Quranic createdness
Createdness refers to the Islamic doctrinal position that the Qur’an was created, rather than having always existed and thus being "uncreated". In the Muslim world the opposite point of view — that the Quran is uncreated — is the accepted stance among the majority Sunni Muslims while minority sects Shia Twelvers and Zaydi, and the Kharijites believe the Quran is created.
The dispute over which was true became a significant point of contention in early Islam. The Islamic rationalist philosophical school known as the Mu'tazila held that if the Quran is God's word, logically God "must have preceded his own speech". The Qur'an, of course, expresses God's eternal will, but the work itself must have been created by Him at some point in time.
Traditionists, on the other hand, held that numerous records of the words, actions, or approval of Muhammad support the contention that as God's speech, the Qur’an is an attribute of God and therefore "uncreated".
History
The controversy over the doctrine in the Abassid caliphate came to a head during the reign of Caliph Abd Allah al-Ma’mun. In 827 CE, al-Ma’mun publicly adopted the doctrine of createdness, and six year later instituting an inquisition known as the mihna to “ensure acquiescence in this doctrine”. According to Sunni tradition, when "tested", traditionist Ahmad ibn Hanbal refused to accept the doctrine of createdness despite two years imprisonment and being scourged until unconscious. Eventually, due to Ahmad ibn Hanbal's determination, Caliph Al-Mutawakkil ʿAlā ’llāh, brought the mihna to an end and the Mu'tazila doctrine was silenced for a time.In the years thereafter, it was the minority of Muslims who believed in Quranic createdness who were on the receiving end of the sword or lash.
The influential scholar Al-Tabari declared in his aqidah that the Quran is
"God's uncreated word however it is written or recited, whether it be in heaven or on earth, whether written on the `guarded tablet` or on the tablets of schoolboys, whether inscribed on stone or on paper, whether memorized in the heart or spoken on the tongue; whoever says otherwise is an infidel whose blood may be shed and from whom God has dissociated Himself."
12th century Almoravid jurist Qadi Ayyad, citing the work of Malik ibn Anas, wrote that:
He said about someone who said that the Qur'an is created, "He is an unbeliever, so kill him." He said in the version of Ibn Nafi', "He should be flogged and painfully beaten and imprisoned until he repents." In the version of Bishr ibn Bakr at-Tinnisi we find, "He is killed and his repentance is not accepted."
Arguments and implications
Shia
, a website which collects Shia scholarly works, cites Ash-Shaykh as-Saduq as disagreeing with Sunnis on the issue of the Quran's createdness on the grounds that God's attributes of doing cannot be eternal since they require objects to do actions to. For this to be true, "we will have to admit that the world has always existed. But it is against our belief that nothing except God is Eternal.” Author Allamah Sayyid Sa'eed Akhtar Rizvi goes on to say that Sunni scholars failure to make this distinction and insist that "all His attributes are Eternal" is the cause of their belief that "the kalam of God, is Eternal, not created". Akhtar Rizvi states:But as we, the Shi'ah Ithna ‘asharis, distinguish between His personal virtues and His actions, we say:
“Our belief about the Qur'an is that it is the speech of God. It has been sent by Him - it is His revelation, His book and His word. All is its Creator, Sender and Guardian...”
However, the cite quotes another leading Shia Ayatullah Sayyid Abulqasim al-Khui , declaring that "the question of whether the Qur'an was created or eternal is an extraneous matter that has no connection with the Islamic doctrine", and blames the intrusion of the ideas of alien "Greek philosophy" into the Muslim community for dividing the Ummah "into factions which accused each other of disbelief".
Mutazilah
The adherents of the Muʿtazili school, known as Muʿtazilites, are best known for rejecting the doctrine of the Qur'an as uncreated and co-eternal with God, asserting that if the Quran is the word of God, he logically "must have preceded his own speech".Based on some Mutazilah also argued that if the Qur'an could be subjected to abrogation, with a new verse abrogating an earlier one, it could not be eternal. Other Mutazilah however denied the theory of abrogation and did not believe any verse of the Quran was abrogated.
Implications
argues that believers in an uncreated, and thus eternal and unchanging, Quran also argued for predestination of the afterlife of mortals. The two ideas are associated with each other because if there is predestination than God "in His omnipotence and omniscience must have willed and known about" events related in the Quran.Believers in a created Quran emphasize free will given to mortals who would be rewarded or punished according to what they chose in life on judgement day. Advocates of the "created" Quran emphasized the references to an 'Arabic' Quran which occur in the divine text; noting that if the Quran was uncreated it was — like God — an eternal being. This gave it a status similar to God, constituting a form of bi-theism or shirk.
Remi Brague argues that while a created Quran may be interpreted "in the juridical sense of the word", an uncreated Quran can only be applied — the application being "susceptible only "to grammatical explication and mystical elucidation " — not interpreted.
Ahmad ibn Hanbal and the ''Mihna'' (ordeal)
Ahmad ibn Hanbal
In standing up for his beliefs, Sunni scholar and muhaddith ibn Hanbal refused to engage in kalam during his interrogation. He was willing to “argue” only on the basis of the Qur’an or the traditions and their “literal” meaning. While this distinction itself is difficult to make in practice, its value is in part rhetorical, for the assertion marks his identity as one who stands by the absolute authority of the sacred texts over-above those who make use of reason.The role of Ahmad ibn Hanbal in the mihna ordeal garnered significant attention in the later historiography of Sunni Islam. Walter Patton presents him as a stalwart of belief, claimed that he did more than any other to strengthen the position of “orthodoxy”.
The ''Mihna''
Scholars do not agree on why caliph al-Ma’mun acted as he did. Walter Patton for instance, claims that while partisans might have made political capital out of the public adoption of the doctrine, al-Ma’mun’s intention was “primarily to effect a religious reform.” Nawas on the other hand, argues that the doctrine of createdness was a “pseudo-issue,” insisting that its promulgation was unlikely an end in itself since the primary sources attached so little significance to its declaration.The test of the mihna was applied neither universally nor arbitrarily. In fact, the letter that Al-Ma’mun sent to his lieutenant in Baghdad instituting the mihna stipulated that the test be administered to qadis and traditionists. Both of these groups regard hadith as central to Qur’anic interpretation and to matters of Islamic jurisprudence. In particular, the rhetorical force of muhaddithin acceptance of the doctrine is then to concede that either or both of the Qur’an and the hadith corpus attest to the doctrine, simultaneously validating the caliph’s theological position and legitimizing his claim to hermeneutical authority with regard to the sacred texts.