Following the formation of disciplines/sciences in different fields of Islamic thought, the specific concepts and terminologies of these disciplines/sciences began to emerge. Then the special meaning and the area of utilization for every concept in each discipline/science were further clarified by compiling specific epistles of definition (ḥudūd), which would contribute to this process of conceptualization. For the terminological meaning of the used concept to be determined primarily and thus for the followed theological/sectarian affiliation to be supported, works belonging to this (...) genre have been written specifically for the field of theology. Especially, the Muʿtazilī theologians undoubtedly made the greatest contribution. Thusly, specific treatises containing theological concepts were compiled by names such as al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār (d. 415/1025), and his students Abū Rashīd al-Nīsābūrī (d. after 420/1029) and Ibn Sharwīn (fl. first half of the Vth/XIth century). Zaydī theologian and jurist Abū’l-Qāsim al-Bustī’s (d. 420/1029) Tahdhīb al-ḥudūd, which has no available copy, is also contemporary to the mentioned works. This tradition found its reflection in the Imāmī-Muʿtazilī line in Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭūsī’s (d. 460/1067) al-Muqaddimah fī l-madkhal ilá ṣināʿat ʿilm al-kalām, which could be seen as a concise theological work in terms of its construct and the explanations which it comprises, and in the work called al-Ḥudūd wa-l-ḥaqāʾiq, which is attributed to al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍá (d. 436/1044). Abū Jaʿfar al-Muqrī al-Nīsābūrī’s (d. mid-VIth/XIIth century [?]) al-Ḥudūd stands out as the most voluminous example in this tradition. The most important work belonging to this genre in the Muʿtazilī tradition, as it is the first among the available works, is the Ḥudūd al-alfāẓ of al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār, which is found together with some other important Zaydī-Muʿtazilī works in a compilation discovered by us and thought to be lost until recently. In this treatise, which generally includes theological concepts and partially includes the concepts of Islamic law and the history of sects, al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār has put forward a language-based definition theory. His approach here is in line with the views he put forward on definition in his al-Mughnī. Accordingly, instead of definition (ḥadd) and description (rasm) carried out over five universals in classical logic, he adopted a method of lexical definition based on wording that agrees with the meaning of the concept in question and is clearer than it, and consequently gave a brief definition and explanation of the concept he deals with. This clearly shows that the previous Muʿtazilī theologians’ approach of language-based definition, which was used as an alternative to the conception of Aristotelian definition due to their distanced stance to philosophy was also inherited by al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār. The approach seen in some sources in the period following al-Qāḍī, such as Abū Rashīd al-Nīsābūrī’s al-Ḥudūd, also indicates his influence. (shrink)

The debate on the Prophet’s parents’ (abawayn al-Rasūl) religious status and their position in the hereafter goes back to several narrations from the Prophet himself. This subject, which can principally be considered part of the problem of the religious status of ahl al-fatrah, seems to be raised by the Shīʿah as an issue of creed in line with their understanding of imamate. Abū Ḥanīfah’s (d. 150/767) statement in his al-Fiqh al-akbar that “Prophet’s parents passed away on kufr/jāhiliyyah” is seen as (...) a Sunnī reaction to this earlier position and led to a new area of discussion shaping the approach of several scholars to the issue. The earliest treatises dedicated to this issue are attributed to al-Ghazzālī (d. 505/1111) and Abū Bakr Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 543/1148), but these works did not survive to this day. The earliest examples available today are the six epistles that al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505) penned. Literature on the Prophet’s parents flourished during the Ottoman times after the introduction of al-Fiqh al-akbar to the Ottoman scholarship. Starting with the first examples that belong to Ibrāhīm al-Ḥalabī (d. 956/1549), Ibn al-Khaṭīb al-Amāsī (d. 940/1534), and Kamālpashazādah (d. 940/1534), the treatises in question were mostly written in Arabic in the Ottoman scholarly milieu. Consequently, it seems that Rawḍat al-ṣafā fī wāliday al-Muṣṭafá is the first treatise dedicated to the issue in Ottoman Turkish. In the library catalogue records, some bio-bibliographical sources, and consequently in some modern studies on the issue of abawayn al-Rasūl, Rawḍat al-ṣafā wrongly attributed to a certain Wajdī Aḥmad Efendī (in Turkish: Vecdî Ahmed Efendi). This is probably due to the author’s presentation of himself in the introduction as just “Wajdī,” without making further description. Besides the data in Bursalı Meḥmed Ṭāhir’s Osmanlı Müʾellifleri, no more information could be provided about the identity of Wajdī Aḥmad Efendī who is shown as the author of the treatise. Intra-textual signs such as the author’s words about the reason and process of writing the work, the way he handled the subject and the evidence he put forward indicate that the treatise belongs to Nūḥ ibn Muṣṭafá al-Qūnawī (d. 1070/1660). Indeed, it overlaps with the fact that Nūḥ ibn Muṣṭafá presented himself as Wajdī in many of his other works. Seemingly the fact that Nūḥ ibn Muṣṭafá defends the view that the parents of the Prophet are among the people of salvation (ahl al-najāh), and while doing this, he was mainly based on the view that they were resurrected after death and that their souls are recaptured after they believed in the Prophet, stem from various reasons such as the view that attributed to Abū Ḥanīfah, Nūḥ’s Sufi identity to the extent that he was initiated to the Khalwatiyyah/Gulshaniyyah along with the ever-growing Sufi influences and the consequent idea of nūr-i Muḥammadī in the public sphere, the authority of the narrations attributed to the Prophet, and perception about the Prophet Muḥammed in the public imagination. (shrink)