Knowledge and Reality: The Epistemological Opening

An-Nasafi's creed begins with epistemology — the theory of knowledge — before proceeding to theology proper. This organizational choice reflects the kalam tradition's recognition that before asserting anything about God, the Prophet, or the afterlife, a careful thinker must first establish what counts as knowledge and what sources of knowledge are reliable. At-Taftazani's commentary on this opening section is one of its most intellectually rich parts.

An-Nasafi's opening statement is precise: the realities of things are established, and knowledge of them is possible. This is directed against the sophists and extreme skeptics who denied either that things have stable realities or that humans can know those realities. Having established this foundational realism, an-Nasafi proceeds to identify the sources of knowledge: the sound senses, sound reason, and mutawatir (mass-transmitted) reports.

At-Taftazani's commentary expands each of these points carefully. On the senses: what makes a sense sound rather than impaired? How does one account for cases of sensory error? The commentary acknowledges that individual senses can err while maintaining that properly functioning senses under normal conditions reliably produce knowledge. On reason: what counts as sound reasoning, and how is it distinguished from fallacious inference? The commentary provides an analysis of the conditions for valid inference that draws on the kalam tradition's engagement with Aristotelian logic.

The treatment of mutawatir reports is particularly important for the theological enterprise. Kalam theology relies on the mass-transmission of prophetic reports as the foundation for knowing the content of revelation. At-Taftazani explains carefully what mass transmission means: a report transmitted by so many independent sources, in so many contexts, that coordinated deception is rationally impossible. Such reports produce necessary knowledge in recipients — not merely probable belief. This epistemic status is the basis for treating the content of the Quran and soundly transmitted hadith as certain foundations for theological argument.

The Maturidi tradition's epistemological opening also notably includes revelation as a fourth source of knowledge alongside the three already mentioned. While the Ash'ari school similarly affirms the authority of revelation, the Maturidi school's explicit integration of revelation as a separate epistemic category alongside sense, reason, and transmission reflects its commitment to the comprehensive scope of knowledge available to Muslims. At-Taftazani discusses how these sources relate to and interact with one another, establishing the epistemological framework within which all subsequent theological claims are situated.