A Historiographical Analysis of Al-Ma'mūn's Motives in the Miḥna
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Published:
Nov 29, 2023
Keywords:
Miḥna, al-Ma’mūn, Mu‘tazila, Qur’an’s cre-atedness (khalq al-Qur’an)
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Abstract
This article investigates historians’ perspectives on al-Maʾmūn’s motives in the Miḥna concerning the createdness of the Qurʾān (khalq al-Qur’ān). Two prevailing approaches are identified for comprehending the caliph’s motives. The first suggests that the Miḥna represents al-Maʾmūn’s attempt to maintain his political authority amid the increasing influence of the ulema (muḥaddithūn). The second posits the Miḥna as al-Ma'mūn’s initiative to impose his religious perspective on society. Using historiographical analysis, this article argues that the two approaches should not be viewed in isolation but can be integrated to comprehensively understand the caliph’s motives in the Miḥna.
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Aniq, Ahmad Fathan. “ A Historiographical Analysis of Al-Ma’mūn’s Motives in the Miḥna ”. Islamica: Jurnal Studi Keislaman 18, no. 1 (November 29, 2023): 99-114. Accessed April 28, 2024. https://islamica.uinsby.ac.id/index.php/islamica/article/view/1049.
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Crone, Patricia, and Martin Hinds. God’s Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Dhahabī (al), Shams al-Dīn Muh}ammad b. Ah}mad. Mīzān al-I‘tidāl fī Naqd al-Rijāl, Vol. 2. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmīyah, 1995.
Ediwibowo, Safrudin. “The Debates of the Createdness of the Qur’an and Its Impact to the Methodology of Qur’Anic Interpretation.” Ulumuna, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2015), 353-88. doi:10.20414/ujis.v19i2.357.
Etheredge, Laura (ed.). Islamic History. New York: Britanica Educational Publishing, 2009.
Hallaq, Wael B. Sharī‘a, Theory, Practice, Transformations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
-----. The Impossible State: Islam, Politics, and Modernity’s Moral Predicament. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.
Hinds, Martin. “Mih}na”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam (version 2nd ed.) Brill Online, ed. Peri J. Bearman. Leiden: Brill, 2006.
Hoover, Jon. “H}anbalī Theology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. Sabine Schmidtke. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Hurvitz, Nimrod. “Mih}na as Self-Defense,” Studia Islamica, No. 92 (2001), 930-111.
-----. “al-Ma’mūn (r. 198/813-218/833) and the Mih}na,” in The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. Sabine Schmidtke. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Ibn al-Jawzī, Abū al-Faraj ʻAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʻAlī. The Life of Ibn H{anbāl, translated by Michael Cooperson. New York: New York University Press, 2016.
Ibn Kathīr, ‘Imād al-Dīn Ismā‘īl b. ʿUmar. Al-Bidāya wa an-Nihāya, Vol. 10. Beirut: Maktabat al-Ma‘ārif, 1990.
Kuru, Ahmet T. Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Lapidus, Ira M. “The Separation of State and Religion in the Development of Early Islamic Society,” IJMES, Vol. 6, No. 4 (1975), 363-385.
Madelung, W. “The Controversy on the Creation of the Koran,” in Orientalia Hispanica Sive Studia F.M. Pareja Octogenaria Dicata, ed. J. M. Barrál, Vol. I. Leiden: n.p., 1974.
Māwardī (al), Abī al-H{asan ‘Alī b. Muh}ammad. al-Ah}kām al-Sulthānīyah. Cairo: Dār al-H{adīth, 2006.
Melchert, Christopher. Ahmad Ibn Hanbal; Makers of the Muslim World. Oxford: Oneworld, 2006.
Nader, Nadia Mohamed. “The Memory of the Mihna in a Haunted Time: Dogmatic Theology, Neo-Mu‘tazilism and Islamic Legal Reform.” Ph.D Thesis--University of California, Santa Barbara, 2011.
Nawas, J. A. “A Reexamination of Three Current Explanations for Al-Mamun’s Introduction of the Mihna.” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 26, No. 4 (1994), 615-29.
-----. “The Mihna of 218 A.h./833 A.d. Revisited: An Empirical Study.” Journal- American Oriental Society, Vol. 116, No. 4 (1996), 698–708. doi:10.2307/605440.
Patton, Walter Melville. Ahmed Ibn Hanbal and the Mihna: A Biography of the Imam Including an Account of the Mohammedan Inquisition Called the Mihna, 218-234 A.H. Leiden: Brill, 1897.
Peters, J. R. T. M. God’s Created Speech: A Study in the Speculative Theology of the Muʻtazilī Qādī al-Qud}āt Abū al-H{asan ʻAbd al-Jabbār b. Ah}mad al-Hamadānī. Leiden: Brill, 1976.
T{abarī (al), Abū Ja‘far Muh}ammad b. Jarīr. Tārīkh al-Umam wa al-Mulūk. Jordan: Bayt al-Afkār al-Dawlīyah, n.d.
Tucker, Aviezer (ed.). A Companion to the Philosophy of History and Historiography. Sussex: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2009.
Turner, John P. Inquisition in Early Islam: The Competition for Political and Religious Authority in the Abbasid Empire (Library of Middle East History, Vol. 35). London: I.B. Tauris, 2013.
Zaman, Muhammad Qasim. Religion and Politics Under the Early ‘Abbāsids: The Emergence of the Proto-Sunnī Elite (Islamic History and Civilization: Studies and Texts, Vol. 16). Leiden: Brill, 1997.
-----. “Mihna.” In Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, Vol. 2, ed. Richard C. Martin. New York, NY: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004.