Abu Ishaq al-Saffar al-Bukhari

Abu Ishaq al-Saffar al-Bukhari أبو إسحاق الصفّار البخاري
Title	Rukn al-Islam (the Pillar of Islam)[1]
Personal
Born	460 A.H. = 1067-8 A.D.[2] Bukhara
Died	534 A.H. = 1139 A.D. Bukhara
Religion	Islam
Era	Islamic Golden Age
Region	Transoxiana, modern-day  Uzbekistan
Denomination	Sunni
Jurisprudence	Hanafi
Creed	Maturidi[3]
Main interest(s)	Aqidah, Kalam (Islamic theology), Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence)
Notable work(s)	Talkhis al-Adilla li-Qawa'id al-Tawhid
Muslim leader
Influenced by Abu Hanifa Abu Mansur al-Maturidi
Influenced Abu al-Barakat al-Nasafi

Abu Ishaq al-Saffar al-Bukhari (Arabic: أبو إسحاق الصفّار البخاري), was an important representative of the Sunni theological school of Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (d. c. 333/944) and the author of Talkhis al-Adilla li-Qawa'id al-Tawhid (Arabic: تلخيص الأدلّة لقواعد التوحيد) which is a voluminous kalam work.^[4][5][6]

He lived in Bukhara under the dominance of West Karakhanids. His theological works, his method in kalam, and frequent reference to his works by Ottoman and Arab scholars indicate that al-Saffar is a respected and authoritative Hanafi-Maturidi theologian who systematically established his ideas about kalam believing that information based upon reason, revealed knowledge and senses are determinative in his area.^[7][8]

Name

Abu Ishaq Ibrahim b. Isma'il b. Ahmad b. Ishaq b. Shayth, known as al-Zahid al-Saffar.^[9][10]

The alternative name Ibrahim b. Ishaq, recorded by Brockelmann in his GAL, is found only in the British Museum manuscript no. 1577, Add. 27526, and is presumably erroneous, since the few bibliographical sources that mention al-Saffar call him Ibn Isma'il.^[11][12]

Books

In his work titled Talkhis al-Adilla li-Qawa'id al-Tawhid on kalām,^{[Note 1]} he wrote extensively about al-Asma' al-Husna (the Most Beautiful Names of God). Approximately one third of this work, published in two volumes, was devoted to al-Asma' al-Husna. In the pre-Saffar Hanafi-Maturidi theological literature, there was no other work that addressed al-Asma' al-Husna in such an extensive way.^[13]

Notes

See also

• Abu Hanifa
• Abu Mansur al-Maturidi
• Abu al-Yusr al-Bazdawi
• Abu al-Mu'in al-Nasafi
• List of Maturidis
• List of Muslim theologians

Further reading

• Hümeyra Sevgülü Haciibrahimoğlu (2021). Abdullah Demir (ed.). Esmâ-i Hüsnâya Dayanan Kelâm Anlayışı: Ebû İshak es-Saffâr Örneği [The Understanding of Kalām Based on al-Asmāʾ al-Husnā: The Case of Abū Isḥāq al-Ṣaffār]. Ankara, Turkey: Oku Okut Yayınları. ISBN 9786057441607.

References