Siracuddin Ali b. Osman el-Ûşî'nin Mâtürîdî Kelâmına Katkıları [The Contributions of Sirāj al-Dīn Alī b. Uthmān al-Ūshī to Māturīdī Kalām]

Maturidite theologian and Hanafi scholar Sirāj al-Dīn Alī b. Uthmān al-Ūshī (d. 575/1179) was born in Farg̲hānī Valley, in Ūsh city, which is a part of Kyrgyzstan today. al-Ūshī is a Turkish-born scholar and he contributes to Ḥanafī-Māturīdī religious understanding with his works, namely the Badʾ al-amālīwhich includes 66 or 68 lines theological poem composed by him on Māturīdī kalām, Niṣāb al-akhbār wa-tadhkirat al-akhyāron Hadith and al-Fatāwā al-Sirājiyyawhich is a collection of his Ḥanafī legal opinions that also includes knowledge on creed issues. al-Ūshī had been in Bukhara and Samarqand which used to be the important science centers at that time and he took lessons from Ḥanafī-Māturīdī scholars. Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Samarqandī, Abū Abdullah Sulaymān al-Ūshī, Abu’l-Maḥāsin al-Marghīnānî, Abdullāh b. Abu’l-Muẓaffar al-Nasafī, Abu’l-Qāsim Maḥmūd al-Nasafī, Alā’ al-Dīn al-Usmandī, Abu’l-Qāsim Alī al-Bisṭāmī, Abu’l-Usr al-Bazdawī’s son Imād al-Dīn Ḥasan b. Alī al-Bazdawī and Saif-al-Dīn al-Bākharzī are the scholars he took lessons from. It is understood that al-Ūshī obtains his Māturīdī kalām knowledge from the first period Māturīdīte sources via his scholars. Alā’ al-Dīn al-Usmandī, who is the author of Lubāb al-kalām, which introduces Māturīdī kalām elaborately, is his scholar. Another scholar of him Abū Abdullah al-Ūshī is the student of Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Ismāʿīl al-Zāhid al-Ṣaffār al-Bukhārī (d. 534/1139) who is also a Māturīdī scholar and the author of Talkhīṣ al-adilla li-qawāʿid al-tawḥīdwhich is a voluminous kalām work. Besides, in his work al-Fatāwā al-Sirājiyya, al-Ūshī  cited from al-Ṣaffār al-Bukhārī’s work, Talkhīṣ al-adilla. On the other hand, his scholar Abu Sābit Ḥasan b. Alī al-Bazdawī is the nephew of Abu’l-Yusr al-Bazdawī. After the death of his father Abu’l-Usr al-Bazdawī, Ḥasan al-Bazdawī grows up under the care and supervision of his uncle Abu’l-Yusr al-Bazdawī and he took lessons from him who is the author of Uṣūl al-Dīn, a book on Māturīdī kalām. The contributions of al-Ūshī to Māturīdī kalām are as follows: 1) al-Ūshī’s work, Badʾ al-amālīis written in verse which is the popular mystic literature form of the period, and it is the first known work in verse on Māturīdī kalām. It can be said that after subsequent periods Ḳaṣīdat Badʾ al-amālī(al-Lāmiyya fi ’l-tawḥīd, Ḳaṣīdat Yaḳūlu’l-Abd) becomes an example for a theological poem on Māturīdī kalām and some other similar works are also written.  2) Badʾ al-amālīhas an significant place in learning, teaching, and spreading the views on Māturīdī kalām. Badʾ al-amālīhas been explained in numerous commentaries, translated into many languages as Turkish and Farsi, and different libraries in the world have many of its manuscripts; all these things could be proof of this significance. 3) al-Ūshī lived in a period in which the opposition to Kalām among Hanafī were growing stronger. In his work al-Fatāwā al-Sirājiyya, by arguing that Kalām is not forbidden by religion or reprehensible he replies the narrated rumors against this science and he defends it. Thus, it is considered that he has a positive impact on Hanafīs’ adopting ilm al-kalām and Māturīdī kalām. The works that are written to explain it and translations of Badʾ al-amālīwould make the contributions of al-Ūshī to Ḥanafī-Māturīdī religious understanding more refined.