A Theologian Par Excellence Before He Was a Jurist

The difference between the Ashʿarī school of thought and the Māturīdī school of thought is that in the Māturīdī school, among the ideas that are portrayed and expounded in the Māturīdī school of thought, a lot of the distinctive ideas come from Imam Abū Ḥanīfah (may Allah have mercy on him). A lot of people do not know this, but Imam Abū Ḥanīfah was a theologian par excellence before he was a jurist and a faqīh. He spent a lot of time in that. He would go out to debate with people, and people would actually point him out: this is the person to deal with these issues. Great theology, and his students as well. Then he gave that up, focused on jurisprudence, and became a master in that as well. It is simply a natural genius.

Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī was a great Ḥanafī scholar, having studied under al-Jūzjānī and others. He had inherited these theological ideas and the research of Abū Ḥanīfah (may Allah have mercy on him), and the majority of what he expounded was that. So it would be fair to say that in reality the Māturīdī school is an older school, in the sense that a lot of the research had taken place much earlier, from Abū Ḥanīfah's time, and was passed down.

Some people say that a lot of these things cannot be from Abū Ḥanīfah, because a lot of these fitnahs, a lot of these problems, did not exist in his time. But the Ḥanafī madhhab, even in fiqh, is such that there are many, many issues in it which had not yet taken place. These were hypothetical issues that they dealt with, for time to come. This is the beauty of the school. Likewise, Imam Abū Ḥanīfah was able to foresee problems and talk about them. That is one of the responses that have been given to this criticism: the claim that whatever is contained in al-Fiqh al-Akbar, for example, some of the things Imam Abū Ḥanīfah said, cannot be from him, because some of these issues did not arise at the time. And Allah knows best.

The Ashʿarī school, again, was developed afterwards. Both were drawing from the mainstream ideology; it was only the methodology by which ideas were propounded, and by which people were convinced that the wrong way was the wrong way and the right way was the right way, that was developed later on.

That is why, very interestingly, when it comes to hadith and other matters, the early generations are spoken of as the Salaf and the Khalaf. The Salaf are the first three generations, and the Khalaf are those who come afterwards. In ʿaqīdah, according to the Ashʿarīs, the Salaf are the first five generations, because al-Bāqillānī and others were there up to four-something, into the fifth Hijrī century. So it is only after that that the Khalaf, the later scholars, come. That is very interesting.