MIHNA

"Mihna" is the Arabic term for a test or a trial. In its most common historical usage, Mihna refers to the inquisition launched by the seventh Abbasid caliph, al-Ma˒mun (r. 813–833) toward the end of his reign to enforce the doctrine of the createdness of the Qur˒an. The Mihna has loomed large in the way medieval historians represented the reign and the legacy of al-Ma˒mun, and modern scholars have often seen the Mihna and its eventual failure as a major episode in the religious and political history of the first centuries of Islam.

History

In 833, while at Raqqa in northern Mesopotamia, al-Ma˒mun wrote to his governor of Baghdad, ordering him to examine the views held by his judges and the scholars of hadith regarding the Qur˒an. The caliph believed that, contrary to what "ignorant" people thought, the Qur˒an was not eternally existent—for this was an attribute that belonged only to God—but created by Him, and that this was how God Himself had spoken of it. Therefore, al-Ma˒mun believed, supposing the Qur˒an to be uncreated and eternal threatened to compromise the unity (tawhid) of God, and thus to undermine the very foundations of religion. As he lamented in his letters to his governor, most people were too ignorant of the reality of religion to hold sound beliefs about it, and yet they—and the demagogues who aspired to their leadership—claimed to be the most assiduous followers of Muhammad's normative example, the hadith. As one entrusted with knowledge, and with the obligation to uphold "God's right[s]," al-Ma˒mun wanted therefore to see to it that false beliefs about the Qur˒an were rectified.

Most of those who were examined on the question of the Qur˒an's createdness—by al-Ma˒mun's governor of Baghdad, by the caliph himself, or by his officials in the provinces—ended up declaring their adherence to the caliphal position. The most famous dissenter, however, was the noted hadith scholar of Baghdad, Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855). He, alongside another recalcitrant scholar, was sent to al-Ma˒mun's military camp in Tarsus to be interrogated, but the caliph died before he could attend to the matter and Ibn Hanbal was returned to Baghdad. This, however, was only the beginning of the Mihna, and of Ibn Hanbal's long and much-celebrated ordeal.

In the history of Islamic theology, the doctrine of the uncreatedness of the Qur˒an (khalq al-Qur˒an) is associated primarily with the rationalist Mu˓tazila school. However, several other theologians also held this position. These theologians have often been characterized in Islamic heresiography as the "Jahmiyya," for their putative association with doctrines held by an early and much-maligned figure named Jahm b. Safwan (d. 745). Al-Ma˒mun himself was not a Mu˓tazili, for he did not share the Mu˓tazila's characteristic doctrine of free will, but he agreed with them on the createdness of the Qur˒an. Already in 827, the caliph had publicly declared his support for this doctrine, though it was only in 833 that he went on to institute the Mihna.

On his deathbed, al-Ma˒mun left instructions that his successor, Abu Ishaq al-Mu˓tasim (r. 833–842), continue to uphold his position on the Qur˒an. During the latter's reign, Ibn Hanbal was interrogated and flogged for refusing to accept the Qur˒an's createdness. A central figure during the Mihna years was the Mu˓tazili chief judge, Ahmad Ibn Abi Du˒ad (d. 854), who is represented in Sunni historiography as being far more anxious to continue the Inquisition than the caliphal successors of al-Ma˒mun themselves might have been. Later historians also lay much of the responsibility for the flogging of Ibn Hanbal on Ibn Abi Du˒ad. For his part, Ibn Hanbal is reported to have remained steadfast despite the flogging, after which he was released and left alone by the prosecutors of the Mihna. His release is usually explained in Sunni historiography as being due to fears of popular commotion against his persecution, though some (largely unfavorable) sources claim the real reason for it to have been that he too had eventually capitulated to the authorities. This, however, seems unlikely, in view of the severity with which Ibn Hanbal himself later treated many of those who had acknowledged the doctrine of the Qur˒an's createdness during the Mihna.

The Inquisition continued under al-Mu˓tasim's successor, al-Wathiq (r. 842–847), who appears to have pursued it rather more vigorously than had al-Mu˓tasim. Indeed, he went so far as to interrogate Muslim prisoners in Byzantine captivity about their view of the Qur˒an before deciding whether or not they were to be ransomed. The harshness of the state's inquisitorial policies led some people of Baghdad to attempt a revolt, but the plot failed and its leader, Ahmad ibn Nasr al-Khuza˓i, who was closely associated with the scholars of hadith, was executed (c. 845–846). Soon, however, with the accession of a new caliph—al-Mutawakkil (r. 847–861)—the Mihna itself began to unravel. In 849, this caliph forbade disputations about the Qur˒an, and in the same year he ordered several leading scholars to narrate hadith to the people, refuting the doctrines of the Mu˓tazila and the Jahmiyya. A more decisive demonstration of the shift in caliphal policy came when, in 851, the Mu˓tazili chief judge, Ibn Abi Du˒ad, and his son (also a judge in the then-Abbasid capital of Samarra) were removed from office and their property was confiscated. This, for practical purposes, signaled the end of the Mihna, though the doctrine of the createdness of the Qur˒an would continue to be debated in theological circles for centuries.

Interpretations of the Mihna

Modern scholars have much debated the meaning and significance of the Mihna, and there is no consensus on why al-Ma˒mun so insisted on the doctrine of the Qur˒an's createdness. Al-Ma˒mun's own explanation was that it was his calling, as caliph and imam, to provide guidance to his subjects and, in particular, to rectify their dangerously wayward beliefs about the Qur˒an. Yet modern scholars have often discerned motives behind the Mihna which go beyond a specific theological controversy. In God's Caliph, Patricia Crone and Martin Hinds have argued that al-Ma˒mun was really trying, through the Mihna, to make a last-ditch effort to reclaim a religious authority that had belonged to earlier caliphs but which had been eroded by the growing influence of the scholars of hadith and of the ulema in general. To these scholars, religious authority was enshrined, not in the will or verdicts of the caliphs, but rather in the hadith of the Prophet, and of this the ulema claimed to be the sole interpreters. This position was unacceptable to al-Ma˒mun, and the Mihna represented a vigorous if ultimately abortive effort to make the scholars subservient to the caliphs.

It is not clear, however, if the Abbasid caliphs prior to al-Ma˒mun did claim the sort of overarching religious authority that Crone and Hinds impute to them. The Mihna is perhaps better interpreted not as the decisive culmination of a struggle over the form or locus of authoritative religious guidance but, instead, as a break with the evolving patterns of caliphal patronage under the early Abbasids. Rather than co-opt or draw close to the emerging scholars of hadith, al-Ma˒mun sought to rein in their influence and assert his own authority as the arbiter of right belief. These scholars, best represented by Ibn Hanbal, were the principal target of the caliph's ire and of his effort to assert his authority.

As the names of those questioned indicate, however, scholars of hadith were not alone in their tribulation. Some of those examined also had a record of political opposition to the caliph, and this suggests that the Mihna's uses extended beyond theological speculation and even beyond the caliph's assertion of religious authority. For instance, several recent authors have observed that Ibrahim b. al-Mahdi was among those interrogated during the Mihna. Ibrahim was not a religious scholar but, rather, a prominent member of the Abbasid family and he had been declared caliph in Baghdad following the civil war between al-Amin and al-Ma˒mun. Even some of the scholars who were questioned during the Mihna were suspect on political grounds. For instance, the widely respected scholar Abu Mushir al-Ghassani (d. 833) of Damascus had sided with an anti-Abbasid revolt in Syria. Ahmad b. Nasr al-Khuza˓i's execution during the reign of al-Wathiq owed more to his abortive revolt than to his views on the Qur˒an, even though it was ostensibly for the latter that he was killed. In general, it seems fair to say that a variety of factors were involved in the institution and continuation of the Mihna, as well as in the choice of those who were interrogated during its course.

Modern scholarly interpretations of the larger significance of the Mihna are necessarily shaped by how it is seen in relation to Abbasid history, and to early Islamic history in general. If early Abbasid history is viewed as a continuing contest over religious authority between "God's caliph" and the emerging ulema, then the Mihna assumes the character of a watershed event, the failure of which permanently divested the caliphs of any significant role in religious life and established a lasting "separation" between the political and the religious authorities. However, there is little evidence for such a contest between the caliphs and the ulema prior to al-Ma˒mun, just as there are many indications of caliphal participation in the community's religious life after the Mihna. Caliphs could still undertake the Qur˒anic obligation of "commanding right and forbidding wrong." The caliphs al-Qadir (r. 991–1031) and al-Qa˒im (r. 1031–1075) led efforts to devise a theological creed against the Mu˓talzila and other unwelcome groups; and caliphs could still participate in the deliberations of the jurists. It is also worth noting that, in his influential treatise on constitutional theory, al-Mawardi (d.1058) should have listed juridical expertise among the necessary qualifications for the caliphate, for even if such a stipulation was more wishful thinking than a realistic expectation, it still reveals something about how jurists viewed the caliphate two centuries after the Mihna. It is true, of course, that as the ulema's scholarly specializations evolved—a process already unmistakably underway before al-Ma'mun—there was progressively less space for caliphs to authoritatively shape religious discourses in the community over which they presided. Yet the constraining of that space is better analyzed not with reference to any decisive impact the Mihna itself may have had on it, but rather in light of the long and complex history of the ulema and, of course, that of the caliphate.

If the failure of the Mihna did not remove the caliphs from religious life, the entire protracted episode and its aftermath did nevertheless contribute to the vigor and identity of the emerging ulema. The end of the Mihna brought to a close the political ascendancy of the Mu˓tazili theologians, who were replaced in caliphal favor by the scholars of hadith. Ibn Hanbal was much sought after by Caliph al-Mutawakkil and his officials; and though he is reported to have been much perturbed by what he saw as this unwanted attention, there can be little doubt that royal patronage was one of the factors contributing, in the succeeding generations, to the growing prominence of Ibn Hanbal's followers in the religious life of Baghdad. The scholars of hadith had already, during the Mihna, shown themselves to have considerable popular support. Indeed, such increasing prominence may, arguably, have provoked at least some of al-Ma˒mun's suspicions of them in the first place. The end of the Mihna further deepened and extended the populist roots of early Sunnism and, in particular, of those adhering to the school of law that came to be identified with the name of Ahmad b. Hanbal.

In theological terms, a major facet of the Mihna's significance lies in its contribution to the articulation of the "orthodox" Sunni view on the nature of the Qur˒an. Al-Ma˒mun had accused his opponents of believing the Qur˒an to be co-eternal with God but, as Madelung—following the medieval Hanbali jurist and theologian Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328)—has observed, early hadith scholars had usually been content to characterize the Qur˒an as God's speech and to leave the matter there. In response to the doctrine al-Ma˒mun wanted to enforce, however, the traditionists came to hold that the Qur˒an was indeed uncreated. This dogma then became a defining feature of Sunni theology, though there continued to be much disagreement, long after the Mihna, on its precise meaning and implications.

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Muhammad Qasim Zaman

Mihna

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