Maturidiyyah and Ahlus-Sunnah

MATURIDISM

INTRODUCTION

Founder of Maturidism

The Maturidiyyah was a school established by Muhammad bin Muhammad bin Mahmood Abu Mansur al-Samarqandi al-Maturidi al-Hanafi (d. 333 H) of Maturid in Samarqand, Shaykh al-Islam; one of the two foremost imams of the mutakallimun of Ahl al-Sunnah, known in his time as Imam al-Huda (leader of guidance). He studied under Abu Nasr al-Ayadi and Abu Bakr Ahmad al-Jawzajani. Among his senior students were ‘Ali bin Sa’id Abu ‘l-Hasan al-Rustughfani, Abu Muhammad ‘Abd al-Karim bin Musa bin Isa al-Bazdawi, and Abu ‘l-Qasim Ishaq bin Muhammad Hakim al-Samarqandi.

Belief of Imam Maturidi

He earned a reputation as a skilled polemicist against the Mu’tazilah in Transoxania (ma wara al-Nahar ), while his contemporary Abu ‘l-Hasan al-Ash’ari was doing the same in Basra and Baghdad. He died in Samarqand, where he had lived most of his life. There is not much [doctrinal] difference between the Ash’ariyyah and Maturidiyyah, hence both groups are now called Ahl al-Sunnah wa ‘l-Jama’ah. Al-Maturidi surpasses Imam al-Tahawi as a transmitter and commentator of Imam Abu Hanifah’s legacy in kalam. Both al-Maturidi and al-Tahawi followed Abu Hanifah and his companions in the position that belief (al-iman ) consists of “conviction in the heart and affirmation by the tongue,” without adding, as do al-Malik, al-Shafi’i, Ahmad bin Hanbal and their schools, “practice with the limbs.” Most of the Hanafi School follows al-Maturidi in doctrine, but he evidently did not become as famous as al-Ash’ari. This was because al-Ash’ari engaged in numerous public debates and discussions to defeat the opponents of Ahl al-Sunnah and, thus, earned strong public as well as scholarly support and fame,while al-Maturidi, as Imam al-Kawthari said, “Lived in an environment in which innovators had no power.” Therefore, we find that al-Dhahabi’s biographical masterpiece, Siyar, does not contain an account of Imam Abu Mansur al-Maturidi. This is one indicator of how much more fame accrued to al-Ash’ari than al-Maturidi.

Literary Work of Imam Maturidi

Imam Maturidi produced some outstanding literary and scholarly works in which he promulgated and defended the beliefs of Ahl al-Sunnah. In his book Kitab al-Tawhid, he discussed the doctrines of Ahl al-Sunnah and supported orthodox beliefs concerning Allah’s attributes and powers, which were unquestioned from the time of the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and grant him peace). He wrote Kitab Radd Awa’il al-Adillah , to refute the book Awa’il al-Adillah of the Mu’tazilite al-Ka’bi. He also refuted Mu’tazilite doctrine in Kitab Bayan Awham al-Mu’tazilah . But his masterpiece is Kitab Ta’wilat al-Qur’an,
about which Shaykh ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Qurayshi wrote, “A unique book with which no book of the earlier authors on this subject can have any comparison.” Haji Khalifah cites it as Ta’wilat Ahl al-Sunnah and quotes al-Maturidi’s definition of the difference between “explanation” (tafsir ) and “interpretation” (ta’wil ).
The School of Imam Maturidi
The school established by Imam al-Maturidi generally relies on the Qur’an and the traditions of the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and grant him peace) with their orthodox explanation and makes no place for reasoning, philosophical or scientific inquisitions in interpreting them. They argue that since Muhammad, the Messenger, himself had not used reason in this respect, it is an innovation to do so, and every innovation is a heresy, according to a well-known prophetic saying. But in later periods, when new issues were raised which were not explicitly discussed in the Qur’an and the Prophetic traditions, they allowed rational solutions to these problems, provided the inspiration for such solutions is taken from the Qur’an and the traditions, and provided these solutions are in accord with those two sources. They did not allow any rational interpretation in any circumstances which would contradict the explicit dictum’s of the Qur’an.
The Maturidiyyah opposed the beliefs of the rationalist Mu’tazilites on the issue of “compulsion” and “free-will,” which the rationalists had raised and was already a key point of discussion when the Maturidiyyah came in existence. The Maturidiyyah supported the Ash’ariyyah and emphasised the absolute omnipotence of Allah while at the same time affirming a minimum degree of freedom for man to act so that he may be justly punished or rewarded. In the later stages of its development, however, the Maturidiyyah took an independent course and stated unequivocally that man has the utmost freedom to act, a point of view derived directly from many verses in the Qur’an and the hadith.

Summary and Conclusion

Maturidiyyah is a Sunni theological school named after its founder Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (d.944). In the Mamluk age the school came to be widely recognised as the second orthodox Sunni theological school beside Ash'ariyyah. Resident in Samarqand in Central Asia, al-Maturidi had little impact on mainstream Islamic intellectual life during his lifetime. Maturidiyyah only came to be important as a result of its acceptance by the Turkish tribes of Central Asia. The Maturidi school of theology gradually came to prevail among the Hanafite communities everywhere. Because the Turks were mostly Hanafite the Turkish expansion through the Ottoman empire enabled the Hanafite and Maturidite schools to spread throughout western Persia, Iraq, Anatolia, and Syria.