Title: Who Are the Ash'ari and Maturidi Scholars? And What Glad Tidings Have Been Mentioned Concerning Them? Author: Dr. Muhammad Said al-Salmo Question: Who are the scholars of the Ash'aris and Maturidis? And what glad tidings have been mentioned concerning them? Answer: Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds. Blessings and peace be upon our master Muhammad, his family, and his pure and righteous companions. To proceed: The Ash'aris and Maturidis are Ahl al-Sunnah wa'l-Jama'ah (the People of the Sunnah and the Community). They follow the path of the Companions and those who followed them in matters of creed. The Ash'aris are named after the great Imam Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari, and the Maturidis are named after Imam Abu Mansur al-Maturidi — may Allah be pleased with both of them. Just as the followers of al-Shafi'i are called Shafi'is, the followers of Abu Hanifa are called Hanafis, the followers of Malik are called Malikis, and the followers of Ahmad are called Hanbalis, all of them are Ahl al-Sunnah wa'l-Jama'ah and are united in the fundamentals of creed. Allah the Exalted said: "O you who have believed, whoever of you should revert from his religion — Allah will bring forth a people He will love, and they will love Him, humble toward the believers, powerful and honorable toward the disbelievers. They strive in the cause of Allah and do not fear the blame of a critic. That is the favor of Allah; He bestows it upon whom He wills. And Allah is all-Encompassing and Knowing." (Al-Ma'idah, 54) Al-Hafiz Ibn Asakir in Tabyin Kadhib al-Muftari and al-Hakim in al-Mustadrak narrated: "When the verse 'Allah will bring forth a people He will love, and they will love Him' was revealed, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: 'They are your people, O Abu Musa.' And the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, pointed with his hand toward Abu Musa al-Ash'ari." Al-Hakim said: "This is a authentic hadith according to the criteria of Muslim." Imam al-Tabari narrated it in his tafsir, Ibn Abi Hatim likewise, Ibn Sa'd in his Tabaqat, and al-Tabarani in his al-Mu'jam al-Kabir. Al-Haythami said in Majma' al-Zawa'id: "Its narrators are the narrators of the Sahih." Al-Qushayri said: "The followers of Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari are from his people (i.e., the people of Abu Musa), because whenever a people is attributed to a prophet, what is meant is the followers." Al-Qurtubi stated this in his tafsir (6/220). Al-Bayhaqi said: "This is because of the great virtue and noble rank found in Imam Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari, may Allah be pleased with him. He is from the people of Abu Musa and from his descendants who were given knowledge and granted understanding, singled out among them for strengthening the Sunnah, suppressing innovation, establishing proof, and refuting doubt." Ibn Asakir mentioned this in Tabyin Kadhib al-Muftari. Imam al-Bukhari mentioned in his Sahih a chapter titled "The Arrival of the Ash'aris and the People of Yemen," and Abu Musa said from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him: "They are from me, and I am from them." When this verse was revealed, shortly afterward the ships of the Ash'aris and the tribes of Yemen arrived. Al-Bukhari narrated in his Sahih from Abu Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him, that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said: "The people of Yemen have come to you. They are the most tender of heart and the softest of disposition. Faith is Yemeni, and wisdom is Yemeni." Al-Bukhari narrated in his Sahih from 'Imran ibn Husayn that some people from Banu Tamim came to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and he said: "Accept the glad tidings, O Banu Tamim." They said twice: "You have given us glad tidings; now give us (of worldly things)." His face changed — meaning he was grieved at them, at how they preferred the world. Then some people from Yemen came, and he said: "O people of Yemen, accept the glad tidings since Banu Tamim did not accept them." They said: "We accept, O Messenger of Allah. We have come to learn the religion and to ask you about the beginning of this matter — what was it?" He said: "Allah was, and there was nothing else besides Him." That is, Allah existed in eternity; there was no place, no time, no direction, no Throne, no heaven, no body, no motion, no rest, and no creation. Then Allah created creation. After creating creation, He remains as He always was. He is existent without modality, without place, and without direction. We praise Allah the Exalted for this Sunni creed upon which we stand, which was the creed of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, his Companions, and those who followed them in excellence, and which the Messenger of Allah praised those who embraced it. He said, as narrated by Imam Ahmad, al-Bazzar, al-Tabarani, and al-Hakim with a sound chain: "Constantinople will surely be conquered. What an excellent commander is its commander, and what an excellent army is that army." Constantinople was conquered nine hundred years later. It was conquered by Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, may Allah have mercy on him, who was a Maturidi. He was Sunni; he believed that Allah exists without place, he loved the truthful Sufis, and he sought intercession through the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror and the army with him were Maturidi-Ash'ari, and the Messenger of Allah testified that they were in a good state. Likewise, the other Ottoman sultans who defended the unity of the Muslims and protected the sanctity of the nation for centuries. Hundreds of millions of Muslims in the East and West, past and future generations, hold this creed — through teaching and instruction — and the visible reality testifies to this. It is sufficient to demonstrate its truth that the Companions, the Successors, and the Successors of the Successors — who are the righteous predecessors — and those who followed them in excellence held this creed. Among those who followed them in excellence are: Among them is the famous vizier Nizam al-Mulk and the just, learned, and mujahid Sultan Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi, may Allah have mercy on him. He ordered that the fundamentals of creed be proclaimed from the minarets before the dawn prayer according to the expressions of al-Ash'ari, and that the poem composed for him by Muhammad ibn Hibah al-Barmaki be taught to children in schools. Among its verses: "The Maker of the worlds is not encompassed by any place; Allah is exalted above any likeness. He existed when there was no place; His rule now is as it always was. He is free from place and exalted above the changing of time. Whoever limits Him with a direction above has exceeded the bounds and gone to extremes." This creed is taught at Al-Azhar University in Egypt, at al-Zaytuna University in Tunisia, and throughout the Maghreb, as well as in Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Turkey, the Levant, Sudan, Yemen, Iraq, India, Africa, Bukhara, Dagestan, Afghanistan, and all other Muslim lands. Among them are King al-Kamil al-Ayyubi and Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil ibn al-Mansur Sayf al-Din Qalawun, and indeed all the Mamluk sultans. Some names of Ash'ari scholars of the Ummah: Imam Qadi al-Qudat al-Hafiz Taj al-Din al-Subki said in his book Mu'id al-Ni'am wa Mubid al-Niqam (p. 75): "These virtuous scholars of the Hanafis, Shafi'is, Malikis, and Hanbalis — praise be to Allah — are one hand in creed. All of them follow the view of Ahl al-Sunnah wa'l-Jama'ah. They believe in Allah the Exalted through the path of the Shaykh of the Sunnah and the Community, Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari, may Allah have mercy on him. None deviate from this except the rabble of the Hanafis and Shafi'is who joined the Mu'tazilah, and the rabble of the Hanbalis who joined the anthropomorphists. Allah has cleared the Malikis; we have not seen a Maliki scholar except with Ash'ari creed. In sum, the creed of the Ash'aris is what is contained in the creed of Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi, which the scholars of the schools accepted and approved as creed." Abu Ishaq al-Isfarayini, Abu Nu'aym al-Isbahani, Shaykh Abu Muhammad al-Juwayni, Abd al-Malik Abu al-Ma'ali al-Juwayni, Abu Mansur al-Tamami, al-Isma'ili, al-Bayhaqi, al-Daraqutni, al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Abu al-Qasim, al-Qushayri and his son Abu al-Nasr, Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi, Nasr al-Maqdisi, Imam al-Ghazali, al-Farawi, Abu al-Wafa Ibn Aqil al-Hanbali, al-Damaghani, Imam Abu al-Walid al-Baji, Ahmad al-Rifa'i, Abu al-Qasim Ibn Asakir, al-Silafi, Qadi Iyad al-Maliki, Imam al-Nawawi, Imam Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, al-Qurtubi, Izz al-Din Ibn Abd al-Salam, Abu Amr Ibn al-Hajib, Qadi Ibn Daqiq al-Id, Imam Ala al-Din al-Baji, Taqi al-Din al-Subki, al-Ala'i, Zayn al-Din al-Iraqi, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, Imam Murtada al-Zabidi, Zakariyya al-Ansari, Baha al-Din al-Rawwas, Wali Allah al-Dihlawi, Muhammad Ulaysh al-Maliki, Shaykh Abdullah al-Sharqawi, Abu al-Mahasin al-Qawuqji, Imam Husayn al-Jisr al-Tarabulusi, and many others. Among the scholars of tafsir and Qur'anic sciences: al-Qurtubi, Ibn al-Arabi, al-Razi, Ibn Atiyyah, al-Mahalli, al-Baydawi, al-Tha'labi, Abu Hayyan, Ibn al-Jazari, al-Zarkashi, al-Suyuti, al-Alusi, al-Zurqani, al-Nasafi, al-Qasimi, and many others. Among the scholars of hadith and its sciences: al-Hakim, al-Bayhaqi, al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Ibn Asakir, al-Khattabi, Abu Nu'aym al-Isbahani, Qadi Iyad, Ibn al-Salah, al-Mundhiri, al-Nawawi, Izz al-Din Ibn Abd al-Salam, al-Haythami, al-Mizzi, Ibn Hajar, Ibn al-Munir, Ibn Battal, the commentators of the two Sahihs, the commentators of the Sunan, al-Iraqi and his son, Ibn Jama'ah, al-Ayni, al-Ala'i, Ibn Furak, Ibn al-Mulaqqin, Ibn Daqiq al-Id, Ibn al-Zamlakani, al-Zayla'i, al-Suyuti, Ibn Allan, al-Sakhawi, al-Munawi, Ali al-Qari, al-Bayquni, al-Laknawi, al-Zabidi, and many others. Among the scholars of fiqh and usul: Among the Hanafis: Ibn Nujaym, al-Kasani, al-Sarakhsi, al-Zayla'i, al-Haskafi, al-Marginani, Kamal ibn al-Humam, al-Shurunbulali, Ibn Amir al-Hajj, al-Bazdawi, al-Khadimi, Abd al-Aziz al-Bukhari, Ibn Abidin, al-Tahtawi, and many others. Among the Malikis: Ibn Rushd, al-Qarafi, al-Shatibi, Ibn al-Hajib, Khalil, al-Dardir, al-Baqillani, al-Dasuqi, Zurruq, al-Laqqani, al-Zurqani, al-Nafrawi, Ibn Juzayy, al-Adawi, Ibn al-Hajj, al-Sanusi, Ibn Ulaysh, Izz al-Din Ibn Abd al-Salam, and many others. Among the Shafi'is: al-Juwayni and his son, al-Razi, al-Ghazali, al-Amidi, al-Shirazi, al-Isfarayini, al-Mutawalli, al-Sam'ani, Ibn al-Salah, al-Nawawi, al-Rafi'i, Ibn al-Rif'ah, al-Azra'i, al-Isnawi, al-Subki and his son, al-Baydawi, al-Hisni, Zakariyya al-Ansari, Ibn Hajar al-Haytami, al-Ramli, al-Shirbini, al-Mahalli, Ibn al-Muqri, al-Bujayrimi, al-Bayjuri, Ibn al-Qasim, Qalubi, Umayrah, al-Ghazzi, Ibn al-Naqib, al-Attar, al-Bannani, al-Dimyati, Al al-Ahwal, and many others. Among the scholars of history, biography, and tabaqat: Qadi Iyad, al-Muhibb al-Tabari, Ibn Asakir, al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Abu Nu'aym al-Isbahani, Ibn Hajar, al-Mizzi, al-Suhayli, al-Salihi, al-Suyuti, Ibn al-Athir, Ibn Khaldun, al-Tilimsani, al-Safadi, Ibn Khallikan, and many others. Among the scholars of language: al-Jurjani, al-Ghazwini, Ibn al-Anbari, al-Suyuti, Ibn Malik, Ibn Aqil, Ibn Hisham, Ibn Manzur, al-Firuzabadi, al-Zabidi, Ibn al-Hajib, al-Azhari, Abu Hayyan, Ibn al-Athir, al-Jurjani, al-Hamawi, Ibn Faris, al-Kafawi, Ibn Ajurrum, al-Hattab, al-Ahdal, and many others. Among the commanders: Nur al-Din al-Shahid, Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi, al-Muzaffar Qutuz, al-Zahir Baybars, the Ayyubid and Mamluk sultans, Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror and the Ottoman sultans, and many others. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds. Glory belongs to Islam. Allah the Exalted is the most knowledgeable and the most wise. Some names of Ash'ari scholars of the Ummah. We did not intend by what we mentioned to enumerate the Ash'aris and Maturidis. Who can count the stars of the sky or encompass the number of grains of sand in the desert? The Ash'aris and Maturidis are Ahl al-Sunnah themselves. By Dr. Muhammad Said al-Salmo محمد سعيد السلمو Generations and Technology University