Quranic createdness refers to the doctrinal position that the
Quran
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation in Islam, revelation from God in Islam, ...
was created, rather than having always existed and thus being "uncreated". In the
Muslim world
The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. I ...
the opposite point of view — that the Quran is uncreated — is the accepted stance among the majority Muslims.
Shia Muslims
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, mos ...
on the other hand argue for the createdness of the Quran.
The dispute over which was true became a significant point of contention in early Islam. The Islamic rationalist philosophical school known as the
Mutazila
Muʿtazila ( ar, المعتزلة ', English: "Those Who Withdraw, or Stand Apart", and who called themselves ''Ahl al-ʿAdl wa al-Tawḥīd'', English: "Party of ivineJustice and Oneness f God); was an Islamic group that appeared in early Islamic ...
held that if the Quran is God's word, logically God "must have preceded his own speech".
The Quran is believed to express God's eternal will, but the work itself must have been created by Him at some point in time.
History
The controversy over the doctrine in the
Abbasid
The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...
caliphate came to a head during the reign of
Caliph
A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...
Abd Allah al-Ma’mun. In 827 CE, al-Ma’mun publicly adopted the doctrine of createdness, and six years later instituting an inquisition known as the ''
mihna
The Mihna ( ar, محنة خلق القرآن, ''Miḥnat k͟halaq al-Qurʾān'' "ordeal egardingthe createdness of the Qur'an") refers to the period of religious persecution instituted by the 'Abbasid Caliph al-Ma'mun in 833 CE in which reli ...
'' (test or ordeal) to "ensure acquiescence in this doctrine". The mihna continued during the reigns of Caliph
Al-Mutasim
Abū Isḥāq Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Rashīd ( ar, أبو إسحاق محمد بن هارون الرشيد; October 796 – 5 January 842), better known by his regnal name al-Muʿtaṣim biʾllāh (, ), was the eighth Abbasid caliph, ruling f ...
and Caliph
Al-Wathiq
Abū Jaʿfar Hārūn ibn Muḥammad ( ar, أبو جعفر هارون بن محمد المعتصم; 17 April 812 – 10 August 847), better known by his regnal name al-Wāthiq bi’llāh (, ), was an Abbasid caliph who reigned from 842 until 84 ...
, and during the early reign of Caliph
Al-Mutawakkil
Abū al-Faḍl Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Muʿtaṣim bi-ʾllāh ( ar, جعفر بن محمد المعتصم بالله; March 822 – 11 December 861), better known by his regnal name Al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Allāh (, "He who relies on God") was t ...
. Those who did not accept that the Qur’an is created were punished, imprisoned, or even killed.
According to Sunni tradition, when "tested",
traditionist Ahmad ibn Hanbal
Ahmad ibn Hanbal al-Dhuhli ( ar, أَحْمَد بْن حَنْبَل الذهلي, translit=Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal al-Dhuhlī; November 780 – 2 August 855 CE/164–241 AH), was a Muslim jurist, theologian, ascetic, hadith traditionist, and ...
refused to accept the doctrine of createdness despite two years imprisonment and being
scourge
A scourge is a whip or lash, especially a multi-thong type, used to inflict severe corporal punishment or self-mortification. It is usually made of leather.
Etymology
The word is most commonly considered to be derived from Old French ''escorgi ...
d until unconscious. Eventually, due to Ahmad ibn Hanbal's determination,
[ Patton, ''Ibn Ḥanbal and the Miḥna'', 1897: p.2] Caliph
Al-Mutawakkil
Abū al-Faḍl Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Muʿtaṣim bi-ʾllāh ( ar, جعفر بن محمد المعتصم بالله; March 822 – 11 December 861), better known by his regnal name Al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Allāh (, "He who relies on God") was t ...
ʿAlā ’llāh, released him and the
Mu'tazila
Muʿtazila ( ar, المعتزلة ', English: "Those Who Withdraw, or Stand Apart", and who called themselves ''Ahl al-ʿAdl wa al-Tawḥīd'', English: "Party of ivineJustice and Oneness f God); was an Islamic group that appeared in early Islami ...
doctrine was silenced for a time. In the years thereafter in the Abbasid state, 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
( ar, أبو جعفر محمد بن جرير بن يزيد الطبري), more commonly known as al-Ṭabarī (), was a Muslim historian and scholar from Amol, Tabaristan. Among the most prominent figures of the Islamic Golden Age, al-Tabari ...
(d.923) declared in his ''
aqidah
''Aqidah'' ( (), plural ''ʿaqāʾid'', also rendered ''ʿaqīda'', ''aqeeda'', etc.) is an Islamic term of Arabic origin that literally means " creed". It is also called Islamic creed and Islamic theology.
''Aqidah'' go beyond concise state ...
'' (creed) that (in the words of Islamic historian
Michael Cook) the Quran is
12th century
Almoravid
The Almoravid dynasty ( ar, المرابطون, translit=Al-Murābiṭūn, lit=those from the ribats) was an imperial Berber Muslim dynasty centered in the territory of present-day Morocco. It established an empire in the 11th century that ...
jurist
Qadi Ayyad
ʿIyāḍ ibn Mūsā (1083–1149) ( ar, القاضي عياض بن موسى, formally Abū al-Faḍl ʿIyāḍ ibn Mūsā ibn ʿIyāḍ ibn ʿAmr ibn Mūsā ibn ʿIyāḍ ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mūsā ibn ʿIyāḍ al-Yaḥṣubī ...
, citing the work of
Malik ibn Anas
Malik ibn Anas ( ar, مَالِك بن أَنَس, 711–795 CE / 93–179 AH), whose full name is Mālik bin Anas bin Mālik bin Abī ʿĀmir bin ʿAmr bin Al-Ḥārith bin Ghaymān bin Khuthayn bin ʿAmr bin Al-Ḥārith al-Aṣbaḥī ...
, wrote that:
Arguments and implications
Shia
Al-Islam.org
The Ahlul Bayt Digital Library Project (Ahlul Bayt DILP), established in 1996, is a non-profit Islamic organization that features work from a group of volunteers operating throughout the world. It operates the website Al-Islam.org – whose primar ...
, a website which collects Shia scholarly works, cites Ash-Shaykh as-Saduq (aka Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn 'Ali
Ibn Babawayh
Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn 'Ali ibn Babawayh al-Qummi (Persian: ar, أَبُو جَعْفَر مُحَمَّد ٱبْن عَلِيّ ٱبْن بَابَوَيْه ٱلْقُمِيّ; –991), commonly referred to as Ibn Babawayh (Persian: ar, ...
al-Qummi c. 923–991) as disagreeing with Sunnis on the issue of the Quran's createdness on the grounds that God's attributes of ''doing'' (creating, giving sustenance, etc.) 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 (speech) of God, is Eternal, not created". Akhtar Rizvi states:
However, the site quotes another leading Shia Ayatullah Sayyid Abulqasim al-Khui (1899–1992) (in ''Al-Bayan fi Tafsir al-Qur’an, the Prolegomena to the Qur’an''), 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
' (; ar, أمة ) is an Arabic word meaning "community". It is distinguished from ' ( ), which means a nation with common ancestry or geography. Thus, it can be said to be a supra-national community with a common history.
It is a synonym for ' ...
"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 Quran as uncreated and co-eternal with God,[Abdullah Saeed. ''The Qur'an: an introduction''. 2008, page 203] asserting that if the Quran is the word of God, he logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...
ally "must have preceded his own speech".
Based on Q.2:106 some Mutazilah also argued that if the Quran 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
Malise Ruthven
Malise Walter Maitland Knox Hore-Ruthven (born 14 May 1942) is an Anglo-Irish academic and writer.
Born in Dublin in 1942, he earned an M.A. in English literature at the University of Cambridge, before working as a scriptwriter with the BBC Ar ...
argues that believers in an uncreated, and thus eternal and unchanging, Quran also argued for predestination
Predestination, in theology, is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God, usually with reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul. Explanations of predestination often seek to address the paradox of free will, whereby G ...
of the afterlife of mortals. The two ideas are associated with each other (according to Rwekaza Sympho Mukandala) because if there is predestination (if all events including the afterlife of all humans has been willed by God) then 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 (they argued) 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 (tasfir) and mystical elucidation (ta'wil)" — 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
''ʿIlm al-Kalām'' ( ar, عِلْم الكَلام, literally "science of discourse"), usually foreshortened to ''Kalām'' and sometimes called "Islamic scholastic theology" or "speculative theology", is the philosophical study of Islamic doc ...
during his interrogation. He was willing to argue only on the basis of the Quran or the traditions and their literal meaning.[ Patton, ''Ibn Ḥanbal and the Miḥna'', 1897: p.106] 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
Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, ...
.
The role of Ahmad ibn Hanbal
Ahmad ibn Hanbal al-Dhuhli ( ar, أَحْمَد بْن حَنْبَل الذهلي, translit=Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal al-Dhuhlī; November 780 – 2 August 855 CE/164–241 AH), was a Muslim jurist, theologian, ascetic, hadith traditionist, and ...
in the mihna ordeal garnered significant attention in the later historiography
Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...
of Sunni Islam. Walter Patton (in ''Aḥmad Ibn Ḥanbal and the Miḥna'') presents him as a stalwart of belief, claimed that he did more than any other to strengthen the position of “orthodoxy
Orthodoxy (from Greek: ) is adherence to correct or accepted creeds, especially in religion.
Orthodoxy within Christianity refers to acceptance of the doctrines defined by various creeds and ecumenical councils in Antiquity, but different Churc ...
”.
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.” [ Patton, ''Ibn Ḥanbal and the Miḥna'', 1897: p.54] 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.[Nawas, 1994: 623-624.]
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
A qāḍī ( ar, قاضي, Qāḍī; otherwise transliterated as qazi, cadi, kadi, or kazi) is the magistrate or judge of a '' sharīʿa'' court, who also exercises extrajudicial functions such as mediation, guardianship over orphans and mino ...
and traditionists (muhaddithin). Both of these groups regard hadith as central to Quranic 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 Quran 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
Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They differ from literature by being a compilation or discussion of beliefs, mythologies, ritual pra ...
.
The significance of hadith
That the question of the createdness of the Quran is, among other things, a hermeneutical
Hermeneutics () is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretative principles or methods used when immediate c ...
issue is reflected in the variety of arguments and issues that associate with it – whether the Quran or the traditions assert the Quran’s createdness, what “created” means, and whether and how this affects the standing of these texts as authoritative
In the fields of sociology and political science, authority is the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. In a civil state, ''authority'' is practiced in ways such a judicial branch or an executive branch of government.''The Ne ...
and as a consequence, the status of those who study them. Where the Quran is understood as the word of God, and the words and example of the Prophet transmitted through hadith
Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval ...
also attain to divine significance, if the Quran cannot be taken to assert its own createdness, for the doctrine of createdness to be true the traditions would have to support it. Indeed, to admit the insufficiency of the hadith corpus to adjudicate what with the institution of the mihna becomes such a visible dispute would necessarily marginalize the authority of traditions. Thus it is not by accident that al-Ma’mun decides to administer the test on religious scholars.
See also
* Biblical literalism
Biblical literalism or biblicism is a term used differently by different authors concerning biblical hermeneutics, biblical interpretation. It can equate to the dictionary definition of wikt:literalism, literalism: "adherence to the exact letter ...
* Bibliolatry
Bibliolatry (from the Greek βιβλίον ''biblion'', "book" and the suffix -λατρία ''-latria'', "worship") is the worship of a book, idolatrous homage to a book, or the deifying of a book. It is a form of idolatry. The sacred texts of some ...
* Exegesis
Exegesis ( ; from the Ancient Greek, Greek , from , "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation (logic), interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Bible, Biblical works. In modern usage, ...
* History of Islam
The history of Islam concerns the political, social, economic, military, and cultural developments of the Islamic civilization. Most historians believe that Islam originated in Mecca and Medina at the start of the 7th century CE. Muslims re ...
* Ibn Kullab
Ibn Kullab () (d. ca. 241/855) was an early Sunni theologian (mutakallim) in Basra and Baghdad in the first half of the 9th century during the time of the Mihna and belonged, according to Ibn al-Nadim, to the traditionalist group of the Nawabit. ...
* Islamic schools and branches
Islamic schools and branches have different understandings of Islam. There are many different sects or denominations, schools of Islamic jurisprudence, and schools of Islamic theology, or '' ʿaqīdah'' (creed). Within Islamic groups themselves ...
* Tafsir
Tafsir ( ar, تفسير, tafsīr ) refers to exegesis, usually of the Quran. An author of a ''tafsir'' is a ' ( ar, مُفسّر; plural: ar, مفسّرون, mufassirūn). A Quranic ''tafsir'' attempts to provide elucidation, explanation, in ...
* Sufficiency of scripture
References
{{Reflist
Islamic theology
Hadith
Createdness
9th century in the Abbasid Caliphate
Mu'tazilism
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