallāma al-Ḥabīb ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAbd Allāh Balfaqīh, ed. ʿAlī b.
Ḥasan Balfaqīh, 2 vols. (Tarīm: Dār al-Turāth, 1436/2015) 2:409.
17