Mihna

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The mihna ( Arabic محنة, DMG miḥna  'examination') was a form of inquisition practiced at the time of the Abbasid caliphs al-Ma'mūn , Mu'tasim and al-Wāthiq bi-'llāh , in which the persons concerned were forced to conform to the state-proclaimed doctrine of to profess the " creation of the Koran " ( chalq al-qurʾān ). The mihna was used shortly before the death of al-Ma'mūn in 833 and only ended in 849 under al-Mutawakkil .

background

The background of the Mihna were the discussions about the nature of the Koran in the early Abbasid state. While most traditional scholars assumed that the Koran was the uncreated word of God, several followers of the Muʿtazila affirmed the doctrine of the creation of the Koran. Among the Muʿtazilites, who are known to adhere to this doctrine, were among others the Kufic theologian Ibn ʿUlaiya (d. 833) and Abū l-Hudhail .

After al-Ma'mūn had moved from Merw to Baghdad in 819 , he drew several Muʿtazilite theologians to his court, including Abū l-Hudhail. In the summer of 827, al-Ma'mūn declared the doctrine of the creation of the Koran to be a state doctrine. Only a few months before his death in 833, while in Syria, where he was engaged in the religious war, he had the lawyers and religious scholars of the capital, especially those in public office, take an oath on the doctrine of the constitution of the Korans should perform. With that he started the mihna.

execution

In what was then the capital, Baghdad , seven judges were examined and when they had proven themselves to be firm in their faith, they were instructed to subject 30 other judges to such an examination. Two scholars, namely Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Muhammad ibn Nūh al-ʿIdschlī , are known to continue to adhere to the Koran as the eternal and uncreated word of God and to reject the belief of the Mu'tazilites. Both scholars were first put in chains and only escaped execution because the caliph died soon after. Furthermore, letters were sent from the caliph to the other centers of the empire ordering a test of faith there as in Baghdad.

After the death of al-Ma'mūn in 833, the caliph Mu'tasim († 843) and his son al-Wathiq bi-llah († 847) continued the Mihna. Ahmad ibn Hanbal was summoned again in September 835. After refusing to accept the Quran again, he was beaten and imprisoned for two years. The Mihna met several other hadith scholars, such as Nuʿaim ibn Hammād , who was arrested in 838. Ascetics were also imprisoned during the Mihna in Baghdad, such as the Egyptian Dhū n-Nūn al-Misrī († 861). The Baghdad notable Ahmad ibn Nasr al-Chuzāʿī , who under al-Wāthiq wanted to take violent action against the doctrine of the creation of the Koran, fared particularly badly . He was executed by hand by the caliph in 846.

Even in the North African vassal state of the Aghlabids , opponents of the doctrine of the created Koran, such as the Malikite scholar Sahnūn ibn Saʿīd, were imprisoned . For the Muʿtazilites, this inquisition was rather counterproductive. From then on, they were seen as accomplices of the injustice regime that was responsible for the Mihna. Hadith scholars who refused to acknowledge the nature of the Koran as required in the Mihna and were therefore punished, enjoyed higher prestige among the population than ever before.

It was not until the caliphate of al-Mutawakkil (847–861) that the Mihna was ended and an anti-rationalist reaction took place. The change in religious policy also affected the Aghlabid emirate. Here Sahnūn, who was imprisoned during the Mihna, was given the position of supreme kadi in 849 . He took rigid action against the Muʿtazilites and even had one of them whipped to death.

Aftermath of the Mihna in Ifrīqiya

The aftermath of the Mihna or the counter-movement are still documented several decades later in the spiritual center of Ifrīqiya - in Qairawān . On a tombstone in the Kairouan cemetery from January 905, next to the information about the deceased and after the obligatory creed, there is the addition: The Koran is God's word and uncreated . Almost a hundred years later, on another tombstone in the same cemetery from July 1002, there is the addition: God the Exalted will be seen on the day of the resurrection . This also demonstrated against the denial of the divine vision infa 'ar-ru'ya  /إنفاء الرؤية / infāʾ ar-ruʾya through the Mu'tazila . The opponents of the Mu'tazilite doctrine have managed to condemn the "heretics" according to the standards of Islamic law: Followers of the Chalq al-Koran  /خلق القرآن / ḫalq al-Qurʾān  / 'of the creation of the Koran', the deniers of the vision of God and those who questioned the Koran verse "... and with Moses God really spoke" (sura 4, verse 164), were in the opinion of Ibn Hanbal and his followers Apostates whose killing is a command of God.

Mihna hagiography

After the end of the Mihna, a Mihna hagiography was created in the east. Various works have been written that tell of how the proponents of the doctrine of the iniquity of the Quran successfully defended their doctrine before al-Ma'mun. One of these works is the Kitāb al-Ḥaida ("Book of Evasion"), which Josef van Ess dates to the early 10th century. It tells how a certain ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Yahyā al-Kinānī, who is said to have been a disciple of al-Shāfiʿī, had a dispute with the Muʿtazilite Bishop al-Marīsī after the proclamation of the dogma of the creation of the Koran before the caliph led, in which he cornered this so much with his arguments, which mainly come from the Koran, that Bishop finally tried to switch to another topic. The book takes its title from this “evasion”.

literature

  • Michael Cooperson: Al Ma'mun , Oxford 2005.
  • Patricia Crone / Martin Hinds: God's Caliphs. Religious Authority in the first Centuries of Islam, Cambridge 1986.
  • Patricia Crone: Medieval Islamic Political Thought , Edinburgh 2004.
  • Josef van Ess: Traditionalist polemics against 'Amr b. 'Ubaid. Orient Institute of the German Oriental Society, Beirut 1967 (Beirut texts and studies, volume 7)
  • Florian Heydorn: The ›Islamic Inquisition‹ of the Caliph al-Ma'mun , GeschiMag - the online magazine for history, June 5, 2016.
  • Tilman Nagel : Guidance and Caliphate. Attempt on a fundamental question in Islamic history. Oriental seminar at the University of Bonn, Bonn 1975 (studies on the minority problem in Islam, 2)
  • John A. Nawas: Al-Ma᾽mun - Mihna and Caliphate, Nijmegen 1992
  • Walter Melville Patton: Ahmed Ibn Hanbal and the Mihna. A contribution to a biography of the Imâm and to the history of the Mohammedan inquisition called the Mihna, 218–234 AH Brill, Leiden 1897
  • William Montgomery Watt : The Formative Period of Islamic Thought. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 1973, pp. 280–285, ISBN 0-85224-245-X (new edition: Oneworld Publishing, Oxford 2002, ISBN 1-85168-152-3 )
  • Muhammad Qasim Zaman: Religion and Politics under the early Abbasids - The emergence of a proto-sunni elite , Leiden 1997.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Josef van Ess: Theology and society in the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Hijra . tape 2 , p. 420 .
  2. ^ A b Josef van Ess: Theology and Society in the 2nd and 3rd Century of the Hijra . tape 3 , p. 446 f .
  3. ↑ Cf. Henri Laoust : Art. "Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Vol. I, pp. 272b-277b. Here p. 273a.
  4. ^ Josef van Ess: Theology and society in the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Hijra . tape 2 , p. 725 .
  5. ^ Josef van Ess: Theology and society in the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Hijra . tape 3 , p. 471-473 .
  6. ↑ a b M. Talbi : Ṣaḥnūn ibn Sa ʿ īd . In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam . tape 8 , p. 844b .
  7. ↑ Bernard Roy & Paule Poinssot: Inscriptions arabes de Kairouan. Paris 1950. Vol. 1, p. 161
  8. ^ Bernard Roy & Paule Poinssot: op.cit . P. 296; Qairawān # Islamic epitaphs
  9. ^ Josef van Ess: Theology and society in the 2nd and 3rd centuries of the Hijra . tape 3 , p. 404-408 .