The Early Ismaili Daʿwa in Transoxania: al-Māturīdī as Witness from Samarqand

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p> Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d. 944 <jats:sc>CE</jats:sc> ), the prominent Sunni theologian, was active in Samarqand during a noteworthy period of Samanid patronage for early Ismailism under the emir Naṣr <jats:sc>II</jats:sc> (r. 914–943). Drawing on the entirety of the relevant material from Māturīdī’s <jats:italic>K. Taʾwīlāt al-Qurʾān</jats:italic> and his <jats:italic>K. al-Tawḥīd</jats:italic> , this study presents him as an unparalleled outsider witness to the Ismaili <jats:italic>daʿwa</jats:italic> in Islamic Transoxania. His testimonies on Ismaili doctrines can be categorized under four main topic headings: Shiʿi identity and hermeneutics; prophetology and quranic revelation; the ontology of spiritual resurrection; and metaphysics and theology. In addition to demonstrating the striking concordance of Māturīdī’s testimony with a range of early Ismaili sources, this article considers evidence for his access to the <jats:italic>K. al-Maḥṣūl</jats:italic> by Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Nasafī (d. 944), founder of the original philosophical turn in classical Ismailism. </jats:p>