Hakīm al-Samarqandī's Criticisms of the Kharijites

Abstract

The differences of opinion among Muslims after the death of the Prophet (pbuh) deepened over time, and as a result, political and theological sects and factions emerged. Each of the sects and factions formed as a result of these differences of opinion differed from the others with the ideas they put forward on certain issues. Some scholars within a sect also distinguished themselves from other scholars due to their contributions to the sect they belonged to, their systematisation of the sect's ideas, the works they wrote, and their dissemination among Muslims. Hakīm al-Samarqandī also played an important role in the development and systematisation of the belief of Ahl al-Sunnah and the Hanafī-Māturīdī understanding with his scholarly works, especially his work al-Sawādu al-a'zam. The fourth century of Hijri, the period in which al-Hakīm al-Samarqandī lived, was a century in which Islamic sciences matured, systematised and institutionalised. In this century, very valuable studies were carried out in almost all Islamic sciences and very valuable works were written. At the same time, this period is also a very important period especially in terms of the theological sects. This is because the founders of the Ash'ariyya and Māturīdiyya sects, Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ash'arī (d. 324/935-36) and Abū Mansūr al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944), lived in this century and established the two major theological sects of the Ahl al-Sunnah school in this century. Hakīm al-Samarqandī (d. 342/953), a contemporary of Imam al-Ash'arī and Imam al-Māturīdī, was an important Ahl al-Sunnah scholar who was commissioned by the Emir of Sāmānī to write a work in order to prevent the spread of bid'ah and superstition, to gather Muslims around a sound creed, and to eliminate deviant ideas by spreading the belief of Ahl al-Sunnah. The Sāmānids, who ruled in Māverānayn and Khorasan in the third and fourth centuries of the Hegira, between 819 and 1005 AD, were an Islamic dynasty. The Samanid emirs made significant c