Islam Has No Ulama

My, my. Tamim Ansary's "Destiny Disrupted" is an informative and easy to read book.

In my quest to bring about the success of the Mu'tazilites and their Neoplotinus ways the big obstacle standing in their way was the Ulama class in Islamic Society. The Scholars who largely are a self-promoting group in Islamic Society with a tendacy towards a conservative approach o not asking questions. Especially Ibn Hanbal who seems to be the Martin Luther of Islam with his "Trust in the Bible and Hadiths only" approach to Islam. Now the Ulama by the time of the Abbasaids were tough cookies, they controlled laws, education, and social institutions.

Therefore we must go back and look to he original creator of the Ulama, the Caliph Omar. The guy actually responsible for banning alcohol. Namely, though it was the social religious crisis following The Prophet's death regarding a new to scrunch over every word he said, as after all since he was the Last Prophet his words were final and no new changes would come or be changed in religious thought-so there was a need to interpret and soft through his words by a devoted class of scholars.

So then, how does one remove or weaken the Ulama? The basis of their recruitment seems to be their biggest asset, namely that they picked themselves their own members. Which made them accoutable only to themselves. If the Ualama were selected instea amongst a certain class or ethnic group or were appointed then they would have a more assailable position in Islamic Society. Of course, if perhaps Muhammad had organize a religious book before his death then their possibly would be no need for the Ulama but then their may be no need for interpretation if his views were plainly set out.
 
Ulama pre-existed to Omar, being more close of theological/judicial auxiliaries rather than a class.

I think that both the contradictions in Qu'Ran (that is both a religious and judicial book) and the growth of Muslim conquests (whom provoked the need of a more formal and organised legalist body) made the ulamas as the class you described pretty unavoidable.

I'm not sure that ulamas were that conservative or even united, actually : while they based their power on their capacity to interpret Qu'ran, Hadits, Fiqs, customs, uses, testimony... (that give quite many things to use) they differed regarding these interpretations because they hierarchised them differently and added or removed certain ones
Medieval muslims rulers promoted different schools regarding their needs, and you had fierce political struggle between them.

By exemple the Zahiri school, clearly the most rigorist, appeared in a Iraqi context where mysiticsm, relative liberalism were quite dynamic (among other things, the agricultural issues weren't the same than in Mecca). Zahiri appeared then in reaction against this.

Now, I doubt that ulama "controlled laws, education, and social institutions", the schools that did so did it supported by the authority (emiral, caliphal, etc) while others were put back in periphery (reinforcing "holier-than-thou" style) as the minha enforced against non-Mu'tazilites.
The most comfortable way to legitimise the opposition to the ruler, was to do it on the religious/judicial base : not only it was often popularly supported (critically in areas close to jihad regions), but you would be certain to be supported by a school or another hoping to be dominant under your benevolent rule.

Passed a certain amount of time, I don't think you can really prevent the rise of ulema school without having to damage Islamic conquests (in order to prevent too much political split).

The issue with Mu'tazilites is they can be considered as well as a quite special ulama school, and they acted such ITOL, and totally prone to the same political/ideological infighting than them.
Really, butterfly the Minha and you would certainly allow more room for them. The only real time they were supported by power, they tried to crush the others (while they didn't managed to have an hold passed a part of Abbasid elites) and it didn't ended well.

Butterflying the Turkish invasions could help, preventing the rise of "punishment of God", "we can win only by being true Muslims", etc. stuff that appears regularly.
 
You can't get rid of the ulema. The ulema are simply the intellectuals and theologians of Muslim society. Every society has them. And no religious leader can possibly conceive of every single thing that could happen and write down what to do in that case.

If you are looking for ways to prevent the decline of intellectual thought in the Dar-al-Islam, you do have several ways.

The first is that Greek philosophy was discredited because the caliphs who promoted it over a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam were often associated with licentiousness and corruption. The anti-philosophers were thus seen as promoting a more just society. If it were the opposite way, or even that the caliphs at the time were better at promoting a more just society and developed a popular basis of support, then the Greek school is more likely to survive.

Other possibilities might include the Islamic conquests splitting up into separate states, allowing one or more of those states to develop differently than the Arabs. An Islamic state based more on a heavily Greek or Persian population which likely be more willing to support intellectual discussion than the Arabs who still had a more bedouin mindset.
 
Other possibilities might include the Islamic conquests splitting up into separate states, allowing one or more of those states to develop differently than the Arabs. An Islamic state based more on a heavily Greek or Persian population which likely be more willing to support intellectual discussion than the Arabs who still had a more bedouin mindset.

That happened OTL - multiple states, that is. The Abbasids even before they were puppets didn't rule the entire Islamic world for very long (if at all).
 
Well, I do have interest in wacking the Assassains before they can wack Nizam and Malik Arslan or they wack Ghazali.
 
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