The Mihna over the Qur'an

المحنة بالقرآن

218 AH

In 218 al-Ma'mun wrote to Ishaq ibn Ibrahim about testing judges and traditionists, and ordered a group of them brought to him at al-Raqqa ¹; in the same year al-Ma'mun died ². According to al-Suyuti, al-Ma'mun wrote to Ishaq ibn Ibrahim ordering him to test judges and scholars on the createdness of the Qur'an, and that whoever did not affirm it created would have his testimony rejected and would not be trusted in any matter. He wrote for seven men to be brought to him: Muhammad ibn Sa'd, secretary of al-Waqidi; Yahya ibn Ma'in; Abu Khaythama (may God be pleased with him); Abu Muslim, the dictation-assistant of Yazid ibn Harun; Isma'il ibn Dawud; Isma'il ibn Abi Mas'ud; and Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Dawraqi. They were brought and examined, and answered him out of taqiyya (dissimulation); he sent them back from al-Raqqa to Baghdad. Ishaq then ordered those who refused brought in, and a group was produced, among them Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Sajjada, Qutayba ibn Sa'id, Sa'dawayh al-Wasiti, Ishaq ibn Abi Isra'il, Muhammad ibn Nuh al-'Ijli and others ³. According to al-Suyuti, Ahmad ibn Hanbal was asked and said: 'It is the speech of God; I add nothing to this.' He, Sajjada, Muhammad ibn Nuh al-'Ijli and al-Qawariri refused, and Ishaq had them bound. Sajjada then answered, and then al-Qawariri. Ahmad and Muhammad ibn Nuh were sent in chains to the land of Rum, but news of al-Ma'mun's death reached them before they arrived, and God was kind and granted relief ⁴, according to al-Suyuti al-Mutawakkil in year thirty-one ordered the imams and muezzins of Basra to be tested on the createdness of the Qur'an, and later in his reign he turned back ⁵, according to al-Suyuti al-Buhturi praised al-Mutawakkil for lifting the mihna, in verses saying that he restored the religion after it had been split into two warring camps and broke the oppressors in every land, so that injustice became a place none could find; in the same poem he satirized Ibn Abi Du'ad ⁶}.