A Historiographical Analysis of Al-Ma'mūn's Motives in the Miḥna

Article Sidebar

Published:Nov 29, 2023
Keywords:
Miḥna, al-Ma’mūn, Mu‘tazila, Qur’an’s cre-atedness (khalq al-Qur’an)

Main Article Content

Ahmad Fathan Aniq
McGill University, Montreal

Abstract

This article examines the historical interpretations of al-Ma’mūn’s motives during theMiḥna, the inquisition concerning the doctrine of the Qur’an’s createdness (khalq al-Qur’an). Scholars have generally adopted two dominant approaches to understand the caliph's actions. The first approach interprets theMiḥna as a political strategy aimed at consolidating al-Ma’mūn’s authority in the face of the growing influence of theulema (muḥaddithūn), whose prominence increasingly challenged the centrality of the caliphate. The second approach views theMiḥna as an ideological endeavor, reflecting al-Ma’mūn’s commitment to enforcing his theological convictions on the Muslim community. Employing a historiographical analysis, this study critically evaluates these perspectives and proposes an integrative framework. It argues that al-Ma’mūn's motives cannot be fully understood by isolating political and theological dimensions. Instead, they should be viewed as interconnected, reflecting a complex interplay between the caliph's political aspirations and his intellectual and religious commitments. By synthesizing these approaches, the article contributes to a more nuanced understanding of theMiḥna as a pivotal moment in Islamic history, highlighting its implications for the relationship between political authority and religious scholarship in the early Abbasid period.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Article Details

How to Cite
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 November 25, 2025. https://islamica.uinsa.ac.id/index.php/islamica/article/view/1049.
Section
Articles

References

Asad, Talal. Formations of The Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003.
Crone, Patricia, and Martin Hinds. God’s Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
al-Dhahabī, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad. 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 19, no. 2 (2015), 353-88. DOI: https://doi.org/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. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511815300
Hallaq, Wael B. The Impossible State: Islam, Politics, and Modernity’s Moral Predicament. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.
Hinds, Martin. “Miḥna”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam (version 2nd ed.) Brill Online, ed. Peri J. Bearman. Leiden: Brill, 2006.
Hoover, Jon. “Ḥanbalī Theology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology, ed. Sabine Schmidtke. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Hurvitz, Nimrod. “Miḥna as Self-Defense,” Studia Islamica, No. 92 (2001), 930-111. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1596192
Hurvitz, Nimrod. “al-Ma’mūn (r. 198/813-218/833) and the Miḥna,” 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 Ḥanbāl, 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. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108296892
Lapidus, Ira M. “The Separation of State and Religion in the Development of Early Islamic Society,” IJMES 6, no. 4 (1975), 363-385. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743800025344
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. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004661219_039
al-Māwardī, Abī al-Ḥasan ‘Alī b. Muḥammad. al-Aḥkām al-Sulthānīyah. Cairo: Dār al-Ḥadīth, 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 26, no. 4 (1994), 615-29. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743800061134
Nawas, J. A. “The Mihna of 218 A.h./833 A.d. Revisited: An Empirical Study.” Journal- American Oriental Society 116, no. 4 (1996), 698–708. doi:10.2307/605440. DOI: https://doi.org/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-Quḍāt Abū al-Ḥasan ʻAbd al-Jabbār b. Aḥmad al-Hamadānī. Leiden: Brill, 1976. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004661752
al-Ṭabarī, Abū Ja‘far Muḥammad 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. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9780755607846
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. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004493193
Zaman, Muhammad Qasim. “Mihna.” In Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, Vol. 2, ed. Richard C. Martin. New York, NY: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004.