Maturidism

Maturidism (Arabic: الماتريدية, romanized: al-Māturīdiyya) is one of the main Sunnī schools of Islamic theology, developed and codified by the Persian Muslim scholar, Ḥanafī jurist, reformer, and scholastic theologian Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī in the 9th–10th century.

Al-Māturīdī codified and systematized the theological Islamic beliefs already present among the Ḥanafite Muslim theologians of Balkh and Transoxiana under one school of systematic theology (kalām); he emphasized the use of rationality and theological rationalism regarding the interpretation of the sacred scriptures of Islam. Māturīdī theology is considered one of the orthodox creeds of Sunnī Islam alongside the Aṯharī and Ashʿarī, and prevails in the Ḥanafī school of Islamic jurisprudence.

Māturīdism was originally circumscribed to the region of Transoxiana in Central Asia but it became the predominant theological orientation amongst the Sunnī Muslims of Persia before the Safavid conversion to Shīʿīsm in the 16th century, and the Ahl al-Ray (people of reason). It enjoyed a preeminent status in the Ottoman Empire and Mughal India. Outside the old Ottoman and Mughal empires, most Turkic tribes, Hui people, Central Asian, and South Asian Muslims also follow the Māturīdī theology. There have also been Arab Māturīdī scholars.