Imam Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (; 853–944; AH 333) was a Hanafi jurist and theologian, and the eponymous founder of the Maturidi school of kalam in Sunni Islam. A contemporary of al-Ashʿarī, he established an important school of orthodox, conservative theology that accorded a significant, though not paramount, role to human reason. His nisba derives from Māturīd, a district of Samarkand. His works include Tafsir al-Maturidi, a classical exegesis of the Qur'an, and Kitāb al-Tawḥīd. The theological school associated with him remains one of the three principal Sunni schools of theology alongside Ash'arism and Atharism.
Al-Maturidi opposed the Muʿtazilites, employing forms of rational argument similar to their own in order to contest their doctrines. The differences between the Ashʿarite and Maturidite schools were traditionally reckoned at thirteen, the most substantial concerning divine and human agency: Ashʿarism emphasized the absolute power of the will of Allah, whereas Maturidism emphasized human freedom and responsibility. In this connection, the Ashʿarites were characterized as saying, "I am a believer if God wills" (in shāʾ Allāh), while the Muʿtazilites could say, "I know with truth [] that I am a believer". Al-Ashʿarī nevertheless accepted a somewhat different doctrine of acquisition (kasb).
Al-Maturidi affirmed the divine attributes described in the Qur'an, while maintaining that their mode cannot be comprehended by human beings. Thus, in relation to descriptions such as God sitting upon his throne, he accepted the principle of bilā kayf, "without knowing how".
Name Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī's epithet or nisba refers to Māturīd or Māturīt, a locality in Samarkand (today Uzbekistan). His full name was Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd and he adopted the al-Māturīdī and al-Ḥanafī. he is also known by the titles Shaykh al-Islam ('Shaykh of Islam'), Imam al-Huda ('Imam of Guidance'), and Imam Ahl al-Sunna wa-l-Jama'a ('Imam of the People of the Prophetic Way and Community').
Teachers 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), and Abu Bakr al-Juzjani (d. 250 H?).Akimkhanov, Askar Bolatbekovich, et al. "Principles of Abu Mansur al-Maturidi, Central Asian Islamic theologian preoccupied with the question of the relation between the Iman/credo and the action in Islam." European Journal of Science and Theology 12.6 (2016): 165-176.Çandur, Yasemin. Ebû Bekir Ahmed b. İshak el-Cûzcânî ve Cûzcâniyye. MS thesis. Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2015. p.6Wan Ali, Wan Zailan Kamaruddin. "Aliran al-Maturidi dan al-Maturidiyyah dalam dunia Islam." Jurnal Usuluddin 8.1 (1998): 81-96. 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-Dīn.
His chains to Abu Hanifa are given as follows:Aisyah, Dollah. Kaedah pentakwilan Al-Qur'an: Kajian perbandingan antara Al-Maturidi (M: 944) dan Al-Tabari (M: 923)/Aisyah binti Dollah@ Abdullah. Diss. University of Malaya, 2015. p.75 - transmission diagrams A, B and C correspond to 1, 2 and 3 below.Çandur, Yasemin. Ebû Bekir Ahmed b. İshak el-Cûzcânî ve Cûzcâniyye. MS thesis. Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2015. pp. 22-25 - the diagram on page 22 corresponds with 4 below, diagrams on pages 24 and 25 correspond to 2, 3 below respectively. The chain on page 23 was weakened by the researcher so has not been quoted. From Muhammad bin Muqatil al-Razi (d. 248 H), from Muhammad al-Shaybani (d. 189 H), from Abu Hanifa (d. 150 H). From Abu Nasr al-Ayadi (d. 260 H?), Nusayr al-Balkhi (d. 268 H) and Abu Bakr al-Juzjani (d. 250 H?), who all took from Abu Sulayman al-Juzjani (d. 200 H?), who took from both Muhammad al-Shaybani and Abu Yusuf (d. 182 H), who both took from Abu Hanifa. From Muhammad bin Muqatil al-Razi and Nusayr al-Balkhi, who additionally both took from Abu Muti al-Hakam al-Balkhi (d. 199 H) and Abu Muqatil Hafs al-Samarqandi (d. 208 H), who both took from Abu Hanifa. From Abu Nasr al-Ayadi, who took from Abu Ahmad bin Ishaq al-Juzjani (died mid-third century), who took directly from Muhammad al-Shaybani, who took from Abu Hanifa.
Students Among his students: Ali bin Said Abu al-Hasan al-Rustughfani, Abu Muhammad Abdal-Karim bin Musa bin Isa al-Bazdawi, and Abu al-Qasim al-Hakim al-Samarqandi.
Life Al‑Māturīdī was born at Maturid, a village or quarter in the neighbourhood of Samarkand. According to one biography, he is known to be a descendant of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari. Relatively little is known about the life of al-Māturīdī, 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."Ulrich Rudolph, Al-Māturīdī and the Development of Sunnī Theology in Samarqand, trans. Rodrigo Adem (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2015), p. 125 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." It is accepted, moreover, that al-Māturīdī 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 al-Māturīdī's theological views. Al-Māturīdī is said to have lived the life of an ascetic (zāhid),Ulrich Rudolph, Al-Māturīdī and the Development of Sunnī Theology in Samarqand, trans. Rodrigo Adem (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2015), p. 131 and various sources attribute numerous miracles (karāmāt) to him. Although he is not usually considered a mystic, it is nevertheless very possible that al-Māturīdī had some interaction with the Sufis of his area, as "Hanafite theology in the region could not always be sharply separated from mystical tendencies," and many of the most important Hanafi jurists of the area were also Sufi mystics.
Theology
al-Māturīdī defined faith (īmān) as taṣdīḳ bi ’l-ḳalb or "inner assent, expressed by verbal confession (ịḳrār bi ’l-lisān)."Madelung, W., “al-Māturīdī”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. According to al-Māturīdī, moreover, Islamic actions (practices or worship) (aʿmāl) are not a part of faith. Additionally, al-Māturīdī held that "faith cannot decrease nor increase in substance, though it may be said to increase through renewal and repetition."
Al-Māturīdī supported using allegorical interpretation with respect to the anthropomorphic expressions in the Quran, though he rejected many of the interpretations the Mutazilites would reach using this method. In other instances, al-Māturīdī espoused using the traditionalist bilā kayf method of reading scripture, which insisted on "unquestioning acceptance of the revealed text." Al-Māturīdī further refuted the Mutazilites in his defense of the Attributes of God "as real and eternally subsisting" in the Essence of God (ḳāʾima bi ’l-d̲h̲āt). 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." 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." Furthermore, al-Māturīdī staunchly defended the notion of non-theophanic vision of God (ruʾya) against the Mutazilites, and "consistently rejected the possibility of idrāk, which he understood as grasping, of God by the eyes."
Contrary to popular assumption, al-Māturīdī was not a student of al-Ash'ari. The historian al-Bayadi (d. 1078 H) emphasised this saying, "al-Māturīdī 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".İskenderoğlu, Muammer. "Al-Māturīdī and the Development of Sunnī Theology in Samarqand." (2016): 336-338.
Work When al-Māturīdī was growing up there was an emerging reactionWilliams, J. A. (1994). The word of Islam. London: Thames and Hudson. p. 145. against some sects, notably Mu'tazilis, Qarmati, and Shi'a. Al-Māturīdī, with other two preeminent scholars,Ali, A. (1963). Maturidism. In Sharif, p. 260. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. wrote especially on the creed of Islam, the other two being Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari in Iraq, and Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Tahawi in Egypt.Ali, A. (1963). Maturidism. In Sharif, p. 259. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
While al-Ash'ari were Sunni together with al-Māturīdī, he constructed his own theology taking from Abu Hanifa's school and systematized it which differed from his contemporary imam al-Tahawi who affirmed the beliefs of Abu Hanifa. Regardless, both were Hanafi in their creed but with different approaches. Gimaret argued that al-Ash'ari enunciated that God creates the individual's power (qudra), will, and the actual act,Gimaret, D. (1980). The´ories de L’Acte Humain en The´ologie Musulmane. Paris: J. Vrin. which according to Hye, gives way to a fatalist school of theology, which was later put in a consolidated form by Al Ghazali.Hye, M. A. (1963). Ash'arism. In Sharif, p. 226. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. According to Encyclopædia Britannica however, al-Ashari held the doctrine of Kasb as an explanation for how free will and predestination can be reconciled. Al-Māturīdī, followed in Abu 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."Shah, M. (2006). Later Developments. In Meri, J. W. (Ed.), Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, (Vol. 1), (p. 640). New York:Routledge. Al-Māturīdī and al-Ash'ari also separated from each other in the issue of the attributes of God,Lucas, S. C.(2006). Sunni Theological Schools. In Meri, J. W. (Ed.),Medieval Islamic civilization: an encyclopedia, (Vol. 1), (p. 809). New York:Routledge. as well as some other minor issues.
Later, with the impact of Turkic society states such as Great Seljuq EmpireHughes, A. (2004). Ash'arites, Ash'aria. In Martin, R. C. et al. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, (Vol. 1), (pp. 83–84). New York: Macmillan Reference USA and Ottoman Empire,DeWeese, D. (2004). Central Asian Culture and Islam. In Martin, R. C. et al. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, (Vol. 1), (p. 139). New York: Macmillan Reference USA Hanafi-Maturidi school spread to greater areas where the Hanafi school of law is prevalent, such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Central Asia, South Asia, Balkan, Russia, China, Caucasus and Turkey.