Hamzah Yusuf
Hamzah Yusuf: “What is interesting about Central Asia is – he (Abu Mansur Al-Maturidi) came from a place that is a central of Buddhist learning and I find this deeply significant I actually wrote a paper called: ‘How the Buddhists saved Islam’. It is a paper in which I tried – and I’ve never seen this anywhere – … to show that the paradoxical formulas that are introduced by the Maturidis and Ash’aris are actually coming from Buddhist logic.”
First: Islam does not need any other religion or any logic, because it is perfect and complete, {This day I have perfected your religion for you, completed My favors upon you, and have chosen for you, Islam as your religion} (5:3). “This day” came during the lifetime of Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah. Islam is perfect and complete and needs no saving.
Second: Muslims take their aqeedah (creed, articles of faith) from the Quran and Sunnah, both revealed to them by He Whose knowledge and wisdom are perfect, and Who knows everything, including His Own Attributes. The mere suggestion found in HY’s statement constitutes a massive insult to Islam and He, Allah, Who perfected and completed it.
Third: HY may have thought that he was doing a favor to Maturidi and Ash`ari aqeedah by his statement here. Instead he exposed them as being alien ideologies not founded on the Quran and Sunnah, but on Buddhist logic!
Fourth: Here HY makes a shocking statement, “The paradoxical formulas that are introduced by the Maturidis and Asharis are actually coming from Buddhist logic.”
- Muslims did not know that their Islamic creed, which came from Allah Himself, was still being formulated well into the fourth century of Islam. Then, what does {This day I have perfected your religion for you, completed My favors upon you, and have chosen for you, Islam as your religion} mean?
- Here, HY admits that the Maturidi and Ash`ari aqeedah were ‘formulated,’ meaning, manufactured, made up, invented, thus justifying the rejection of these deviant aqeedah by Ahl Ass-Sunnah wa Al-Jama`ah scholars for being deviant creeds.
- What paradoxical formulas did Maturidis and Ash’aris introduce into Islam from Buddhism?
- Is it that suffering is common (everyone suffers)?
- Or is it that the cause of suffering is self, greed, desires and ignorance?
- Or is it that the end of suffering comes from renunciation of greed and ignorance?
- Or is it that the path to end suffering comes from the correct way of living by following the eight-fold path of life: Right Knowledge, Right Attitude, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Means of Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Awareness, and Right Meditation?
- Or is it that ‘God (or gods)’ and heaven are not permanent, and can -and do- change?
- Or is it the belief that when one finishes his or her credit, i.e., karma, in heaven, which is not eternal, will undergo rebirth into a human, or another being, such as an animal, like a lizard or a snake?
Why would anyone seek guidance from such non-in-all and all-in-none-directional beliefs that have the full rights to the contract with vagueness and nonsensicalness, and ignore the beauty, magnificence, clarity, and power of the Quran and Sunnah?
Meanwhile, Hamzah Yusuf still didn’t tell us if the Maturidis and Ash`aris settled such paradoxical disputes between them about Allah’s Kalam, or if the Quran is created or not, or if, {Say Allah is One}, is no different in meaning than, {Woe to the hands of Abu Lahab, and woe to him}! That will have to come later.
We seek refuge with Allah from this paradoxical deviation and organized nonsense.