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Ebū’l-Muʿīn en-Nesefī’de İmanın İki Yönü ve İnsanın Özgür İradesiyle İlişkisi: Felsefi Bir Analiz

Year 2023, Volume: 64 Issue: 2, 277 - 314, 30.11.2023
https://doi.org/10.33227/auifd.1256135

Abstract

Bu makale, Māturīdī kelam geleneğinin kurucusundan sonraki en seçkin isimlerinden biri olan Ebū’l-Muʿīn en-Nesefī’nin (ö. 508/1115) düşüncesinde bilgi ve iman –diğer bir ifadeyle, akıl ve dinî tasdik– arasındaki ilişkiyi ve iman fiilinde insan hürriyetini ele almaktadır. En-Nesefī ve ekolünün çalışmaları, İngilizce konuşulan dünyadaki akademik çevreler tarafından ne yazık ki henüz hak ettiği ilgiyi görememiştir. Bu çalışma, bu boşluğu doldurma ve Türk akademisinde hâlihazırda yapılmış çalışmalara katkı sağlama amacı taşımaktadır. En-Nesefī’nin temsil ettiği şekliyle Māturīdī geleneğindeki iman fiilinin hem entelektüel hem de ahlaki açıdan övgüye değer olmasının ardındaki felsefi muhakemeye odaklanması, bu çalışmayı Türkçe literatürdeki diğer çalışmalardan ayırmaktadır. Bu amaç doğrultusunda, öncelikle en-Nesefī’nin külliyatında imanın doğası üzerine bir soruşturma yürütülecek, daha sonra en-Nesefī’nin bilgi ile iman veya akıl ile dinî tasdik arasında kurduğu ilişki üzerine odaklanılacaktır. Çalışmanın son bölümü, iman eyleminde Tanrı’nın insanın özgür iradesine olan etkisine ve iman eyleminin insani mi yoksa ilahi bir fiil mi olduğu hususuna odaklanacaktır. Bu çalışma, en-Nesefī’ye göre bir dinî inancın doğruluğunun veya meşruiyetinin ancak bilgi veya delille ortaya konulabileceğini ve kalpte bir dinin iyiliğine dair beliren hissin, ilhamın ve taklidin doğruyu bilmenin yolları olamayacağını göstermektedir. Fakat bilgiye yapılan bu güçlü vurguya rağmen, iman sadece bilmeye de indirgenemez. Bunun yerine ‘iman, bilgiye dayanan kalbin özel bir tasdikidir’ ifadesi, en-Nesefī’nin sahip olduğu iman yorumunu daha doğru yansıtmaktadır. İnsanın özgür iradesine dayanan bu özel tasdik ile kişi, İslam inancını ve değerlerini hayatının en ulvi yol gösterici ilkeleri olarak benimser. İşte en-Nesefī’de iman olarak adlandırılmaya layık olan tasdik, bu türden özel bir tasdiktir.

References

  • Abū Ḥanīfa. “Kitāb al-Waṣiyya.” Trans. by Mustafa Öz. In İmâm-ı A’zam’ın Beş Eseri, ed. by Mustafa Öz, 83–87. 13th edition. Istanbul: M.Ü. İlâhiyat Fakültesi Vakfı Yayınları, 2017.
  • Akgündüz, Ahmet. “Debûsî.” DİA, 9:66–7.
  • al-Ashʿarī, Abū al-Ḥasan. al-Ibāna ʿan ʿUṣūl al-Diyāna, ed. by Abdulqadir al-Arnaut. Damascus-Beirut: Maktaba Dār al-Bayān, 1981.
  • al-Ashʿarī, Abū al-Ḥasan. Kitāb al-Lumaʿ fī al-Radd ʿalā Ahl al-Zaygh wa al-Bidaʿ, ed. by ʿAbdulʿazīz ʿIzzaddīn al-Sayravān. Beirut: Dār al-Lubnān, 1987.
  • al-Ashʿarī, Abū al-Ḥasan. Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn wa Ikhtilāf al-Muṣallīn, ed. by Hellmut Ritter. 2nd edition. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1963.
  • al-Baghdādī, ʿAbd al-Qāhir. al-Farq bayn al-Firaq, ed. by Muḥammad Badr. Cairo: n.p., 1910.
  • Baloğlu, Adnan Bülent. “Doğru Bilgi Tanımına Ulaşma Çabası: Ebu’l-Mu‘în en-Nesefi Örneği [An Intellectual Struggle for a Sound Definition of Knowledge: A Case of Abū al-Muʿīn al-Nasafī].” Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 18 (2003): 3–20.
  • al-Bāqillānī, Abū Bakr. Kitāb al-Tamhīd, ed. by A. Haydar, Beirut: n.p., 1993.
  • Clifford, William Kingdon. “The Ethics of Belief.” In Lectures and Essays, ed. by Leslie Stephen and Frederick Pollock, 177–211. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
  • Erdem, Engin. “Hanefî-Mâtürîdî Gelenekte Bilgi ve İman [Knowledge and Faith in the Hanafi-Maturidi Tradation].” Diyanet İlmî Dergi 54: 3 (September 2018): 59–78.
  • Ess, Josef van. “The Logical Structure of Islamic Theology.” In Kleine Schriften, ed. by Hinrich Biesterfeldt, 238–71. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2018.
  • al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid. ʾIḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn. 4 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1983.
  • Erdem, Hüseyin Sabri. “Tabsire’ye Semantik Yaklaşım.” PhD Thesis, Ankara Üniversitesi, Ankara, 1988.
  • Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab. 3 vols. Beirut: n.p., 1414/1994.
  • Izutsu, Toshihiko. The Concept of Belief in Islamic Theology: A Semantic Analysis of Îmân and Islâm. Tokyo: The Keio Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies, 1965.
  • al-Juwaynī, Imām al-Ḥaramayn. Kitāb al-ʿIrshād, ed. by Zakariyya Umayrat. Beirut: n.p., 1995.
  • Kenny, Anthony. What is Faith? Essays in the Philosophy of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
  • al-Māturīdī, Abū Manṣūr. Kitāb al-Tawḥīd, ed. by Bekir Topaloğlu and Muhammed Aruçi. Istanbul: Maktabat al-Irshād, 2001.
  • Saygı, Muhammet. “The Predominant Christian Interpretation of Religious Faith in the Middle Ages: Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas.” Darulfunun İlahiyat 34:1 (June 2023): 211–42.
  • al-Murtaḍā, Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. Kitāb al-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʿtazila, ed. by Susanna Diwald-Wilzer. Beirut: al-Maʿhad al-Almanī li al-Abhath al-Sharkiyya [Orient-Institut Beirut], n.d.
  • al-Nasafī, Abū al-Muʿīn. al-Tamhīd fī Uṣūl al-Dīn. Cairo: Dār al-Thaqāfa, 1987.
  • al-Nasafī, Abū al-Muʿīn. Baḥr al-Kalām. 2nd edition. n.p.: Maktabah Dār al-Farfūr, 2000.
  • al-Nasafī, Abū al-Muʿīn. Tabṣirat al-Adilla fī Uṣūl al-Dīn, ed. by Hüseyin Atay and Şaban Ali Düzgün. 2 vols. Ankara: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, 1993-2003.
  • Penelhum, Terence. “The Analysis of Faith in St Thomas Aquinas.” Religious Studies 13: 2 (1977): 133–54. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412500009938.
  • Pessagno, J. Meric. “Intellect and Religious Assent.” The Muslim World 69: 1 (1979): 18–27.
  • Plantinga, Alvin, and Nicholas Wolterstorff. Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983.
  • al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār. Sharḥ al-ʿUṣūl al-Khamsa, ed. by Husayin b. Abu Hasim. Beirut: n.p., 2001.
  • Rosenthal, Franz. Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
  • al-Ṣābūnī, Nūr al-Dīn. Mâtürîdiyye Akaidi [al-Bidāya fī Uṣūl al-Dīn], ed. and trans. by Bekir Topaloğlu. Ankara: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, 2005.
  • al-Ṣābūnī, Nūr al-Dīn. al-Kifāya fī al-Hidāya. Beirut, Istanbul: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Araştırmaları Merkezi (İSAM), 2014.
  • al-Samarqandī, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn. Sharḥ Taʾwīlāt al-Qurʾān. Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi-Hamidiye, no. 176, 1–879.
  • al-Shahristānī, Abū al-Fatḥ. al-Milal wa al-Niḥal. 2 vols. Egypt: n.p., 1947.
  • al-Taftāzānī, Saʿd al-Dīn. A Commentary on the Creed of Islam: Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī on the Creed of Najm al-Dīn al-Nasafī. Trans. by Earl Edgar Elder. New York: Columbia University Press, 1950.
  • Tennant, Frederick R. Philosophical Theology: The Soul and Its Faculties. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
  • Wehr, Hans. The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic. 4th edition. http://ejtaal.net/aa/#hw4=347,ll=943,ls=5,la=1406,sg=388,ha=224,br=336,pr=57,aan=192,mgf=305,vi=148,kz=730,mr=230,mn=415,uqw=539,umr=369,ums=301,umj=250,ulq=720,uqa=134,uqq=106,bdw=317,amr=227,asb=292,auh=572,dhq=181,mht=292,msb=83,tla=48,amj=241,ens=160,mis=668. (08.11.2023.)
  • Yavuz, Yusuf Şevki. “Akāidü’n-Nesefî.” DİA, 2:217–19.
  • Yüce, Mustafa. “Kelamcıların Bilgi Tanımları Ve Nesefi’nin Semantik Tahlili [The Definitions of Knowledge by Muslim Theologians and al-Nasafī’s Semantic Analysis].” Harran Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 15: 24 (2010): 111–26.
  • al-Zabīdī, Muḥammad al-Murtaḍā. Tāj al-ʿArūs, ed. by ʿAbdussattār Aḥmad Farrāj. 25 vols. Kuwait: n.p., 1385/1965.
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Two Aspects of Faith and Its Relation to Human Free Will in Abū al-Muʿīn al-Nasafī: A Philosophical Analysis

Year 2023, Volume: 64 Issue: 2, 277 - 314, 30.11.2023
https://doi.org/10.33227/auifd.1256135

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between knowledge (ʿilm or maʿrifa) and faith (īmān), or intellect (ʿaql) and religious assent (taṣdīq), in the thought of Abū al-Muʿīn al-Nasafī (d. 508-1115), the most distinguished theologian after the founding father of the Māturīdī school. Regrettably, the works of al-Nasafī and his school have not received the recognition they deserve in academic circles of the English-speaking world. This study aims to fill this gap and contribute to the studies already conducted in Turkish academia. The study distinguishes itself from other works in Turkish scholarship by exploring the philosophical reasoning behind the moral praiseworthiness of the act of faith in the Māturīdī tradition, as represented by al-Nasafī. To this end, the initial focus of this article involves conducting research on the essence of faith using al-Nasafī’s corpus. It then explores the relationship established by al-Nasafī between knowledge and faith, or intellect and religious assent. This paper also examines the impact of God’s intervention on human free will in the act of faith and whether this act should be viewed as a human or divine act. The findings of this study show that, according to al-Nasafī, the truth or legitimacy of a religious belief can only be established through knowledge or evidence (dalīl). Imitating the beliefs of forefathers (taqlīd), relying on intuition (ilhām), or trusting in the goodness of those beliefs cannot be a means of acquiring true knowledge of religions. Nevertheless, faith cannot be reduced to knowledge. Instead, faith is a special assent of the heart that is grounded in knowledge. With this voluntary assent, a person adopts the Islamic faith and its values as the most fundamental guiding principle of their life. The assent that al-Nasafī deems worthy of being called faith is a special kind of assent of this kind.

Supporting Institution

Republic of Türkiye Ministry of National Education, Bartin University

Thanks

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors, Professor Nicholas Adams and Dr Richard Todd, for their insightful comments and valuable feedback on my earlier drafts of this paper. Additionally, I would also like to thank Professor İlyas Çelebi and Dr Sami Turan Erel for their invaluable assistance in finding and clarifying the Arabic texts.

References

  • Abū Ḥanīfa. “Kitāb al-Waṣiyya.” Trans. by Mustafa Öz. In İmâm-ı A’zam’ın Beş Eseri, ed. by Mustafa Öz, 83–87. 13th edition. Istanbul: M.Ü. İlâhiyat Fakültesi Vakfı Yayınları, 2017.
  • Akgündüz, Ahmet. “Debûsî.” DİA, 9:66–7.
  • al-Ashʿarī, Abū al-Ḥasan. al-Ibāna ʿan ʿUṣūl al-Diyāna, ed. by Abdulqadir al-Arnaut. Damascus-Beirut: Maktaba Dār al-Bayān, 1981.
  • al-Ashʿarī, Abū al-Ḥasan. Kitāb al-Lumaʿ fī al-Radd ʿalā Ahl al-Zaygh wa al-Bidaʿ, ed. by ʿAbdulʿazīz ʿIzzaddīn al-Sayravān. Beirut: Dār al-Lubnān, 1987.
  • al-Ashʿarī, Abū al-Ḥasan. Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn wa Ikhtilāf al-Muṣallīn, ed. by Hellmut Ritter. 2nd edition. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1963.
  • al-Baghdādī, ʿAbd al-Qāhir. al-Farq bayn al-Firaq, ed. by Muḥammad Badr. Cairo: n.p., 1910.
  • Baloğlu, Adnan Bülent. “Doğru Bilgi Tanımına Ulaşma Çabası: Ebu’l-Mu‘în en-Nesefi Örneği [An Intellectual Struggle for a Sound Definition of Knowledge: A Case of Abū al-Muʿīn al-Nasafī].” Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 18 (2003): 3–20.
  • al-Bāqillānī, Abū Bakr. Kitāb al-Tamhīd, ed. by A. Haydar, Beirut: n.p., 1993.
  • Clifford, William Kingdon. “The Ethics of Belief.” In Lectures and Essays, ed. by Leslie Stephen and Frederick Pollock, 177–211. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
  • Erdem, Engin. “Hanefî-Mâtürîdî Gelenekte Bilgi ve İman [Knowledge and Faith in the Hanafi-Maturidi Tradation].” Diyanet İlmî Dergi 54: 3 (September 2018): 59–78.
  • Ess, Josef van. “The Logical Structure of Islamic Theology.” In Kleine Schriften, ed. by Hinrich Biesterfeldt, 238–71. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2018.
  • al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid. ʾIḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn. 4 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1983.
  • Erdem, Hüseyin Sabri. “Tabsire’ye Semantik Yaklaşım.” PhD Thesis, Ankara Üniversitesi, Ankara, 1988.
  • Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab. 3 vols. Beirut: n.p., 1414/1994.
  • Izutsu, Toshihiko. The Concept of Belief in Islamic Theology: A Semantic Analysis of Îmân and Islâm. Tokyo: The Keio Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies, 1965.
  • al-Juwaynī, Imām al-Ḥaramayn. Kitāb al-ʿIrshād, ed. by Zakariyya Umayrat. Beirut: n.p., 1995.
  • Kenny, Anthony. What is Faith? Essays in the Philosophy of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
  • al-Māturīdī, Abū Manṣūr. Kitāb al-Tawḥīd, ed. by Bekir Topaloğlu and Muhammed Aruçi. Istanbul: Maktabat al-Irshād, 2001.
  • Saygı, Muhammet. “The Predominant Christian Interpretation of Religious Faith in the Middle Ages: Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas.” Darulfunun İlahiyat 34:1 (June 2023): 211–42.
  • al-Murtaḍā, Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. Kitāb al-Ṭabaqāt al-Muʿtazila, ed. by Susanna Diwald-Wilzer. Beirut: al-Maʿhad al-Almanī li al-Abhath al-Sharkiyya [Orient-Institut Beirut], n.d.
  • al-Nasafī, Abū al-Muʿīn. al-Tamhīd fī Uṣūl al-Dīn. Cairo: Dār al-Thaqāfa, 1987.
  • al-Nasafī, Abū al-Muʿīn. Baḥr al-Kalām. 2nd edition. n.p.: Maktabah Dār al-Farfūr, 2000.
  • al-Nasafī, Abū al-Muʿīn. Tabṣirat al-Adilla fī Uṣūl al-Dīn, ed. by Hüseyin Atay and Şaban Ali Düzgün. 2 vols. Ankara: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, 1993-2003.
  • Penelhum, Terence. “The Analysis of Faith in St Thomas Aquinas.” Religious Studies 13: 2 (1977): 133–54. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412500009938.
  • Pessagno, J. Meric. “Intellect and Religious Assent.” The Muslim World 69: 1 (1979): 18–27.
  • Plantinga, Alvin, and Nicholas Wolterstorff. Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983.
  • al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār. Sharḥ al-ʿUṣūl al-Khamsa, ed. by Husayin b. Abu Hasim. Beirut: n.p., 2001.
  • Rosenthal, Franz. Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
  • al-Ṣābūnī, Nūr al-Dīn. Mâtürîdiyye Akaidi [al-Bidāya fī Uṣūl al-Dīn], ed. and trans. by Bekir Topaloğlu. Ankara: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, 2005.
  • al-Ṣābūnī, Nūr al-Dīn. al-Kifāya fī al-Hidāya. Beirut, Istanbul: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Araştırmaları Merkezi (İSAM), 2014.
  • al-Samarqandī, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn. Sharḥ Taʾwīlāt al-Qurʾān. Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi-Hamidiye, no. 176, 1–879.
  • al-Shahristānī, Abū al-Fatḥ. al-Milal wa al-Niḥal. 2 vols. Egypt: n.p., 1947.
  • al-Taftāzānī, Saʿd al-Dīn. A Commentary on the Creed of Islam: Saʿd al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī on the Creed of Najm al-Dīn al-Nasafī. Trans. by Earl Edgar Elder. New York: Columbia University Press, 1950.
  • Tennant, Frederick R. Philosophical Theology: The Soul and Its Faculties. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
  • Wehr, Hans. The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic. 4th edition. http://ejtaal.net/aa/#hw4=347,ll=943,ls=5,la=1406,sg=388,ha=224,br=336,pr=57,aan=192,mgf=305,vi=148,kz=730,mr=230,mn=415,uqw=539,umr=369,ums=301,umj=250,ulq=720,uqa=134,uqq=106,bdw=317,amr=227,asb=292,auh=572,dhq=181,mht=292,msb=83,tla=48,amj=241,ens=160,mis=668. (08.11.2023.)
  • Yavuz, Yusuf Şevki. “Akāidü’n-Nesefî.” DİA, 2:217–19.
  • Yüce, Mustafa. “Kelamcıların Bilgi Tanımları Ve Nesefi’nin Semantik Tahlili [The Definitions of Knowledge by Muslim Theologians and al-Nasafī’s Semantic Analysis].” Harran Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 15: 24 (2010): 111–26.
  • al-Zabīdī, Muḥammad al-Murtaḍā. Tāj al-ʿArūs, ed. by ʿAbdussattār Aḥmad Farrāj. 25 vols. Kuwait: n.p., 1385/1965.
  • “The Quran.” Translated by Sahih International. https://corpus.quran.com. (23.02.2023).
There are 39 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Philosophy, Religious Studies
Journal Section Research Articles
Authors

Muhammet Saygı 0000-0003-2907-1788

Publication Date November 30, 2023
Published in Issue Year 2023 Volume: 64 Issue: 2

Cite

Chicago Saygı, Muhammet. “Two Aspects of Faith and Its Relation to Human Free Will in Abū Al-Muʿīn Al-Nasafī: A Philosophical Analysis”. Ankara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 64, no. 2 (November 2023): 277-314. https://doi.org/10.33227/auifd.1256135.