Transcendent God, Rational World: A Maturidi Theology

This book is a constructive theological work that builds on the Māturīdī tradition of kalām, which is one of the main schools of Sunnī theology in Islam. It advances scholarship in three main respects. First, it provides a detailed treatment of the system of Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944), a Ḥanafī theologian from Samarqand. This includes discussion of his epistemology, ontology, natural theology, and his treatment of the divine nature and several key attributes: omniscience, wisdom, creative action and speech. Second, the book analyses the development of the Māturīdī tradition after the lifetime of al-Māturīdī and into the classical period. There is a focus on unearthing underappreciated material from his immediate successors in Samarqand, as well as explaining the changes that emerge in the classical school, especially through its dialogue with Ashʿarism. Third, the book draws on the resources of the Māturīdī tradition to develop an original contemporary Islamic theology. This aspect pays special attention to the phenomenological tradition founded by Edmund Husserl, and to contemporary analytic philosophy of religion and Christian philosophical theology. The result is a unique proposal for a renewed Islamic theology that seeks a creative synthesis between the premodern Islamic tradition and elements of modern thought.