A Turkestani Scholar: Abu Mansûr Al-Mâturîdî His Personality, Historical Role, Intellectual Struggle and Method

Abstract

Abu Mansûr al-Mâturîdî (H.238-333 / 852-944) has a special place in the Islamic thought. He is associated with such qualifications as the avant-garde of the kalam (Islamic philosophy) scholars, the scholar who purified beliefs the Muslims from the falsies, the founder of the Ahl Sunnah view, the torch of the true path and the leader to that way. However, many scholars and historian of the sects did not refer to him in their works and even some of his disciples falsified his views in the way of the Ash’arî. Mâturîdî is a genuine Islamic scholar, who systematised ideas of Abu Khanifa, who developed a method and theory of knowledge to understand the existence and life, and who analysed the relationship of reason and universe. Although he was ignored and even forgotten to a great degree, the scholars of religious wise copied his understanding of knowledge. He is nowadays being rediscovered in the Islamic world, which was soiled in an intellectual narrowness and which face deep intellectual and ethic crises; and new studies appear day by day on his scientific personality and thoughts. It is a must to understand his rational and spiritual comment of Islam in order to escape from being the field of the wild dissension and inhuman conflicts. This paper deals with the life, identity, historical role, and intellectual position and struggle of Mâturîdî, as well as his theory of knowledge and his analyses on some questions like the relations between human nature and ration, and ration and universe. Our investigation aims at showing that this great thinker of Turkestan has a reply to the current historical case and has a potential to contribute to the actual debates.