Maturidism
from 930
Reason can recognise God and tell good from evil unaided, but revelation is still needed, because knowing the good is not knowing the obligation.
- Active
- from 930
- Where
- Samarkand and the Persian east, then Ottoman and South Asian lands
- Also
- الماتريدية al-Māturīdiyya
- Status
- living
- Tradition
- Islamic
The claim
A middle position. Against the Ash'arites, unaided reason can establish God's existence and grasp moral qualities. Against the Mu'tazila, that is insufficient: the specific obligations come only through revelation.
What it held
Maturidism is the great unread Sunni theology in the West, and its neglect is largely accidental — it developed in Central Asia while the Arabic-language sources European scholars first worked from were Ash'arite.
Its distinctiveness lies in a set of calibrated middle positions. Al-Maturidi holds that a person who has never received a prophet is still obliged to recognise God, because reason suffices for that much. He holds that good and evil have real qualities reason can perceive — closer to the Mu'tazila than the Ash'arites allow — while denying that this generates obligation without revelation.
On human action he distinguishes God's creation of the act from the human being's own choosing of it more robustly than kasb does, which is why Maturidis have generally been less troubled by the free-will objection.
Because it was adopted by the Hanafi legal school, it became the theology of the Ottoman Empire, the Mughals and Central Asia — which is to say, of a substantial majority of Muslims for several centuries.
How it argued
Kalam of the Ash'arite type, but with a wider role granted to reason at each disputed point.
What it was arguing against
Mu'tazilite claims that reason alone establishes obligation, and Ash'arite claims that reason establishes nothing about good and evil.
Where it disagreed with itself
How far the differences from Ash'arism are substantive rather than verbal — a question Sunni scholars have argued about for a thousand years without agreeing.
Common misconceptions
That it is a minor variant of Ash'arism. Numerically it has probably had more adherents, and its account of reason is genuinely different.
How it began
Abu Mansur al-Maturidi in Samarkand, working in the Hanafi tradition, which already granted reason a larger role in law than the other schools.
What became of it
Living. The standard theology across Turkey, Central Asia and South Asia.
Lasting influence
Through Ottoman and Mughal institutions, the shaping theology of much of the Muslim world. Its greater confidence in reason made the later reformist arguments easier to make.
Why it still matters
The distinction between recognising that something is good and being obliged to do it is a real and under-discussed problem in moral epistemology.
Put another way
Two lamps of equal brightness, and an argument about which one you are reading by.
Where to start
The Nasafi creed with a commentary. Al-Maturidi himself is a difficult writer even in Arabic.
The surprising bit
Al-Maturidi's principal works were barely studied even within his own tradition for centuries, and the critical edition of his Quranic commentary appeared only in this century.
In their own words
Reason is a means by which what is obligatory is known.
God created the act, and the servant performed it.
Connections
The verdict
The Sunni theology with the most adherents and the least attention.