Semantic Investigation of Practical Narrative Attributes from the Perspective of Maturidis Especially Abu Mansur Maturidi

The complexity of the issue of the practical narrative attributes of God has led to the emergence of different views and thoughts among Muslim theologians. In this article, we tried to investigate the thought of Abu Mansur Maturidi using library sources and descriptive-analytical method. For this purpose, we analyzed two definitive works left by him and also the thoughts of the followers of the Maturidi School on semantics. Maturidi and his followers consider clinging to the apparent meaning of the practical narrative attributes to be rationally rejected. They also believe that the physical interpretation of such attributes requires imperfection and need for God, limitations in the divine essence, spatiality for God, and incompatibility with the absolute existence, mere existence, and simplicity of God. They deem the practical narrative attributes as Quranic ambiguous concepts having figurative usages, and to prove the idea of allegorical interpretation, they give reasons such as the absence of contradictions in the Divine Book, the usage of metaphor in the Quran, and the negation of physical interpretation of the verses containing the practical narrative attributes. The hadiths narrated in this regard also have weaknesses and anxiety in terms of the chain of transmission and content, and on the assumption of their authenticity, they are considered to be single hadiths, which do not have authority to prove doctrinal issues, and in case of not being single, they are interpreted allegorically.