Projections of Māturīdite-Ḥanafite Identity on the Ottomans

Abstract

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 kal

Özet

Mâtürîdîlik bir Osmanlı kimliğidir ve bu kimlik zannedildiği gibi son dönemle de sınırlı değildir; bütün bir Osmanlı tarihi boyunca biçimsel olarak varlığını korumuştur. Bununla birlikte Mâtürîdîliğin ilişkilendirildiği veya konumlandırıldığı bağlam zaman içerisinde farklılaşmıştır. Eklektik düşünme biçiminin hâkim olduğu ilk dönemde Mâtürîdîlik, ağırlıklı olarak zahid kimliği belirgin fakihlerde kısmen de Yesevîliğin uzantısı mahiyetindeki tasavvufî eğilimlerde itikādî bir muhtevada görünür haldedir. Mâtürîdîlik, felsefî kelamın hâkim olduğu Sultan II. Mehmed ve sonrası süreçte nispeten edilgen konumdadır ve Eş‘arîliğe karşı bir mevzi arayışındadır. II. Mehmed’le birlikte başlayan ve bilginin küresel dolaşımına entegre olma çabası ihtiva eden Razici yeni ilim paradigması Mâtürîdîliğin görünürlüğünü belli ölçüde engellemiştir. Maturidilik bu süreçte Sultan II. Mehmed tarafından bizzat himaye edilen mukaddimât-ı erbaa tartışmalarında kayda değer ölçüde karşılık bulmuştur. Felsefi-kelam çizgisi, tam meyvelerini verme aşamasındayken Safevîlerle yaşanan mücadele nedeniyle sekteye uğramıştır. Bu mücadelenin aynı zamanda Şiîlikle de bir mücadeleye dönüşmesi (ya da dönüştürülmesi) Osmanlı dinî düşüncesinde bir daralmayı beraberinde getirmiştir. Böyle bir bağlamda bir reddiye mantığı üzerinden Râfızîlik üst başlığı altında Şiîliğe ve tüm varyantlarına hücum edilmiştir. Fakat bu reddiyeci tutum Safevîlere fırlatılan bir bumerang işlevi görmüş, zamanla geri gelmiş ve Osmanlı’nın Erdebil Tekkesi’nin Şiîleşmeden önceki çizgisine yakın duran kendi sufilerini vurmuştur. Hanefî fetva literatürü bu reddiyelerde yoğun olarak kullanılmıştır. Bu ise önce Hanefi ardından da Maturidi kimliği ön plana çıkarmıştır. Osmanlı döneminde Mâtürîdîlik vurgusu ve bunu besleyen siyasî ve fikrî unsurlar tahlil edilecektir.