Origin 833 to 848 CE
If God's speech is eternal and distinct from His essence, the Mutazila argued, then something other than God is eternal and His oneness is compromised. They concluded that the Quran is created. Their opponents answered that a God who was once without speech is not the God of the Quran, and that the recited words are the expression of an eternal attribute rather than a thing made in time. The caliph al-Mamun imposed the created position by inquisition from 833, requiring judges and scholars to affirm it. Ahmad ibn Hanbal refused, was flogged and imprisoned, and outlived the policy; when it was abandoned around 848 his refusal had become the defining act of Sunni traditionalism. Ashari theology later held the middle: the eternal speech is uncreated, the ink and the sound are not. Ibadi and Zaydi theology kept the created position, which remains one of the clearest markers of their difference from the Sunni majority.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period Held ByThe Mutazila, and after them Ibadi and Zaydi theology, which keep the created position and for whom it remains one of the clearest markers of difference from the Sunni majority. 1 Defining MomentThe mihna, the inquisition begun by the caliph al-Mamun in 833, which required judges and scholars to affirm the created position. Ahmad ibn Hanbal refused, was flogged and imprisoned, and outlived the policy; when it was abandoned around 848 his refusal had become the defining act of Sunni traditionalism. 1 Status
Status Within the TraditionStandard teaching, not formally defined 1Tradition: Ibadism Status Within the TraditionRejected, or not held, within this tradition 1Tradition: Sunni Standing as a Comparative CategoryA standard analytic category in the study of religion 2 Doctrinal Category Current StatusAshari theology settled on a middle position that became the Sunni mainstream: the eternal speech is uncreated, while the ink and the sound are not. 1 Attestation
Meaning in the Attesting SourceThe question is whether God's speech is an eternal attribute or a thing made in time. The Mutazila argued that an eternal Quran distinct from God's essence would make something other than God eternal and so compromise His oneness, and concluded that the Quran is created. 1 Position Profile
Opposing PositionThat a God who was once without speech is not the God of the Quran, and that the recited words are the expression of an eternal attribute rather than a thing made. 1 Doctrinal category (class) Learn More
The Mihna, the Test Ahmad Ibn Hanbal Refused to Pass
The doctrine became a matter of state coercion rather than academic dispute in 833, when the caliph al-Mamun ordered provincial judges to administer a direct test: a scholar or judge seeking to give testimony or hold office had to affirm, under questioning, that the Quran was created. The mechanism came to be called the Mihna, the trial, and it ran under three successive caliphs, examining witnesses, imprisoning those who refused, and in a small number of cases flogging them, before the policy was abandoned around 848.
Ahmad ibn Hanbal's refusal under interrogation, and his imprisonment for it, is the case later Sunni memory fixed on, but he was neither the only nor the first scholar to hold out; what made his stand definitive was that he survived the Mihna and lived to see it reversed, so his position could be presented afterward not as one dissenting opinion among several but as the one events had vindicated. The reversal did not restore silence on the question. Later Ashari theology settled on a compromise the Mihna itself had made impossible to ignore, distinguishing the Quran's eternal, uncreated meaning from its created expression in sound and ink, a formula built specifically to hold both the tradition Ahmad had defended and the philosophical problem the Mutazila had originally raised.
Connections
Attributed To
Source Jahm bin Safwan (Wikipedia)
Belongs to Tradition
Ibadi theology holds the Quran to be created speech, a position it shares with the Mutazila and against the Sunni majority, and one of the clearest markers of Ibadi difference.
Source The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd editionP. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.)
The Mutazila held the Quran to be created speech, since an eternal attribute distinct from God's essence would compromise His oneness, and the position was briefly imposed by the state in the inquisition from 833.
Source Islamic Creeds: A SelectionW. Montgomery Watt
Classical Zaydi theology took over the Mutazila's positions, including the createdness of the Quran and the priority of divine justice, which sets it apart from Twelver kalam.
Source Islamic Creeds: A SelectionW. Montgomery Watt
Critiqued By
Ashari theology holds God's speech to be an eternal attribute and the Quran uncreated, against the Mutazila, while distinguishing the eternal speech from the recited sound and the written copy.
Source Islamic Creeds: A SelectionW. Montgomery Watt
Ibn Hanbal's refusal to say the Quran was created, held through the caliphal inquisition from 833 at the cost of flogging and imprisonment, is the founding act of the school and the position it is remembered for.
Source The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh CenturyHugh Kennedy
Wahhabism, Denominations The Quran is held to be God's uncreated speech, the traditionalist refusal carried forward from Ibn Hanbal through Ibn Taymiyya.
Source The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi ArabiaDavid Commins
Opposed By
Salafism, Denominations Salafi doctrine holds the Quran to be God's uncreated speech, carrying forward Ibn Hanbal's refusal through Ibn Taymiyya.
Source Ibn Taymiyya (Makers of the Muslim World)Jon Hoover
Sunni, Denominations Sunni theology holds the Quran to be God's uncreated speech, an eternal attribute rather than a created thing, and the createdness thesis was the position the caliphal inquisition failed to impose.
Source Islamic Creeds: A SelectionW. Montgomery Watt
Rejected Here
Source Islamic Creeds: A SelectionW. Montgomery Watt
Source Islamic Creeds: A SelectionW. Montgomery Watt
Source Islamic Creeds: A SelectionW. Montgomery Watt
Positions on This Question
Source Islamic Creeds: A SelectionW. Montgomery Watt
Twelver theology holds the Quran to be created, God's speech being an act rather than an eternal attribute, which places it with the Mutazila and against Sunni orthodoxy on the question the ninth-century inquisition was fought over.
Source Islamic Creeds: A SelectionW. Montgomery Watt
Sources
1. Islamic Creeds: A Selection
2. The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia
3. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition
P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.), Brill, 2005View the Source The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century
Jahm bin Safwan (Wikipedia)
Attributed To: Jahm ibn Safwan, Biography, sentence beginning 'He was the first Muslim reported'Quote, Attributed To: Jahm ibn Safwan, Biography, sentence beginning 'He was the first Muslim reported'
He was the first Muslim reported to have spoken about the createdness of the Qurʾān and reject Abraham's friendship with God and Moses' speaking to Him.
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