Māturīdism is an Ottoman identity and this identity
was not limited, as is commonly believed, to the last period of the Empire. It
maintained its formal existence throughout the Ottoman history. Nevertheless,
the context in which the Māturīdism was located or with which it was associated
changed in the course of time. In the early period when the eclectic way of
thinking was dominant, Māturīdism as a creed was apparent mainly in the jurists
whose ascetic identity was prominent and partly in the mystical currents that
were essentially continuations of Yasawiyya. At this point, the
Bukhara-centered Ḥanafī legal literature played a distinctive role. At
the time of Meḥmed II and in the following period during which the
philosophical kalām dominated the scene, the Māturīdism was relatively passive
and was in search of a position against the Ash‘arism. The new Rāzian paradigm
of thought that began to be felt strongly in the Ottoman lands with Meḥmed II as an attempt of integration into the global circulation of knowledge
prevented to a certain extent the visibility of Māturīdism. However, even in
this period, Māturīdism was remarkably reflected in the muqaddimāt-i arba‘a
literature which was directly sponsored by Meḥmed II. The tradition of
philosophical kalām in the Ottoman scholarship, just when it was about to yield
significant results, was interrupted due to the struggle against the Ṣafawids. Transformation of this political tension, at the same time, into
a fight against Shiism also brought about a constriction in the religious
thought of the Ottomans. Shiism and its all other variants were bitterly
attacked under the main heading of Rāfiḍa. Unfortunately such a
refutational approach proved a boomerang and returned in time striking the
Ottoman Ṣūfīs who stood near the line of the Ardabil Shrine before its
Shiitization. Ḥanafī fatwā literature was used extensively
in the refutation texts against Ṣafawids. This brought to the
fore at first the Ḥanafite and then the Māturīdite identity. This paper
attempts to analyze this changing emphasis on Māturīdism in the Ottoman period
and the political and intellectual factors that supported and nourished it.
It can be argued that
the debates around Ash‘arism and Māturīdism in the Ottoman period and the
resulting meant more than attempts of the members of the two sides to
understand each other and that Māturīdism, particularly from the 16th century
onwards, was gradually brought fore as the identity of Ottomans. In fact, this
identity was not limited, as is commonly believed, to the last period of the
Empire; it maintained, in form, its existence throughout the Ottoman history.
Nevertheless, the context in which the Māturīdism was located or with which it
was associated changed in the course of time.
In the early period when the eclectic way of thinking was dominant,
Māturīdism as a creed was apparent mainly in the jurists whose ascetic identity
was prominent and partly in the mystical currents that were essentially
continuations of Yasawiyya. At this
point, the Bukhara-centered Ḥanafī legal literature played a distinctive role.
At the time of Meḥmed II and in the following period during which the
philosophical kalām dominated the scene, the Māturīdism was relatively passive
and was in search of a position against the Ash‘arism. In this period, Ottoman scholars still
embraced the Māturīdī-Ḥanafī line in their theological views. Ḫiḍir Beg’s al-Qaṣīda al-Nūniyya,
and al-Khayālī’s commentary upon it, and the commentary written by Aḥmad b. Oġuz Dānishmand al-Aḳshahrī on al-I‘timād of Abū al-Barakāt al-Nasafī
were the most noticeable Māturīdite texts from that time. Besides, al-Khayālī’s
supercommentary (ḥāshiya) upon the commentary of al-Taftāzānī written on al-‘Aqā’id
of Najm al-Dīn ‘Umar al-Nasafī was also of central importance. However, the new
Rāzian paradigm of thought that began to be felt strongly in the Ottoman lands
with Meḥmed II as an attempt of integration into the global
circulation of knowledge prevented to a certain extent the visibility of
Māturīdism. But, this should not be
taken to mean that Māturīdism lost its ground of existence.
That the Ash‘arite
works produced in this new paradigm were transferred to and fully integrated in
the madrasa curriculum was not because they were Ash‘arite texts but because
they were the most original and highest achievements of the philosophical
theology. These texts that aimed at combining all fields of knowledge on a
single platform, despite the Ash‘arism they included, constituted the peak of
the Islamic thought of the time. In the preference of these texts, the fact
that the Māturīdī tradition generally stood, in course of time, distant to the
philosophy and chose to continue the kalām in the classical line also played a
role. Māturīdī theologians Muḥammad b. Ashraf
al-Samarqandī, partly, but Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a al-Maḥbūbī, to a greater extent, were notable exceptions to this general Māturīdī
tendency. These figures were theologically Māturīdite, but their framework of
producing discourse was the combination of philosophy and kalām as with their
Ash‘arī counterparts. Therefore, Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a’s criticism of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, and through
him, of against the Ash‘arism in the context of muqaddimāt arba‘a was
wholeheartedly supported by the Ottoman ulama. Even it was Meḥmed II who sponsored the debates regarding muqaddimāt
arba‘a. The works written by such scholars as Muṣliḥ al-Dīn al-Kastallī, al-Ṣamṣūnī, ‘Alā’ al-Dīn al-‘Arabī, Mollā ‘Arab al-Anṭākī, Khaṭībzāde, Sa‘dī Chalabī
during his and his son Bāyazid II’s reigns were the supercommentaries written
upon the related chapter of al-Talwīḥ,
al-Taftāzānī’s commentary on Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a’s al-Tawḍīḥ where the former responded to the criticism of the
latter from an Ash‘arī point of view. The Ottoman ulama, in their workswere
forced to choose between the two scholars and they mostly supported Ṣadr al-Sharī‘a and Māturīdism.
The tradition of
philosophical kalām in the Ottoman scholarship, just when it was about to yield
significant results, was interrupted due to the struggle against the Ṣafawids. Transformation of this political tension,
at the same time, into a fight against Shiism also brought about a constriction
in the religious thought of the Ottomans. The reflex of of identifying oneself
through ‘the other’ made, to a certain extent, the theological and
philosophical debates regarding faith meaningless, and gradually gave the
Ottoman Sunnism a doctrinal and political tone. In such a context, the
Ottomans’ paradigm of producing thought in line with the philosophical kalām
began to lose its function, and, the focus of scholarhsip shifted; Shiism with
its all variants were began to be bitterly attacked under the main heading of
Rāfiḍa. When the refutation texts composed from the reign
of Bāyazid II onward to criticize the Ṣafawids are
chronologically analyzed, it is seen that the contents of the texts evolved
from criticism of Rāfiḍa to criticism of Sūfism. Ḥanafī fatwā literature was used extensively in these refutations. So
the fatwās issued against Rāfiḍa and Ṣūfīs in malāmatī line in earlier centuries in different contexts for
different reasons were employed to criticize the new opponents. This caused two
important results: First, such an approach proved a boomerang and returned in
time striking the Ottoman Ṣūfīs who stood near the
line of the Ardabil Shrine before its Shiitization. Ḫalwatīs, Bayrāmīs, Gulshanīs, Baktāshīs and Mawlawīs were
the sufi groups influenced by this situation in varying degrees. Second, Sunnism was exposed to the narrowization and
centered around the fiqh, particularly Ḥanafī fiqh, in the context of Ḳāḍīzādelīs who were the main
adversaries of above mentioned groups. The culture of catechism (‘ilm-i ḥāl)
that came to the fore through the efforts of Ḳāḍīzādelīs was a
crystallization and was mainly fuelled from this tension. Such a
crystallization led the Ṣūfīs, the opponents of Ḳāḍīzādelīs, to a higher level
of discourse deemphasizing the Ḥanafī aspect: They underscored the discourse of Ahl
al-Sunna and four madhhabs, and mostly turned towards the Shāfiʿī and Ash‘arī traditions to look for support
fortheir views.
This process during which the emphasis of sharī‘a
and tradition began to come to the fore once again paved the way for the zuhd
and fiqh-centered religious thought that was maintained from the time of
the Seljukids in Anatolia and was influential until Meḥmed II’ reign. Therefore in the Ottomans,
particularly starting with the reign of Suleymān I, an intensive emphasis on
Abū Ḥanīfa
was witnessed. Abū Ḥanīfa
was at the very center of the debates revolving around zuhd and fiqh
which came about in the same period and in which the sharī‘a sensitivity was a
determining factor. Al-Māturīdī, whose name was overshadowed for a long time by
the name of Abū Ḥanīfa,
but who became prominent in the tradition with Abū al-Mu‘īn al-Nasafī, had to
transfer his gains for a period of time to Abū Ḥanīfa. Emphasis on Abū Ḥanīfa looks like a rope that when pulled, all the
tradition comes with it. When the topics began to be discussed in a manner that
would also include the theological context, the contribution of the works
ascribed to Abū Ḥanīfa,
namely al-Fiqh al-Akbar, al-Waṣiyya and al-‘Ālim wa al-Muta‘allim to the
discussions would be limited. For this reason, the need to refer to al-Māturīdī
or to the theological formation bearing his name was inevitable. So, the
literature on the points of disagreements between the Ash‘arism and the
Māturīdism developed both vertically and horizontally in the 18th century and,
corollary to that, the debates of free will as a corolloary to that, once again
brought Māturīdism to the fore.
