Mu’tazilaism: Assessing of the Impact of the Mu’tazila Ideology on the Development of Islamic Theology

Abstract

Mutazilaism is an ideology that professes the belief the human God-given intellect and reason is highly needed to achieve spiritual understanding. This assignment write-up attempts an examination of the Mutazilah principles, theological ideologies and historical emergence. It was established that the Mutazila advocates the notion of man’s God-given free will, and maintain among others that man’s action and inactions are by his own (man’s) doing and has nothing to do with God’s will. Also, evil is not associable to God, in other words, given that he is good and just, none of his creations is evil. They, as well, advocates the notion of the intermediate position, principle of Tawhid, divine justice, and authenticity of the Quran as a perfect and reliable source of referencing for religious debates among others. It was therefore, concluded that although the Mutazilah worldview and doctrines are rational; judging the truth with human reasoning, combination of Qur’anic revelation and spiritual insight. Others Islamic theological schools disagreed with them on various grounds among which includes their use of reason in debating the truth, method of interpreting scriptures among others – and therefore, seeks to convince people into buying their opinion as truth base on claims that they possess special knowledge of the religion and thus, claim to know the meaning of the Quran. Mu'tazilites, however, seek to convince others to agree with their interpretation by the appealing to their sense of logical reasoning instead of persuading them to agree with their interpretation of the scripture simply by accepting them given their position as absolute religious authority or through the use of generalized emotional pleas.

Introduction

The Mutalizilas, having emerged nearly two centuries following Prophet Muhammed's Mecca to Medinna migration have come described as believers in the notion of interpreting Islamic scriptures revelation (mainly, The Holy Quran) through theoretical reasoning.

The word Mu'tazilah has its root in the Arabic word i'tizal meaning to withdraw or secede. It literally means “those who withdraw themselves”. It was derived from the story of the leader of the movement named Wasil bin ‘Ata (80/699-131/748) who, withdrew from the study circle of his teacher, Imam Hasan Basra and his followers, over disagreements on the legal state of a sinner in the Islamic perspectives; a believer or unbeliever. His teacher maintained that the person is still a Muslim to which Wasil disagreed based on reasoning that the person is neither a believer nor an unbeliever. Hence, he (Wasil bin ‘Ata) and his followers were referred to as Secessionists or With-drawers following Hassan’s comment that Wasil has withdrawn from them (Khan, 2017).

Following this, the movement was said to have been started by Wasil in the second century AH (otherwise known as eighth century AD). In some of their belief, they disagree with the general agree principles of the early Islamic theologians otherwise referred to as People of Sunnah. They are all of the opinion that giving logically comprehensible account of Islamic beliefs is necessary and usually abide by five generally theological principles, two of which were important, namely; Unity of God and Divine Justice. By the first, implies the knowledge of oneness of God with no plurality while by the second, they recognize the existence of freewill. They rely on logic, ancient Greek philosophy, and Indian philosophy, in their discussing of different aspects of early Islamic philosophy using the Islamic revelations (mainly the Holy Quran) as their main reference and starting point (Jabbar, 1997). They were however accused by rival Islamic theological schools, not for their theological beliefs or perspectives, but of given emphasis to reasoning methods which they claimed do not conform to fundamental tenets of Islam. This led to critical arguments between the various theological schools in Islam. For instance, the Mutazilas generally subscribed to the belief of God's creation of everything from nothingness. This is however contrary to the view of some Muslim philosophers who are of the belief that the world exists in eternity in some form or another.

Soon after Wasil ibn ʿAtā’s demise, ʿAmr ibn ʿUbayd was said to have taken the mantle of leadership. However, it was not until some generations later that Mutazilism was later formally and systematically propagated by Abu al-Hudhayl al-'Allaf (d. 235 AH/849 AD) in Basra. Soon after, Baghdad witnessed the establishment of another branch of the school directed by Bishr ibn al-Mu'tamir (d. 210 AH/825 AD) who was said to have greatly contributed to the propagation of Mutazilism which later become an established faith with emphasis on man’s freewill to carry out and decided his own acts (Jackson, 2002). This led to their being regarded as the successors of the Qadarites who were said to have emerged earlier towards the end of Omayyad period. They also hold a strong doctrinal belief that justice and reason are necessary underpinning elements that shapes God’s action towards mankind. These two doctrinal beliefs were however rejected by another orthodox school known as Ashʿarites.

The Mutazila doctrinal movement gained a great momentum under the reign of Ma’mun the Great (813-833) who initiated an instigated campaign which persecuted many theologians of that time especially the Ashʿarites alongside other schools of Islamic jurisprudence such as the Hanbali among others, who refused to subscribe to the Mutazila doctrine. This campaign costed many on the theologians their theology as well as earned them general Muslim masses’ sympathy.

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The problem was soon worsened when an investigation was launched with command of Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun popularly referred to as the Mihna to find out theologians who are in opposition of Mutazila doctrine. The Muslim jurist, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, who is also the founding theologian of the Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence was a victim of this inquisition. He rejected the caliph’s demand to agree to take to and promulgate the Mutazila doctrine and was therefore imprisoned and tortured by the Caliph. Following the hostile response that greeted the execution of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the subsequent Caliph al-Mutawakkil (847-861), in a bid to restore and gain legitimate acceptability of the masses favored the reestablishment of the old Muslim faith and thereby rejected the Mutazilite doctrine which resulted in the persecution of Mutazilites professors as well as persecution of several Shia, Sunni, Christian and Jewish theologian of that Abbasid era.

The Mutazilaism Theory of Interpretation

Mu'tazilism disagreed with the acceptance of the acclaimed absolute truth or the absolute right moral law that was propagated by the many political-religious authorities. They instead hold the belief that the task of interpreting the words of Allah requires that man’s application of logical reasoning; if not, the religious authorities or those who the political system favors will take that advantage to manipulate people into accepting their own dictated interpretative views as the absolute truth of God’s message. It is held that in the absence of freedom of reasoning, debate and argument; God's Message and intended meaning could be fabricated or falsified by people who claim to be the upright authorities when it comes to meaning (Ess, 2006).

To this end, the Mu'tazilites courageously challenged other theologians both the ones with political power and otherwise into a debate over validating the true meaning and interpretation of statements of qur’an.  The Mu'tazili judge the truth with human reasoning, combining it with quranic revelation and spiritual insight. This is with the belief that religious authoritarianism the only choice when it comes to using reason. To this end, those who refuted their conclusions decided against the use of reasoning in debating the truth. This disagreement is based on their refusal of the capability of reason to decipher the truth of revelation. Hence, they seek to convince people that their interpretation is truth basing it on claims that they possess special knowledge of the religion and as a result, claim to know the meaning of the Quran. On the contrary however, Mu'tazilites seek to convince others to agree with their interpretation by the appealing to their sense of logical reasoning instead of persuading them to agree with their interpretation of the scripture simply by accepting them given their position as absolute religious authority or through the use of generalized emotional pleas (Jabbar, 1997; Khan, 2017).

The goal of the Mutazilites therefore was towards establishing logical reasoning as the foundation of the Islamic doctrinal system referencing the Quran and other scriptural element of the Islamic faith. Another point of disagreement between the Mutazilites and the rival theological schools of Islamic jurisprudence is their method of logic reasoning which was, much later, found to have been derived from Greek philosophy resulting in other schools of theology accusing them of heretical method of interpretation which they claimed is non-Islamic in nature (Jackson, 2005).

Basic Principles of the Mutazilism

The Mutazilah school of Islamic theology is guided by five principal doctrines which forms their basic tenets:

Tawhid: They believe in the oneness of God, the absence of plurality and attributes. To this end, they believe that God is divine in His existence and his attributes are as a result of what he does, has done and will still do. It follows that God’s attribute can only be understood from what he does and not in who he is. They perceive God's pleasure and anger not as his attributes but as state which are changeable perhaps with time or occurring events. However, existence of God Himself is unchangeable (Cooperson, 2005; Ess, 2006). That being established, it follows that God's attribute is associated with his actions and not His essence or existence. Hence, although God can be described as merciful, being merciful is not in His nature or part of His eternal self, instead, it is in His actions. In other words, it is what God does that is full of mercy.

Justice: They believe that God is just and that, by logic, He does not oppress His creatures. To this end, they believe that God is just in everything he does and by logic, does not do evil and does not command man to do evil. Hence, any evil acts man engages in is by logic as a result of man’s free will.

Divine retribution: They believe that God has ordained the reward for obedience and the punishment for disobedience. Hence, they hold the notion that there is no divine pardon if the sinner does not repent before death. In other words, forgiveness is only possible after repentance (tawbah) not before. The next principal doctrine follows from this notion.

Intermediate Position: The Mutazilites are of the notion that Muslims who having committed grave sins, die without repentance are neither considered as Mumin (believers), nor Kafir (non-believers). However, they are in a position between the two. This is based on the belief that the definition of a Mumin is someone with faith and belief in the existence of God and whose faith has reflected in his/her deeds and moral choices hence, anyone who fails to meet or is short on the requirement of this definition is not qualified to be referred to as a Mumin (a believer) and on the other hand, a Kafir is someone who rejects, refused to belief or denies the existence of God which does not necessarily fits the category of the committer of a grave sin. Hence, they are best categorized as being in the intermediate position. For instance, a Muslim that commit grave sin such as that of adultery (a wine imbiber, a liar etc. otherwise known as fasiq) is neither belief to be neither a believer (mu’min) nor an infidel (kafir); fisq is an intermediary state between belief and infidelity (Abdul-Raof, 2012). However, their fate without repentance before death is Hell.

Command of Right/lawful and Prohibition of Wrongs/unlawful: The Mutazilites, in view of this Islamic duty maintained that the Sharia is not the only means of recognizing right (ma’ruf) and wrong (munkar) and therefore assert the capability of human reason in differentiating the former from latter (Siddiqi, 1993; Jackson, 2005; Khan, 2017). In explaining the command of right and prohibition of wrongs, the Mutazilites holds that although God command right and prohibits wrong, logical reasoning affords Muslim the ability to determine, rationalize and different between right and wrong, revelation aside; stressing that the revelation is only necessarily invoked to ratify certain acts and the determination of the rightness or wrongness of the such acts. This conceptualization of the Mutazilites are therefore based on the use of sane mind and logical reasoning to analyze religious texts (majorly, qur’anic and other scriptural revelations) and doctrines such that in the case of any inconsistency such texts or doctrine can, by logic, be rejected. This notion made orthodox Muslims, who conventionally subscribe to Hadith and Tafsirs, depict them as enemy of the state.

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Theological Beliefs and Perceptions of the Mutazilites

·        Freewill

The Mutazilites believes that creatures have been given the power to carry out their own acts by God. This, they hinged on the fact that if human had no power over their choices, decisions and actions then it is needless for God to promise rewards and punishments for humans. They further argued that given that God is Just in all he does, by logic, it is unlikely for Him to reward or punish humans for actions they have no power or control over (Qadi, 2012).

Following this same notion, the Mutazilites subscribed to the doctrine of Ma'bad al-Juhani and Ghailan al-Dimashqi and therefore argued the fact that God, being wise and just, cannot be associated with evil and injustice. This is with the understanding that it is not justifiable that God would wish for His servant the opposite of what he commands them to do. Therefore, it is believing that the servants are the creator and author of their actions such as the good, evil, belief, disbelief, obedience and sin. Hence, by logic, it is only reasonable that each servant answers for his lawful and unlawful actions over which Allah determines if he/she deserves rewards or punishment. This is with the belief that it is not possible that the servants (humans) has been ordered to perform an act for which he has no power to do. This is because denial of this power, ability or authority would mean that he/she will not have the Human-feature of self-consciousness which all humans have (Khan, 2017).

That being stated, it is through God's attribute of justice that he allows man to be free to author and decide his own actions because it is by so doing that it would be reasonable that he answer for or take responsibility for his actions or deeds. Hence, as earlier said, this doctrine of the Mutazilites aligns with that of the Qadarites by which notion they agree that man is the creator of his volitional acts. Hence, he makes decisions and perform initial actions that depicts his guidance or misguidance by way of 'mubasharah', the outcome of which leads him performance of other acts which is described as 'taulid'. God has nothing to do with and hence cannot be blamed for human's actions and inactions (Wensink, 2008). In this view, it is believing that accepting or rejecting in within man's power, obedience and disobedience to God is within man's will so also is becoming a believer, an unbeliever, and committing sin are all acts that man has control over and cannot, by logic, blame man for it. However, it is the will of God, his wish, that all his created beings accept Islam and obey him which is what he commands and on the other hand, warn against committing sins. Hence, it follows that man deserves and can claim reward for his good deeds and vice versa (Khan, 2017).

At this juncture, it is noteworthy to stress that the only most notable similar Islamic Theological School to the Mutazilites are the Qadarites and this is on the basis of man is responsible for his actions for which he would either be rewarded or punished.

·         Good and Evil

This is the understanding that God is good and just and it is inappropriate to associate Him with evil and injustice. For by creating Justice, God is just, if He is to create evil then He would be evil. So, the Mutazilites concludes that there is no evil what God created or does therefore evil cannot be associated with Him. Mutazilites are of the notion that things are not good or evil only because good declares it is so. This is based on the fact that God has also given human the intellect to be able to distinguish between what is good and evil. Hence, God’s commands are towards the goodness of things and his prohibitions is towards evilness. Thus, good is lawful and evil is unlawful. For instance, human general commends speaking the truth and despises lies. Therefore, evil and goodness is clear to man and does not necessarily needs proof from Sharia. Hence, indulgence in shameful and unjust acts or deeds are associated with evil and has thus been ban by God.

·         
      Impossibility of a Physical Vision of Allah 

     Mu’tazilites are of the notion that vision cannot be achieved in the absence of direction and place. In other words, the things you can only see something if that thing exists in place and in certain directions. It therefore, follows that since God does not exist in place and direction (he is omni-present), a vision of Him is not possible. That is, he cannot be seen by the eye both is in this world and in the hereafter. This implies the Mutazilites denial of beatific vision (Khan, 2017).

·        Heaven and Hell

Mutazilites are of the notion that the "Tank" (Al-Haud), and the "Bridge" (Al-Sirdt) have no physical existence. Following this, they deny the present existence of heaven and hell and are rather of the belief that the two will only come into existence on the Judgement Day (Khan, 2017).

·        
          Perceptions on Sunna/Hadith

The Mutazilites believes that the Qur’an is the created speech of Allah which came into existence in line with prophethood of prophets in Islam. Mutazilites are of the notion that prophet Muhammed as a messenger of Allah during his lifetime only follows the Quran. Therefore, they regard the Quran has most authentic and reliable source of reference and perceived Hadith as insufficient and unreliable source of reference claiming that it is a mere conjecture and Bidah (invention) and therefore concludes that the Quran is complete, perfect and require no Hadith or other supplementary books to complement it. According to Abdul-Raof (2012) during the Abassid dynasty, the poet, theologian, and jurist, Ibrahim an-Nazzam founded a Madhhab called the Nazzamiyya that rejected the authority of Hadiths and later, a famous student of his, was a notable critic of followers of Hadiths labelling them as Al-Nabita, meaning “the contemptible” (Zaman, 1997).

Conclusion

This paper discussed the Mutazilites, their principles and theological ideologies. It was established that Mutazilites are of the belief that man can achieve spiritual understandings through his God-given intellect and logical reasoning. They however do not just base their truth, beliefs and ideologies on logical reasoning alone, they give strict preference to the Quran and uses it as their major reference point.

More so, although the Mutazilah worldview and doctrines are rational; judging the truth with human reasoning, combination of quranic revelation and spiritual insight. Others Islamic theological schools disagreed with them on various grounds among which includes their use of reason in debating the truth, method of interpreting scriptures among others – and therefore, seeks to convince people into buying their opinion as truth base on claims that they possess special knowledge of the religion and thus, claim to know the meaning of the Quran. Mu'tazilites, however, seek to convince others to agree with their interpretation by the appealing to their sense of logical reasoning instead of persuading them to agree with their interpretation of the scripture simply by accepting them given their position as absolute religious authority or through the use of generalized emotional pleas.

To cap it all, they hold the belief that human reason can discover spiritual truths that reason is useful in complementing spiritual intuition, and that reason is actually necessary for rightly interpreting any prophetic revelation. This is why the first of the obligations given to man is for us to use our God-given reasoning (Khan, 2017). They believe that man is only responsible for his actions and inactions by that reason, deserves rewards for good deeds or, if otherwise, punishment as promised by God. They also hold the notion of free will, promotes logical interpretation of the revelation among others. However, the only sect discovered by the researcher to have been similar in doctrine to that of the Mutazilites are the Qadarites who also shares the belief that man is author of his actions.

 
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