It was, however, under the earlier 'Abbásid Caliphs, notably
in the reign of the Caliph al-Ma'mún (A.D. 813-833) and his
son al-Wáthiq (A.D. 842-847), that the Mu'tazilite school
was most powerful. It had taken possession of these Caliphs
and their Courts, had enriched its stores of argument and
methods of dialectic by the study of Greek Philosophy, and,
supported thus by its internal strength and the external favour
of the governing classes, bade fair altogether to extinguish
the orthodox party, towards whom, in spite of its generally
liberal and tolerant attitude, it showed itself irreconcilably
hostile. The orthodox doctrine that the Qur'án was uncreate
they held in particular detestation. In the year
A.H. 211 (A.D. 826: Ṭabarí iii, p. 1099) al-Ma'mún, having
nearly provoked a civil war by his Shí'ite proclivities, and
especially by his nomination of the Eighth Imám of the
Shí'ites, 'Alí ar-Riḍá, as his successor to the throne (a difficulty
whence, with singular inconsistency, he extricated himself by
secretly poisoning the Imám and instigating the assassination
of the too zealous minister, Faḍl b. Sahl, who had counselled
this step), proclaimed the doctrine that the Qur'án was created,
not uncreate, as an indisputable truth; and seven years later,
in the last year of his Caliphate, he compelled seven eminent
men of learning (amongst whom was Ibn Sa'd, the secretary
of the great historian al-Wáqidí) to declare their adhesion to
this doctrine, after which he wrote a long letter to Isḥáq b.
Ibráhím bidding him question such theologians as he suspected
of holding the prohibited belief, and punish such as refused to
declare the Qur'án to be created. Some two dozen eminent
and highly esteemed Muslims, the most notable of whom was
Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, the founder of one of the four orthodox
schools of the Sunnites, were haled before this tribunal, and,
by threats and imprisonment, most of them were induced to
subscribe to the Caliph's declaration that the Qur'án was
created, save Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, who stood firm, and, but
for the sudden death of al-Ma'mún, which happened shortly
afterwards, would have been in grave peril of his life.*
Al-
Ín ján-i-'áriyát ki bi Ḥáfidh sipurd Dúst—
Rúzí rukh-ash bi-bínam, u taslím-i-way kunam.
“This borrowed soul which the Friend [i.e., God] entrusted to
Ḥáfidh—
One day I shall see His Face and shall yield it up to him.”
It would not be just that our admiration for the Mu'tazilites, whose liberal views so greatly conduced to the splendour of this wonderful epoch, should tempt us to overlook their unusual and regrettable harshness towards those doctrines which are now generally prevalent and accounted orthodox in all Sunnite countries. Yet perhaps there was a reason for their harshness. They may have been conscious that doctrines of extreme Calvinism—or Fatalism, if the word be preferred—must in the long run (at least in Asia, which is more logical than Europe in its applications of theory to daily life) destroy effort and prevent progress; they may have foreseen that the literal interpretation of an inspired Scripture which followed naturally from a belief in its Eternity, not only in the future but in the past, would inevitably stereotype and narrow the religious outlook in such a way that all flexibility, all power of adapting itself to new conditions or carrying conviction to the minds of intelligent men, would be lost; and they may have felt that the belief that God could be seen by men must tend to an anthropomorphic and debased conception of the Deity. Whether or no they realised these results of the victory of orthodoxy, such were in reality its effects, and the retrograde movement of Islám, inaugurated by the triumph of al-Ash'arí (of which we shall speak in a later chapter), was but accelerated and accentuated by the overthrow of the Caliphate and the sack of Baghdad by the vandals of Mongolia in the middle of the thirteenth century. Changíz and Hulágú on the one hand, and al-Ash'arí on the other, probably contributed as much as any three individuals to the destruction of the material and intellectual glories of the Golden Age of the early 'Abbásid Caliphs.
The further development of the Mu'tazilite doctrine is admirably summed up by Dozy (Chauvin's French translation, pp. 205-207):—
“This doctrine was subsequently remodelled and propagated Further development of the Mu'tazilite doctrine. under the influence of the Philosophy of Aristotle. The sect, as was in the nature of things, subdivided. All the Mu'tazilites, however, agreed in certain points. They denied the existence of the Attributes in God, and contested everything which could prejudice the dogma of the Divine Unity. To remove from God all idea of injustice, they recognised man's entire freedom of action. They taught that all the truths necessary for salvation belong to the domain of reason, and that they may be acquired solely by the light of reason, no less before than after Revelation, in such wise that man, at all times and in all places, ought to possess these truths. But to these primary propositions the different sects added others peculiar to themselves. Most of them have treated theology with much profundity; others, on the contrary, became involved in hair-splittings, or even diverged widely from the spirit of Islám. Some there were, for example, who believed in Metempsychosis, and who imagined that the animals of each species form a community which has as a prophet an animal like unto themselves; strange to say they based this last doctrine on two verses of the Qur'án. And there were many other follies of the same kind. But it would be unjust to render all the Mu'tazilites responsible for the errors of some, and, when all is said and done, they deserve to be spoken of with respect. In meditating on what religion bade them believe, they became the rationalists of Islám. Thus it came about that one of their principal affirmations was that the Qur'án was really created, although the Prophet had asserted the contrary. ‘Were the Qur'án uncreate,’ they said, ‘it would be necessary to admit the existence of two Eternal Beings.’ From the moment when the Qur'án, or Word of God, was held as something created, it could no longer, having regard to the immutability of the Deity, be considered as belonging to His essence. Thereby the whole dogma of revelation was little by little seriously shaken, and many Mu'tazilites frankly declared that it was not impossible to write something as good as, or even better than, the Qur'án. They therefore protested against the dogma of the divine origin of the Qur'án and against Inspiration. The idea which they entertained of God was purer and more exalted than that of the orthodox. They would not listen to any corporeal conception of the Divinity. Mahomet had said, ‘One day ye shall see your Lord as you saw the full moon at the Battle of Badr,’ and these words, which the orthodox took literally, were for them an ever new stumbling-block. They therefore explained them away by saying that man, after his death, would know God by the eyes of the spirit, that is to say, by the reason. They equally refused to countenance the pretension that God created the unbeliever,* and showed themselves but little pleased with the consecrated formula which says of God that ‘He hurteth and He advantageth.’ They could not admit the miracles related in the Qur'án, and so denied that the sea was dried up to yield a passage for the Israelites led by Moses, that Moses' rod was changed into a serpent, and that Jesus raised the dead to life. Mahomet himself did not escape their attacks. There was one sect which maintained that the Prophet married too many wives, and that his contemporary Abú Dharr al-Ghifárí had much more self-restraint and piety than him, which also was perfectly true.”