Abstract:

Māturīdī (d. 333/944) dis- tinguishes tafsir from ta’wīl in the beginning of his book Ta’wīlāt al-Qur’an. According to this, the commentary is the work of the Sahaba. They have witnessed the descent of the Qur’an, and therefore have understood the will of Allah. Therefore, the narratives of the Companions towards the verses are binding. But Matu- ridi violated the definition in more than 200 places. He so- metimes gave opinions despite the rumors of the Companions and sometimes rejected some such rumors. Such a situation, at the first stage concludes that he contradicts himself. Therefore, our study focused on the question of whether this contradiction with himself or whether this distinction has a different purpose. In the first part of our study, in order to search for the answer of the mentioned question, Maturidi’s definition of sahaba and the number of the news coming from them were emp- hasized. In the second part, the reasons dealt with for which Maturidi was giving opinions or rejecting them despite the mentioned news. In the last part, the factors that led him to the distinction of tafsir-ta’wīl are discussed. As a result, it is seen that Maturidi did not contradict himself and the narrators of the Sahaba who did not carry the conditions of tafsir were considered as ta’wīl. The distinction also says that there is no difference between the expression of the verse of the Sahaba who did not witness the descent and the expression of the faqih.

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