Islam in Crisis - Part 3

This is the third in my series of notes on Islam. It takes the subject further from where "Islam in Crisis (Parts 1 & 2)" left off (posted on Chowk on 27-12-2002).

In the first two notes, I had attempted to lay out the basis for my belief that we Muslims urgently need to update our tradition so as to bring it in sync with the values of the modern world.

I had suggested that this could be done without in any sense abandoning the belief that the Quran is literally the word of God. All we need to do was to revisit the theological debates that raged in Abbasid Baghdad of the 8th/9th centuries between two mainstream schools of Islamic theology - the Mutazilites and the Asharites. The latter group’s arguments on the whether the Quran was ’created’ or ’uncreated’ scripture (which, remember, at no stage provoked the charge of apostasy or heresy) was particularly relevant in this regard. In this the third note in my continung series, I have tried to develop the theme further and, through your columns, offer it for comment to my co-religionists the world over.

(A). Introduction

On the issue of the Quran’s status, the Mutazilites contended that it was ‘created’ (meaning by it ‘non-eternal’), rather than ‘uncreated’ (i.e. 'eternal') scripture. And as I pointed out in my last essay, the ulema of the time did not object to this discussion, much less hurl charges of blasphemy or heresy at exponents of this radical view.

The debate was won ultimately by the moderate Asharites whose doctrines became in due course the established theology of the Sunnis who constitute the vast majority of Muslims orldwide. But the Asharites’ success was not because of the merit of their case but because of the intervention of an extraneous political development that had nothing to do with a true understanding of the Quran.

This historical turn of events was the result of an oppressive decree issued by caliph al-Mamun (ruled 813-33) - and retained during the reign of his two successors, al-Mu’tasim (r. 833-42) and al-Wathiq (r. 842-47) - which forcibly imposed the Mutazilite doctrine of the Quran as official ideology on religious leaders, leading to the imprisonment and torture of a much-respected but arch-conservative theologian, Imam Hanbal. There was such a popular backlash against this highhandedness, often characterized as the only instance in Islam of an Inquisition, that Mutazilite thought has since lain buried under layer upon layer of misrepresentation, its essence lost in the mists of time.

I am firmly of the view that Mutazilism did not get the fair hearing it deserved, and that it is time we take a close look at it and examine whether and if so how far it has lessons for us today, pressured as we are to give a modern orientation to our faith.

Before I plunge into an examination of the issues raised in this more than a 1,000-year-old debate - a difficult task and I only hope I do not either oversimplify it or get lost in the intricate maze of its archaic nuances - it is necessary to fill in the background.

(B). Parties to the Debate

The Asharites were followers of Abul Hasan al-Ashari, a brilliant dialectician who died in 935 of the Christian Era. He was himself a Mutazilite once, but walked out of their camp because of a dream he had in which he believed Prophet Muhammad asked him to do so.

Even before al-Mamun’s tyrannical decree, the Mutazilites' thought did not have a great deal of popular support. One reason for this was that they started with the assertion that the reports of the Prophet’s sayings and doings (the Hadith and Sunna) were not authentic enough to be regarded as a supplementary source of Quranic exegesis. This view was too radical for public consumption at the time although its validity is accepted now by a number of modern scholars.

One problem with Hadith and Sunna reports is that their authenticity cannot be guaranteed. This, despite the painstaking efforts made during Islam’s early history by four great ‘muhaddiths’ (compilers of the Traditions) to separate the ‘genuine’ from the ‘weak’ and ‘spurious’ reports, an exercise which, though well-conceived for its time, fails to pass latter-day standards of scientific scholarship.

Al-Ashari was unhappy about the far-left views of his Mutazilite colleagues. He parted company from them and emerged as leader of his own theological school which occupies a middle position between the extreme literalism of the Hanbalites and Mutazilite radicalism.

(C). The Contents of the Debates

It is sufficient for our purpose here to examine the gulf that separated the two centrist schools, the Asharite and the Mutazilite, and leave out the Hanbalites for detailed consideration later.

The Mutazilites differed from the Asharites in two important respects. They believed, firstly, that man being uniquely endowed by God with the capacity for reasoning, Reason should enjoy an status with Revelation in Quranic exegesis. Secondly, since the Quran is in some parts, particularly its narration of the lives of the earlier prophets and other such happenings, less scripture and more history, the verses recounting them must be treated as historical, not gospel, truths.

In making this point, the Mutazilites were in no way denying the sacrosanct doctrine that the Quran was both literally and metaphorically ‘the Word of God’. Indeed, nobody could conceive of doing so in an age when belief in the supernatural and miracles was the rigorous order of the day. They were merely making the point that the Quran must be interpreted in a manner that conflicts with human reason.

By way of example, the Mutazilites cited one of the shorter chapters of the Quran (chapter 111) in which the Holy Book actually curses Abu Lahab, Muhammad’s nasty uncle, for his ill treatment of the Prophet during his Meccan stay before he migrated to Medina to escape the torments heaped on him by his clansmen. Remember also that Abu Lahab is among the very small number of people mentioned by name in the Quran.

The arguments of the Mutazilites on the ‘created’/‘uncreated’ nature of the Quran rests on a twofold basis. These terms did not mean what we would understand by them today - namely ‘created by man’/‘created by God’ respectively. What they implied in terms of the thought categories of the time was whether the Quran was 'coeternal/'non-coeternal'; by which latter term was meant, whether the Quran was as 'infinite' as God.

The first premise underlying the Mutazilite view arose out of their difference with Asharism on the theological understanding of the issue of predeterminism: Are all acts of human beings on earth - they asked - ‘predetermined’ in the sense of being preordained by God? If this were so, they argued, no human being would be accountable for his good and evil deeds and the Quran’s statement on rewarding the good and punishing the evil would have no meaning.

Based on this contention, the Mutazilites argued that Abu Lahab’s cruelty towards the Prophet would go unpunished on the Day of Judgement since it consisted of an act that was not merely known to God but also predestined by Him.

The second premise of the Mutazilites was even more firmly grounded in Reason. Allah, they argued, was first and foremost a Just Being. How, then, could Abu Lahab get away with his wickedness when other humans guilty of lesser violations of God’s law would receive their just deserts on Doomsday?

The Mutazilites further contended that to accept the Asharite view on predeterminism was to admit that human beings were not responsible for their actions, an insistence which would encourage a fatalistic attitude, a do-nothing attitude, which would undermine the human being’s capacity of free will. (Hence, this issue is also referred to in the literature as ‘predeterminism verses human free will’).

The Asharites responded to these arguments with an array of dialectics of their own, the handiwork of their leader, Abul Hasan al-Ashari. He maintained that since the Quran has a number of verses stating that God knows, and indeed ordains, all that happens in the world, it is not for us humans to disregard the verses that expressly say so, or to interpret them as though God did not mean what he clearly - and literally - lays down in them.

Al-Ashari was no doubt aware of the danger of adopting too literalist a position on this issue. He therefore came up with a subtle counter-argument. This runs somewhat as follows.

He criticized the Mutazilites for maintaining that God must punish the wrongdoer and reward the good individual as though he had no option but to do so was to admit that He was not the all-powerful Being he is repeatedly made out in the Quran to be. The Allah of the Quran, said the Asharites, was a fully sovereign Being, one who can choose to do what he wants including to act arbitrarily. God can if He so chooses not punish the wrongdoers by invoking His considerable power of Mercy and, for example, forgiving them.

In response to the first of the Mutazilite arguments – namely, that if one were to accept predeterminism in its extreme sense there would be no place for the human will - Ashari argued this was not necessarily so. Humans certainly possess the capacity of free will and will be held accountable for any misdeeds they commit on earth. But it is God who possesses an unlimited power to act, not Man. Not to accept this was to deny God's sovereignty.

Al-Ashari finally ended his arguments with the assertion that Man derives (or acquires, as he put it) his freedom to choose between good and evil from God’s power. God in this sense equips Man with the power to choose between good and evil at the point of decisionmaking. Man’s free will arises not from his own capacity, but from the power which God bestows on him. (This doctrine is sometimes referred to as ‘acquisitionism’).

(D). My thesis on the Mutazilite-Asharite debate

There are, it seems to me, two missing factors in the general Muslim belief about the Quran. The first of these is reason, the second historicity. The merit of Mutazilite theology is that it accords an important place to both these factors.

Taking the second factor first: historicity. Some of the doubts in the minds of non-Muslims about the Quran’s reference to terms like ‘jihad’ and ‘kafir’ would be dispelled if Muslims, while adhering to their belief that the Quran is Word of God, were to conclude, as the Mutazilite theologians did, that some of the Revelations in the Quran are history-driven. Adopting such an interpretation should pose no problems for even the most orthodox of Believers: for, it is generally agreed that the Quran was revealed to Muhammad at different times of his life and at different stages of his embattled career as Prophet with some situations demanding an aggressive response while others requiring a peaceful and pragmatic approach to problems that arose in 7th century Arabia. Not surprisingly, the Quran consists of ambiguous messages that deal with both types of situation.

As to the factor of reason: there should be no difficulty for us in the modern world to give it the important place accorded to it in scriptural exegesis by the Mutazilites. In fact, Islamic being a practical, eclectic faith, the Quran itself recommends the use of reason for the promotion of a proper understanding of it.

Using a derivative of the Arabic word, ‘aql’ variously translated as ‘wisdom’ or ‘reason’ verse 2 of chapter 12 reads:

We have revealed the Quran in Arabic so that you may understand it with wisdom (or reason).

I believe, therefore, that adopting Mutazilism as part of our credo would not only help us Muslims come to terms with the imperative of modernity, it would clear up much of the misconception that justifiably exists about certain aspects of our religious ideology.