Notes on eastern Hanafite heresiography.

• Author: Lewinstein, Keith

Studies of early Islamic Doctrines and sects have long taken as their starting point the Sunni heresiographical literature. There is little else for scholars to work with. For the most part, the classical tradition has not allowed the earliest sectarians to speak for themselves, and historians have instead to rely on later heresiographical representations of them. This approach is not without its obvious drawbacks, and to these I wish to add one more: the domination of the field by Muctazilite and Ashcarite heresiographical texts. It is this Muctazilite-Ashcarite discourse that has found its way into academic footnotes through the well-known works of Ashcari (d. 324/935), Baghdidi (d. 429/1037), Shahrastani (d. 548/1153), and other medieval heresiographers.(1) While these books are themselves composite and preserve a number of earlier polemical agendas,(2) they do not account for all the heresiographical data produced by Muslim scholars. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to an independent yet often neglected tradition of firaq writing.

One good place to start is with the Talbis Iblis, a well-known polemical tract composed by the Hanbalite scholar Ibn al-Jawzi (d. (d.597/1200. The Talbis is not a strictly heresiographical work, but it does contain material of a schematic cilm al-firaq type. The first of these sections to appear in the work is distinctive both in content and structure, and does not seem to have passed through the usual Mutazilite and/or Ashcarite hands.(3) The framework employed by Ibn al-Jawzi, as well as the names and doctrines he assigns individual sects, are at odds with what is offered in more standard works. Professor Laoust, who nearly twenty-five years ago wrote the principal genre study of the firaq literature, seems to have overlooked the books singularity, and notes only that its organization seems "fort artificiel."(4) Laoust is impressed mostly by Ibn al-Jawzi's Hanbalite credentials, and sees the Talbis as a work in the tradition of "Hanbalite", heresiography.(5) On closer inspection, however, it appears that the Talbis has very little in common with firaq works composed by other Hanbalite or traditionalist authors. There are no parallels to be found in the most likely places; for instance, the schematic material preserved by the Hanbalite Sufi cAbd al-Qadir al-Jilani (d.561/1166),(6) the Burhan of the Shafcite (?) tradionalist cAbbas b. Mansur al-Saksaki (d. 683/1284),(7) the Kitab al-Tanbih Of the Syrian traditionalist Abu 'l-Husain al-Malati (d. 377/988),(8) the principal creeds of the Hanbalite author Ibn Batta al-Ukbari (d. 387/997),(9) or the Kitab al-Sharica of Abu Bakr al-Ajurri (d. 360/970)(10) What the Talbis preserves, in short, is clearly without a Hanbalite pedigree.

If Ibn al-Jawzi does not quite fit where he should, there remains an alternative context in which he can be placed, namely, the Hanafite-Maturidite tradition of Transoxania. It is clear from what remains of this tradition that the heresiographical format found in Ibn al-Jawzi was shaped and transmitted largely by Hanafite scholars of a Maturidite tendency in theology, and in the fourth and fifth Islamic centuries this meant mostly the Hanafites of eastern Iran and Transoxania.(11) As the doctrines of eastern Hanafism were systematized by scholars such as Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (d. 333/994), an increased demand for heresiographical writing must have been felt. If eastern Hanafism was to establish itself as a full-fledged orthodoxy, a suitable heterodoxy would have to be provided. Local Hanafite scholars thus turned their attention to heresiography, and generated a tradition which would be preserved for centuries in the Middle East and India.

The following discussion will begin with an attempt to identify a few of the principal works which make up this tradition, and to gather together some of the disparate information available about these texts. In the second section, I will discuss some of the tradition's distinctive literary features, particularly those which set it apart from the standard Muctazilite-Ashzarite firaq books. Finally, I will offer two brief case studies comparing eastern and standard material, in the hopes of demonstrating the gulf between the two traditions, as well as the potential value of considering them together.(12)

1. IDENTIFICATION

   Maturidi himself is sometimes credited with a schematic heresiography (Kitab al-Maqalat),(13) although the nature of the attributions does not inspire much confidence. The work is never, to my knowledge, cited or described.(14) The earliest reference to such a book appears to be in the Usul al-Din of the Maturidite theologian Abu 'l-Yusr al-Bazdawi (d. 493/1099). There is, however, no reason to suppose that Bazdawi had actually seen the work; he is forced to fall back on Makhul alNasafi's treatise (to be discussed below) when seeking to contrast Maturidite and Ashcarite heresiography.(15) If the book did exist, it clearly had very little circulation. Alternatively, one could take the ascription to Maturidi of a firaq work as nothing more than a bid by later Matulidite scholars to keep their master from being outdone by his more famous contemporary, Ashcari, himself the author of an extremely well known Kitab al-Maqalat.(16)

   The earliest surviving work in the eastern tradition was produced by a slightly older contemporary of Maturidi, the eastern Hanafite scholar Abu Mutic' Makhul b. al-Fadl al-Nasafi (d. 318/930).(17) The content of Nasafi's Kitab al-Radd cala 'l-Bidac is yet to be systematically studied by Islamicists. Massignon recognized its importance, but was concerned first of all with the authors Sufi and Karramite connections.(18) Van Ess went on to do the basic groundwork and gather the available biographical information on Nasafi in his study of the sources relating to the Karramiyya.(19) An edition of the text itself was published in 1980 by Bernand, who clearly saw its value as a counterweight to the Ashcarite books which have always dominated the field.(20)

   Several references in the book to Abu Hanifa establish the broad Hanafite identity of the author.(21), This is also seen in his frequent reference to one Hanafite-Murjicite definition of faith-belief subsists in word, and deeds are merely its practice (al-iman qawl wa-lcamal sharacicuhu).(22) The work's decidedly eastern Hanafite literary context is apparent first of all in Nasafi's opening statement upholding personal investigation (nazar) against reliance on taqlid. the language and content of the passage echo the opening lines of Maturidi's Kitab al-Tawhid.(23) Moreover, the nature of the author's anti-muctazilite theology fits well with the eastern Hanafite thought known from later centuries.(24) And finally, Nasafi is clearly better informed than the standard heresiographers on specifically eastern theological questions. For example, he and his eastern colleagues regularly speak of a certain Mafrughiyya sect, unknown to the standard writers but associated in Maturidite theological works with arguments concerning the uncreatedness of iman.(25)

   Nasafi's Hanafite and Sufi associations probably brought him into contact with the local Karramiyya, a group whose membership spilled over into such circles.(26) Some features of this text have been seen by van Ess as indicative of such connections. For example, Nasafi neglects to mention the Karramiyya among the seventy-two heterodox firaq (a surprising fact, given the contemporary importance of the group in the East)(27) two early Karramite personalities figure as authorities for Nasafi;(28) and finally, the author's professed hostility to those who strive after material comforts accords well with the Karramiyyas famous tahrim almakasib.(29) A Karramite heresiography would certainly be welcome, whether Nasafi's Radd is any such thing is, however, far from proven.(30)

   In her introduction to the Nasafi text, Bernand notes certain similarities between this work and a Hanafite-Maturidite heresiography published in Ankara two decades earlier, the Kitab al-Firaq al-Muftariqa baina Ahlal-Zaigh wa-'l-Zandaqa (FM). The author is Abu Muhammad cUthman b. cAbd Allah al-cIraqi al-Hanafi.(31) Nothing is known of this cUthman al-Hanafi," but the work can be dated on internal grounds to about the year 500/1106.32, One can, moreover, infer from the text something of the intellectual milieu in which the author worked. An isnad given early on runs through two Turks,(33) and the editor supposes cUthman b. cAbd Allah himself to have been a non-Arab.34 Given the author's nisba (al-Hanafi) and the well-known doctrinal allegiances of the Turks," we can assume him to have figured in Hanafite-maturidite intellectual circles. This initial impression is confirmed not only by his repeated references to Abu Hanifa (twice as al-imam al-aczam, after the Hanafite fashion)36 but by the doctrinal stance apparent in his opening precis of the ahl al-sunna wa-ljama,ca.(37) Finally, the author's favorable mention of Abu Yazid al-Bistami (d. 261/874) is suggestive of Sufi sympathies," something we have already encountered in Nasairi's case and will see several times again in the eastern tradition.

   It is fair to say that the FM has not enjoyed much of a reception among Islamicists. Although Ritter brought the unique Istanbul manuscript to light some sixty years ago,(39) its contents have not been the subject of any systematic analysis. It has on occasion been used by scholars,(40) but the general lack of attention shown the work allowed Laoust to overlook it entirely in the genre study referred to above.

   Neither editor connected these two books with a late Persian firaq work published in Tehran in 1957 under the title Risala-yi Macrifat al-madhahib (MM)(47) The editor based his text on four manuscripts found in the India Office library. The MM is very clearly a Sunni work,(42) and is probably of Indian provenance. The author identifies himself as...