Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Why Māturīdism - Leiden Arabic Humanities Blog
Why Māturīdism - Leiden Arabic Humanities Blog
Philosophy
Why Māturīdism?
August 14, 2022 • Theology and Maturidism • 8 min read
ʿ
(tablughuhu al-da wah), dies saved. However, the Māturīdī
ʾ
tā mmul), and does not have faith or disbelief (i.e., is
In the last millennia, Islamic thought has been defined by the two main
strands, the Sunnī and the Shīʿī. Within these strands there are multiple
schools of thought representing overlapping and diverging disciplines,
but the central defining discipline is that of philosophical or scholastic
theology, ʿilm al-kalām. There are generally three theological schools
accepted as representative of post-classical Sunnism (post-11th century
CE), the Ashʿarī, the Māturīdī, and the Atharī. The Atharīs are technically
creedal fideists who for the majority reject rational speculation in
relation to God, prophecy, eschatology, or any other subject of
metaphysical import. The Ashʿarī and the Māturīdī, who dominated Sunnī
thought until the 20th century, were scriptural rationalists on certain
subjects like divine immanence, creatio ex-nihilo, miracles, and
eschatology, and developed later into philosophical rationalists on
subjects like divine transcendence, physics, the soul, ethics, and the need
for prophethood.
The Māturīdī are named after their founder namesake, the 10thcentury
Ḥanafī scholar Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944) from Samarqand,
modern-day Uzbekistan, where his tomb still lies today. Māturīdīsm
became the theological representative of the Ḥanafī, the legal school of
the majority of Muslims throughout medieval times until today. Even with
this dominant historical status al-Māturīdī and his school have been
highly understudied, but in the last decade this has all changed. This can
be partially explained by a convergence of several factors. Within the
19th-20th century Western and Arabic studies, the main focus was on the
Ashʿarī and their differences with the Muʿtazilah. These same studies
viewed Māturīdīsm as not truly distinct from the Ashʿarī as Māturīdīsm
integrated much of the Ashʿarī adaptations of Avicennan philosophy into
their own works, whereby its distinct theological positions and
contributions were difficult to identify. And where it diverged from
Ashʿarīsm it was seen as representing a form of semi-Muʿtazilism and was
therefore viewed as a heterodox orthodoxy i.e., accepted as falling under
Sunnī orthodoxy but not a pure representative of Sunnī theology. But
with the publication of al-Māturīdī’s works on theology and exegesis in
the 1970’s and early 2000’s respectfully, and the recent efforts, especially
coming from Turkish scholarship, to publish new critical editions of the
classics of the Māturīdī school, this mistaken image is being corrected.
There are even numerous recent writings applying Māturīdī theology
such as Al-Naẓariyyat al-Maʿrifat ʿinda Ahl al-Sunnat wa-l-Jamā ͑ah by
Aḥmad al-Damanhūrī, Transcendent God, Rational World: A Maturidi
Theology by Ramon Harvey, and Islamic Theology and the Problem of Evil
by Safaruk Chowdhury. And there is now also a growing body of
translations and readers of primary Māturīdī texts.
21st century Islamic studies is rediscovering Māturīdīsm in its distinct
theology, anthropology, cosmology, ethics, and epistemology, and how al-
Māturīdī and his foundational works defined later Sunnī theology and
exegesis after. According to Ulrich Rudolph in his seminal study Al-
Māturīdī and the Development of Sunnī Theology in Samarqand (German
edition 1997, English edition 2014), many of al-Māturīdī’s novel
argumentations were adopted and adapted by Sunnī theologians after
him, and according to Walid Saleh in his article Rereading al-Ṭabarī
through al-Māturīdī, it is clear that al-Māturīdī’s exegesis not only
provides important insights for the development of exegesis in the
formative period, but also defined much of the science after him. He is
cited throughout multiple disciplines such as legal theory (uṣūl al-Fiqh),
but mainly in the sciences of theology and exegesis, of which we have
also his only two main extant works:
Through his literature and prolific students, within a century his thought
came to dominate the Ḥanafī school. The Māturīdī were viewed as a
middle path between the more scriptural inclined Ashʿarī and the more
rationalist inclined Muʿtazila. But the Māturīdī identified themselves as
adhering to a theological tradition which goes back to the early founders
of the Ḥanafī school, and not as simply as a median between two
extremes. For many early Ashʿarī, the science of Kalām was a science of
innovation one was reluctantly forced to engage in to protect against
arising heresies and invading foreign philosophies. For the Māturīdī the
science of Kalām was a truthful component and extension of what it
means to be a Ḥanafī.
The main differences between the Māturīdī and Ashʿarī were according to
some as low as five or as high as fifty conflicting issues. But two of the
central defining differences revolved around rational knowledge and
how this relates to the nature of God. The issue of epistemology has for
example important implications for the concept of salvation of non-
Muslims. The majority of Sunnī theologians believed that people who
died before any prophet or revelation reached them were not (fully)
responsible for their beliefs and works:
“The principal position of the Ashʿarī is that whoever dies, and the
message [of Islam] has not reached him (tablughuhu al-daʿwah), dies
saved. However, the Māturīdī say, whoever dies before he has time to
contemplate (al-tāʾmmul), and does not have faith or disbelief (i.e., is
agnostic), then no punishment is on him.” (Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-muḥtār
ʿalā al-durr al-mukhtār).
The people who can reason are therefore obliged to inquire about the
origins of existence within their mental capabilities. And through the
same signs in the world by which humans can interfere God’s existence
they can also discern the main differences between good and evil. The
Māturīdī therefore adhere to a form of theological objectivism and hold
people responsible for their general beliefs and works apart from
revealed religion. But there is an important difference between the
Muʿtazila and the Māturīdī in how reason obligates. Al-Māturīdī
articulated a unique tripart epistemology:
“For there are three causes of knowledge (asbāb al-ʿilm): (1) what they
[humans] learn through the apparent senses together with intuition, (2)
and some also add understanding through contemplation and reflection
(bi-l-tāʾmmul wa-l-naẓar), (3) while others do not learn except through
teachings and warnings.” (Al-Māturīdī, Tāʾwīlāt ahl al-sunnah).
Why Māturīdīsm?
Authors Instructions