Voices of Islam (42 page)

Mu‘tazili Rationalism

One infl al school of theology that developed was the Mu‘tazila, founded in Basra by Wasil b. ‘Ata’ (d. 748
CE
). This school of thought devel- oped from the ninth century
CE
to the middle of the eleventh century. The Arabic verb
i‘tazala
has the sense of ‘‘separating oneself, or standing aside,’’ and originally referred to the position of being neither a Kharijite nor a Murji’ite (on the issue of the belief or unbelief of the sinful Muslim) and not taking sides with the Shi‘a on the issue of who should be the leader of the community. As a theological movement, the Mu‘tazila are most com- monly associated with a belief in intellectual rationalism.

Mu‘tazili theology was distinguished by the following five theological principles (
al-usul al-khamsa
):

1. God’s unity and uniqueness
   (
   tawhid
   ): The Mu‘tazila believed in the absolute transcendence of God (
   tanzih
   ), according to the Qur’anic formula, ‘‘nothing is of His likeness’’ (Qur’an 42:11). What they understood by this
   

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   was that God can have none of the characteristics of a body as such: He has no form, color, length, breadth, or height. He cannot be said to be either mobile or immobile and He has neither parts nor members. The Mu‘tazila rejected all anthropomorphic descriptions or resemblances of God (
   tashbih
   ). The Qur’anic expressions that refer to God’s ‘‘hand’’ or ‘‘face’’ are therefore to be understood only fi ratively, as referring to His power, blessing, or essence. God the Creator was understood to be a purely spiritual being. For the Mu‘tazila, the Qur’anic verse, ‘‘Vision captures Him not, while He com- prehends all vision; for He is the Subtle, the Aware’’ (Qur’an 6:103) meant that God cannot be seen, either in this world or in the Hereafter.
   

2. God’s justice (‘adl)
   : The Mu‘tazila conceived of God’s justice as being identical with the human recognition of justice. For the Mu‘tazila, God is subject to the same divine justice that applies to humans: what is just or unjust for us—that which our reason tells us to be so—is the same for God. Divine justice means that God only wills or does what is morally good (
   hasan
   ) and He is necessarily exempt from any act that is morally bad. God acts with a purpose, and justice and compassion inhere in the Divine purpose. Existents by their nature contain both good and evil. God can will only the good and is obliged to accomplish that which is best (
   al-aslah
   ). Thus, He nei- ther wills nor commands that which is evil. Humans, as creators of their own acts, act by a contingent power (
   qudra
   ) that God has placed in them. There- fore, they are responsible for their own actions, and when they commit good or evil, God is obliged to reward or punish them accordingly.
   

   God’s necessary justice excludes any notion of predestination. It would be unjust on God’s part, said the Mu‘tazila, to decide in advance the fate of every person in the world and to ordain that one will be saved and another damned, without either having merited this fate by his or her actions. It is for humans to decide their future lot, according to whether they choose to believe or not to believe and to obey or disobey the Law. God would be unjust if He were to predetermine faith or unbelief, and that some are ‘‘well guided’’ and others are ‘‘astray.’’ The Mu‘tazila were adamant in their rejec- tion of the doctrine of predestination. Instead, they affirmed human free will: the absolute ownership by every individual of his or her actions, which could not be attributed to God.
   

3. The ‘‘promise and the threat’’ (al-wa‘d wa’l-wa‘id )
   : This principle means that on account of the ‘‘threat’’ uttered in the Qur’an against a Muslim who is guilty of a serious offense, every person who dies without repenting will suffer the torments of Hell for eternity. This principle follows from human free will. Thus, human beings as moral agents are fully responsible for their actions and will be held accountable for their ethical behavior. God’s decree- ing of human destiny is embodied in human choice. The Mu‘tazila elabo- rated a corollary principle of ‘‘the names and the decrees’’ (
   al-asma’ wa’l- ahkam
   ), whereby those possessing faith are bound to perform the acts pre- scribed by faith.
   

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4. The theory of an ‘‘intermediate state’’ (al-manzil bayn al-manzilatayn)
   : This principle holds that a sinful Muslim cannot be classifi either as a believer (
   mu’min
   ) or as an unbeliever (
   kafi
   ) but belongs to a separate cat- egory, that of the malefactor (
   fasiq
   ). Such a person has failed to perform the ‘‘witness of the limbs,’’ that is, the ritual obligations of Islam, but his faith (
   iman
   ) in God keeps him within the community.
   

5. Commanding the good and forbidding evil (al-amr bi-’l- ma‘ruf wa an- nahy ‘an al-munkar
   ): According to the Mu‘tazila, this obligation is laid upon every believer in accordance with numerous verses in the Qur’an (3:104, 3:110; 7:157; 9:71, and so on). This principle allows ethically committed believers to intervene in public affairs, uphold the law, and oppose impiety, both individually and collectively.
   

These five principles had profound political ramifications. The Umayyads, who—except for Caliph ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz—were generally disliked for having forced a monarchy on the
Umma,
used the notion of predestina- tion to justify their rule. Thus, they considered the doctrine of free will dan- gerous and subversive to their interests. They held power, they argued, because it was God’s will, and therefore the
Umma
should accept them. In the long run, advancing the principle of free will ran against the political interests of both the Umayyad and the later Abbasid Caliphs, who generally sought to encourage a fatalistic attitude among the
Umma
and who were arguably responsible for strengthening Muslims’ belief in destiny (
qada
and
qadar
). The third and fourth principles of the Mu‘tazila were applied not only to believers in general but also used to judge contemporary and previous Caliphs. The fifth principle posited the need for including religious values in the public debate on how to build an Islamic society. Since the primary responsibility for society fell on the ruler, this principle raised the thorny question of what the public’s duty was when the ruler fell short of his obligations.

The fifth principle of enjoining good and prohibiting evil was often inter- preted to mean active intervention in public affairs to uphold the law and oppose impiety. The pro-Mu‘tazila Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mun (r. 813–833
CE
) used this principle to put into motion an inquisition to enforce his belief that the Qur’an was created. Judges were dismissed from their position and even witnesses were regarded as unacceptable unless they publicly acknowl- edged that the Qur’an was created. Al-Ma’mun, himself a scholar who excelled in jurisprudence, argued that those who asserted the ‘‘uncreated- ness’’ of the Qur’an were guilty of equating God with the Qur’an. By claim- ing that the Qur’an was eternal and primordial, they suggested that God did not create, originate, or produce it. They ‘‘were therefore like the Christians, who claim that Jesus was not created because he is the Word of God.’’
23
In Ma’mun’s eyes, this was an Islamization of the Christian belief that Jesus Christ was coeternal with God, and he feared that Muslims might deify the Qur’an. After all, the Qur’an confi the Christian belief that Jesus was

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God’s word, yet it also asserted that God created Jesus (Qur’an 3:45; 4:171). This Qur’anic evidence supported the notion that God’s speech was indeed created, and therefore the Qur’an was created too. Al-Ma’mun died only four months after instituting his inquisition, which continued for some 15 years, till the time of the Caliph al-Mutawakkil (r. 847–861
CE
).

The Response of Ibn Hanbal

The most famous person to stand up against al-Ma’mun was Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (d. 855
CE
). An original and noted jurist and founder of the Hanbali school of law that bears his name, he was also a well-known Traditionist and Hadith scholar. He was the compiler of the
Musnad,
one of the largest and most important collections of Sunni Hadith. He was flogged and imprisoned for his rejection of al-Ma’mun’s position on the created Qur’an, a stand that gained him enormous popularity among the masses.

Ibn Hanbal’s later reputation was made possible by the Caliph al- Mutawakkil’s decision to end the inquisition and restore the Sunni judges to their former positions. This move helped to insert Ibn Hanbal’s views into the future development of Sunni thought. By this time the leading figures of the era of persecution were no longer on the scene and Ibn Hanbal’s scholar- ship and popularity opened the way to an association between him and the Caliph, whose acceptance cemented his legacy as a celebrated Traditionist and as the most faithful defender of Sunni orthodoxy of his time.

The principal consequence of the failure of al-Ma’mun’s inquisition was that it brought to a decisive end any notion of a Caliphal role in shaping Islamic thought. In addition, the restoration of the Sunni position permitted the development of what in due course would become recognizable as Sunni Islam. Although important scholars continued to belong to the Mu‘tazila, their movement never again attained political hegemony. It was now the Sunni scholars (
ulama
), rather than the Caliphs, who saw themselves as the ‘‘heirs of the Prophets’’ (
waratha’ al-anbiya’
). Henceforward, it would be these same scholars, who, armed with their newly won spiritual authority, would maintain a careful distance from the holders of political offi and elaborate the system of classical Islamic thought.
24

Ibn Hanbal’s genius lay in his developing a worldview that, in the face of grave disagreements within the community, gave something to each side and put behind the Sunni community the divisive issues that had hitherto created contentions within the Muslim
Umma.
In the area of law, he accepted the decisions of the most important representatives of the genera- tions that followed the Prophet’s Companions (
al-Tabi‘un
). In his doctrine, he accepted the consensus of the community when it was founded on the Qur’an and the Sunna or when it expressed a general truth on which the Qur’an and the Sunna were silent. His background as a Hadith scholar is

What Is Sunni Islam?
201

visible in this position, which leans toward the Maliki and Shafi notion of placing more emphasis on tradition rather than the Hanafi position, which relied more on the application of reason.

Politically, Ibn Hanbal incorporated the Murji’ite aspiration of reconciling opposing radical political positions by resolving the issues that had split the community. It was now two centuries since the Prophet had died, and expressing hostility to his successors and to historical personalities who were long dead only furthered social confl ct. Ibn Hanbal resolved this issue by creating a hierarchy of preference of Companions of the Prophet. Abu Bakr was at the top of the hierarchy, followed by ‘Umar, then the six electors appointed by ‘Umar (these included ‘Uthman and ‘Ali, along with Talha and Zubayr), then the fi hters with the Prophet at the battle of Badr, and finally the Emigrants from Mecca (
Muhajirun
) and the Helpers from Medina (
Ansar
).
25
By doing this, Ibn Hanbal established the subsequent Sunni posi- tion of doctrinally acknowledging ‘Ali’s eminent position in Islam and the legitimacy of his Caliphate and rehabilitating those who fought against ‘Ali: Talha, Zubayr, and Mu‘awiya.

In many respects, Ibn Hanbal’s political views sought to answer challenges posed by Kharijite and Shiite objections to Sunni Islam. Like the Shiites and Umayyads, but against the Kharijites, he affi the legitimacy of the Caliphate as being based on the Caliph’s membership in the Prophet’s tribe of Quraysh: ‘‘No person has any claim to contest this right with them, or to rebel against them, or to recognize any others until the Day of Resurrec- tion.’’
26
Like the Shiites and Umayyads, he defended the Caliph’s right to designate his successor.
27
However, like the Kharijites, he added the caveat that for such a designation to be effective, the Imam (leader or Caliph) had to publicly swear fidelity to the Word of God, thus establishing the principle of the rule of law above the rule of the Imam.
28
Within the framework of the prescriptions of the Qur’an and the Sunna, he gave the Imam wide latitude to take measures deemed necessary to improve the material and moral condi- tions of the Muslim community for the common good and public interest. This affirmed the social justice provision that was so important to the Shiite conception of the Imamate.

In opposition to the Kharijite position, he felt that all members of the com- munity owed obedience to a legally constituted Imam and could not refuse obedience by disputing the Imam’s moral qualities. Striving in the cause of Islam (
jihad
) should be pursued under all Imams, whether good men or sin- ners; the injustice of the tyrant or the justice of the just mattered less. As long as the Friday prayer, the pilgrimage, and the two feasts (
‘Id al-Fitr
and
‘Id al- Adha
) are maintained by the holder of authority, Muslims have to accept his rule and pay him the Zakat and land taxes, whether he puts them to right use or not.
29

Ibn Hanbal’s position of accommodation to state power may strike the reader used to democratic government as unusual, and it is opposed by many

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contemporary Muslims, both Sunnis and Shiites. However, Ibn Hanbal, like many Muslim jurists, felt that the danger posed by civil unrest (
fi na
) was greater than the danger of an unjust ruler. Modern political science notion of ‘‘failed states’’ largely supports this view. If a ruler seeks to impose a ruling in disobedience to God’s Word in the Qur’an, obedience to the ruling may be refused but without calling for an armed revolt. A revolt cannot be justified as long as the Imam maintains the regular observance of the Islamic prayer. However, within these severely limited constraints, Ibn Hanbal agreed that every member of the Muslim community had the duty, according to a person’s knowledge and means, of commanding good and prohibiting evil, thereby incorporating a major principle of both Kharijite and Mu‘tazilite ethics.