Questioner: What do you say of the Quran?
Shaykh Ahmad ibn Hanbal(refer to him as Shaykh Hanbal): And you, what do you say about the Knowledge of Allah, The Most High?
Questioner: Did not Allah say "Allah is the creator of all things (Q 13:6)" and is the Quran not a thing?
Shaykh Hanbal: Allah also said "Destroying all things (Q 46:25)", then it destroyed all except whatever Allah willed.
Questioner: "Never comes into them a new reminder from their Lord (Q 21:2)". Can something new be created?
Shaykh Hanbal: "By the Quran that contains the reminder (Q 38:1)". "The" reminder is the Quran and no other says "the".
Questioner: But Shaykh Imran ibn Husayn says "Allah created the reminder."
Shaykh Hanbal: That is not correct, for several have narrated "Allah wrote the reminder."
Questioner: Shaykh Ma'sud says "Allah, Most High, did not create a paradise nor a fire of hell nor a heaven not a earth more tremendous than his own throne."
Shaykh ibn Hanbal: The creation here implies to the items said (paraphrased, he goes on a tangent listing all the things Allah created). It does not apply to the Quran.
The Questions of the Mihna and the Khilafah under the Caliph al-Ma'mun. In this questioning was the imprisonment of the grand Shaykh Ahmad ibn Hanbal.
The rise of the Mu'Tazila and the great Mihna
The word Mu'Tazila come from i'tazala which means to withdraw or to back away from, this is in contrast to the word Khawarij which means to separate. This word and name comes from the life and experience of Wasit ibn Ata who during a debate with Shaykh ul-Islam Hassan al-Basri, left the prayer circle (withdrew) and created his own circle. His main point of contention was that the Quran and the attributes of Allah were created at an unknown point in time and that the only thing uncreated was Allah's Uluhiyyah (his right to be worshipped alone) and all else including his throne was not eternal but created and then became an attribute or never was an attribute. This prayer circle that Wasit ibn Ata created, became the Mu'Tazila and became the last of the classical splinter groups of Islam, following the Khawarij, Shi'i and Murji'ah. The Mu'Tazila became over time a body of reason and s hence within the Ummah without making its views known publicly, they aided the Ummah in the wars of Jihad and against the Khawarij, Murji'ah and Shi'i revolts and favored the innovative taxing plans by late Ummayad rulers in regards to taxation on land and farming resources. However, as a group it was unknown their views on religion and was deemed Sunni or just Sunni with an emphasis on reasoned approach.
These ideals began to change as movements of the Mu'Tazila began to support the newly created Abbasid state supporting the overthrow of the Umayyad and thus gaining allies in the new courts of the Abbasid period. Abbasid court life from the beginning started to diverge from that of the Umayyad in regards to its alliances with minorities and learned individuals opposed to the traditional Muhjahid and tribes. Thus the final product was a more progressive state focused on innovative reform and economic growth rather than outward expansion as preached by the Umayyad. Further the Abbasid realm seeking to differentiate itself from the Umayyad further sought to find faults in the religion of the Umayyad so that their overthrow was legitimate. The first groups they began to turn to for this were the Mu'Tazila during the reign of al-Amin (787-813). Al-Amin while not institutionalizing the ideology accepted many of its premises, including the belief that the Umayyad had committed Kufr Akbar by taking pictures from churches of prophets and putting them upon walls in the palace at Dimshaq. Thus the beginning of the stranglehold of the Mu'Tazila and the start of what is called the Baghdad clique.
The rise of al-Ma'mun and the start of the Mihna
By the beginning of the reign of the of al-Ma'mun, the Mu'Tazila had taken control of the court in Baghdad and had persuaded the Caliph to accept the views that the Quran was created. Al-Ma'mun then under the authority of his allies, the Mu'Tazila (made up of Ulema and scientists) started what is called the Mihna, which means roughly the inquisition. This inquisition started off as a state sponsored ideology, which was to be preached to the Ulema across the Caliphate and then this view espoused would be distributed to the common man, and over time, Mu'Tazilism would replace Sunni Islam as the major ideology of the Ummah. However, as the preaching and persuasion of the Ulema became ineffective, the tactic became one of coercion and thus the name. Prominent Ulema were murdered in the cells of Baghdad and in the fields of Iraq for refusing to say the Quran was uncreated. However the Mihna met a unmovable object to whom murder was difficult.
The honorable Shaykh Ahmad ibn Hanbal was born in Baghdad 781 from Bedoiun originally from Basra. As a teen he studied under the famed Abu Yusuf, the top pupil of Shaykh Abu Hanifah. He became renowned for his mastery of the Hadith and travelled across the Islamic world collecting over 400 authentic Hadith narration a creating the encyclopedia of Fiqh rulings called the al-Musnad, the major Hanbali work used by Saudi Arabia. However, his fame having been created, the Mu'Tazila sent upon him inquisitors to inquire on his Aqeedah (heart) and what was his Manhaj (path). Shaykh ibn Hanbal proved to be far to eloquent and well placed with his words that the inquisitors from far and wide came back to Baghdad with the same answer, that he neither could decide if the Shaykh was with them or against them.
In response to Ahmad ibn Hanbal's witty responses and evasion of authorities while in Syria, he was called by order of the Caliph to Baghdad immediately, as was many Ulema before him, so that he would be convinced away from the ways of the Sunnah or executed and punished for defiance.
"And there is a type of person which gives his life for the pleasure of Allah." Quran 2:207
Ahmad ibn Hanbal agreed to the journey and made for Baghdad. Upon his arrival the city rejoiced at the entry of such a famed Ulema and in his home city nonetheless. He knowing the people visited the Masjids and greeted the people as a famed person, the people loved him for his work and his honesty in regards to the state. However this love was not shared within the court of al-Mu'tasim. The Mu'Tazila debated for days with the Shaykh and attempted to convince him of the creation of the Quran, but the Shaykh stood defiant and sought only to please the one to whom he prayed, not those upon the Shirk or deviant. The proclamation was heard easily, that Allah is filled with the attributes and that the attributes are uncreated and are always a part of him neither created nor ever forgot. This claim was all the Mu'Tazila needed.... They threw him into prison and debated amongst themselves on what to do with him. If he was to be released then he would spread his idea and Baghdad would be in rebellion or they kill him and then Baghdad will again be in rebellion. Thus the action was to keep him in prison and torture him constantly so to force a recant of past ideas. However, in a certain instance of flogging, the people hearing of the suffering of Ahmad ibn Hanbal rioted throughout the city. With wars against the Khurramiyah in Iran, he let the Shaykh go, yet still the damage was done and all knew of the corruption permeating from the Abbasid throne in Baghdad (moving to Samarra at this point).
Shaykh ibn Hanbal would spend the rest of his life inciting the people and speaking against the corruption of the Abbasid state and attacking the tyrannical policy of the Mihna and would face off against the inquisitors of the following al-Wathiq in the 840s. Shaykh Ahmad ibn Hanbal died in 855 in Baghdad of natural causes, after spending his entire life exposing the corruption rampant within the clique of Baghdad that has forsaken its post as the Khilafah and called upon all men and women to fear Allah and to live with the safeguardence and be watchful.
As the Mihna occurred in Iraq, the Khurramiyah known as those upon the religion of joy, had arose to engage the Abbasid in northern Iran. The Khurramiyah called upon Iran to rebel under the cause of righteousness and take back the land lost during the Islamic conquest. It mixed Zoroastrian and Mazdak views with a radical, likely Khawarij inspired, view and thus created a zealous army of peasant soldiers in the hill country of Zanjan. It's leader Banak Khurram lead the group in a rebellion against the Abbasid, and as it is said, "raised the red flag of joy and honor." The Khurramiyah believed in progressive views on sexuality, believing in free sex amongst people with consent and wore red entirely into battle, further they outlawed violence in all cases except in times of rebellion. The rebellion gained fame for achieving victories in Azerbaijan and Golestan against the Khilafah. It would last as the constant backdrop to the north, their raids a constant reminder to tbe Muslim of the weakness of the state which proclaimed the mantle of the Ummah.
Word travels fast in the desert and in the Masjid as it is said, so it did. The word of the treatment of the Ulema and the innovation rampant in the state of the Abbasid was becoming obvious to all with eyes to see, and words became sermons, and the Bedoiun spoke of the injustice as he travelled and the city fined with discontent. The Khawarij lamented of previous loses and the woeful situation they were in, yet they saw ever more opportunity. They claimed with daring words that the Abbasid was false and upon the Shirk for they have taken lords other than Allah and their rule is tyranny. In the same Shi'i worried of the loses and martyrs suffered during the Mihna for being Shi'i and the end of the Shumaytiyya (I will cover then in another chapter, as they pertain to it). The transport of Zanj slaves was larger than ever before and the land to the south of Baghdad fueled by a slave economy in which the toil was unbearable.
In other words the land was ripe for revolt and the blood of the martyrs.
In the next chapter I would like to cover the Anarchy of Samarra, reign of al-Wathiq, Yahya ibn Umar abd the tragedy of al-Muhtadi. As well, the situation of Mamluk slaves in relation to the Arab Muhjahid.
Thus was my first tl and I do not know if this is quality or not.
Shaykh Ahmad ibn Hanbal(refer to him as Shaykh Hanbal): And you, what do you say about the Knowledge of Allah, The Most High?
Questioner: Did not Allah say "Allah is the creator of all things (Q 13:6)" and is the Quran not a thing?
Shaykh Hanbal: Allah also said "Destroying all things (Q 46:25)", then it destroyed all except whatever Allah willed.
Questioner: "Never comes into them a new reminder from their Lord (Q 21:2)". Can something new be created?
Shaykh Hanbal: "By the Quran that contains the reminder (Q 38:1)". "The" reminder is the Quran and no other says "the".
Questioner: But Shaykh Imran ibn Husayn says "Allah created the reminder."
Shaykh Hanbal: That is not correct, for several have narrated "Allah wrote the reminder."
Questioner: Shaykh Ma'sud says "Allah, Most High, did not create a paradise nor a fire of hell nor a heaven not a earth more tremendous than his own throne."
Shaykh ibn Hanbal: The creation here implies to the items said (paraphrased, he goes on a tangent listing all the things Allah created). It does not apply to the Quran.
The Questions of the Mihna and the Khilafah under the Caliph al-Ma'mun. In this questioning was the imprisonment of the grand Shaykh Ahmad ibn Hanbal.
The rise of the Mu'Tazila and the great Mihna
The word Mu'Tazila come from i'tazala which means to withdraw or to back away from, this is in contrast to the word Khawarij which means to separate. This word and name comes from the life and experience of Wasit ibn Ata who during a debate with Shaykh ul-Islam Hassan al-Basri, left the prayer circle (withdrew) and created his own circle. His main point of contention was that the Quran and the attributes of Allah were created at an unknown point in time and that the only thing uncreated was Allah's Uluhiyyah (his right to be worshipped alone) and all else including his throne was not eternal but created and then became an attribute or never was an attribute. This prayer circle that Wasit ibn Ata created, became the Mu'Tazila and became the last of the classical splinter groups of Islam, following the Khawarij, Shi'i and Murji'ah. The Mu'Tazila became over time a body of reason and s hence within the Ummah without making its views known publicly, they aided the Ummah in the wars of Jihad and against the Khawarij, Murji'ah and Shi'i revolts and favored the innovative taxing plans by late Ummayad rulers in regards to taxation on land and farming resources. However, as a group it was unknown their views on religion and was deemed Sunni or just Sunni with an emphasis on reasoned approach.
These ideals began to change as movements of the Mu'Tazila began to support the newly created Abbasid state supporting the overthrow of the Umayyad and thus gaining allies in the new courts of the Abbasid period. Abbasid court life from the beginning started to diverge from that of the Umayyad in regards to its alliances with minorities and learned individuals opposed to the traditional Muhjahid and tribes. Thus the final product was a more progressive state focused on innovative reform and economic growth rather than outward expansion as preached by the Umayyad. Further the Abbasid realm seeking to differentiate itself from the Umayyad further sought to find faults in the religion of the Umayyad so that their overthrow was legitimate. The first groups they began to turn to for this were the Mu'Tazila during the reign of al-Amin (787-813). Al-Amin while not institutionalizing the ideology accepted many of its premises, including the belief that the Umayyad had committed Kufr Akbar by taking pictures from churches of prophets and putting them upon walls in the palace at Dimshaq. Thus the beginning of the stranglehold of the Mu'Tazila and the start of what is called the Baghdad clique.
The rise of al-Ma'mun and the start of the Mihna
By the beginning of the reign of the of al-Ma'mun, the Mu'Tazila had taken control of the court in Baghdad and had persuaded the Caliph to accept the views that the Quran was created. Al-Ma'mun then under the authority of his allies, the Mu'Tazila (made up of Ulema and scientists) started what is called the Mihna, which means roughly the inquisition. This inquisition started off as a state sponsored ideology, which was to be preached to the Ulema across the Caliphate and then this view espoused would be distributed to the common man, and over time, Mu'Tazilism would replace Sunni Islam as the major ideology of the Ummah. However, as the preaching and persuasion of the Ulema became ineffective, the tactic became one of coercion and thus the name. Prominent Ulema were murdered in the cells of Baghdad and in the fields of Iraq for refusing to say the Quran was uncreated. However the Mihna met a unmovable object to whom murder was difficult.
The honorable Shaykh Ahmad ibn Hanbal was born in Baghdad 781 from Bedoiun originally from Basra. As a teen he studied under the famed Abu Yusuf, the top pupil of Shaykh Abu Hanifah. He became renowned for his mastery of the Hadith and travelled across the Islamic world collecting over 400 authentic Hadith narration a creating the encyclopedia of Fiqh rulings called the al-Musnad, the major Hanbali work used by Saudi Arabia. However, his fame having been created, the Mu'Tazila sent upon him inquisitors to inquire on his Aqeedah (heart) and what was his Manhaj (path). Shaykh ibn Hanbal proved to be far to eloquent and well placed with his words that the inquisitors from far and wide came back to Baghdad with the same answer, that he neither could decide if the Shaykh was with them or against them.
In response to Ahmad ibn Hanbal's witty responses and evasion of authorities while in Syria, he was called by order of the Caliph to Baghdad immediately, as was many Ulema before him, so that he would be convinced away from the ways of the Sunnah or executed and punished for defiance.
"And there is a type of person which gives his life for the pleasure of Allah." Quran 2:207
Ahmad ibn Hanbal agreed to the journey and made for Baghdad. Upon his arrival the city rejoiced at the entry of such a famed Ulema and in his home city nonetheless. He knowing the people visited the Masjids and greeted the people as a famed person, the people loved him for his work and his honesty in regards to the state. However this love was not shared within the court of al-Mu'tasim. The Mu'Tazila debated for days with the Shaykh and attempted to convince him of the creation of the Quran, but the Shaykh stood defiant and sought only to please the one to whom he prayed, not those upon the Shirk or deviant. The proclamation was heard easily, that Allah is filled with the attributes and that the attributes are uncreated and are always a part of him neither created nor ever forgot. This claim was all the Mu'Tazila needed.... They threw him into prison and debated amongst themselves on what to do with him. If he was to be released then he would spread his idea and Baghdad would be in rebellion or they kill him and then Baghdad will again be in rebellion. Thus the action was to keep him in prison and torture him constantly so to force a recant of past ideas. However, in a certain instance of flogging, the people hearing of the suffering of Ahmad ibn Hanbal rioted throughout the city. With wars against the Khurramiyah in Iran, he let the Shaykh go, yet still the damage was done and all knew of the corruption permeating from the Abbasid throne in Baghdad (moving to Samarra at this point).
Shaykh ibn Hanbal would spend the rest of his life inciting the people and speaking against the corruption of the Abbasid state and attacking the tyrannical policy of the Mihna and would face off against the inquisitors of the following al-Wathiq in the 840s. Shaykh Ahmad ibn Hanbal died in 855 in Baghdad of natural causes, after spending his entire life exposing the corruption rampant within the clique of Baghdad that has forsaken its post as the Khilafah and called upon all men and women to fear Allah and to live with the safeguardence and be watchful.
As the Mihna occurred in Iraq, the Khurramiyah known as those upon the religion of joy, had arose to engage the Abbasid in northern Iran. The Khurramiyah called upon Iran to rebel under the cause of righteousness and take back the land lost during the Islamic conquest. It mixed Zoroastrian and Mazdak views with a radical, likely Khawarij inspired, view and thus created a zealous army of peasant soldiers in the hill country of Zanjan. It's leader Banak Khurram lead the group in a rebellion against the Abbasid, and as it is said, "raised the red flag of joy and honor." The Khurramiyah believed in progressive views on sexuality, believing in free sex amongst people with consent and wore red entirely into battle, further they outlawed violence in all cases except in times of rebellion. The rebellion gained fame for achieving victories in Azerbaijan and Golestan against the Khilafah. It would last as the constant backdrop to the north, their raids a constant reminder to tbe Muslim of the weakness of the state which proclaimed the mantle of the Ummah.
Word travels fast in the desert and in the Masjid as it is said, so it did. The word of the treatment of the Ulema and the innovation rampant in the state of the Abbasid was becoming obvious to all with eyes to see, and words became sermons, and the Bedoiun spoke of the injustice as he travelled and the city fined with discontent. The Khawarij lamented of previous loses and the woeful situation they were in, yet they saw ever more opportunity. They claimed with daring words that the Abbasid was false and upon the Shirk for they have taken lords other than Allah and their rule is tyranny. In the same Shi'i worried of the loses and martyrs suffered during the Mihna for being Shi'i and the end of the Shumaytiyya (I will cover then in another chapter, as they pertain to it). The transport of Zanj slaves was larger than ever before and the land to the south of Baghdad fueled by a slave economy in which the toil was unbearable.
In other words the land was ripe for revolt and the blood of the martyrs.
In the next chapter I would like to cover the Anarchy of Samarra, reign of al-Wathiq, Yahya ibn Umar abd the tragedy of al-Muhtadi. As well, the situation of Mamluk slaves in relation to the Arab Muhjahid.
Thus was my first tl and I do not know if this is quality or not.
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