When cross examined about his adoption on the createdness of the Quran, Imam Ahmed resolutely quoted the verse, After further inquisition two others gave way, leaving two formidable opponents to the Khalifah’s views – Imam Ahmed and Muhammad ibn Nuh. Nevertheless, their failure saw Imam Ahmed and 3 other scholars stand strong. When 7 leading scholars of Baghdad relented to the Mu’tazili scholastic opinion under pressure, Imam Ahmed lamented this, thinking that if they had stood strong Al-Ma’mun would not have been able to kill them out of fear of reprisal from the Ummah and that would have been the end of the inquisition in Baghdad. But the inquisition, being an official dictate of the Ameer ul Mu’mineen of the time, had to be carried out. Grounded in the usul of Imam Shafi’i, the learned Imam rejected allegory and philosophy as the basis for determining anything in the matter of the divinity of Allah and like his many teachers found it better to avoid such discussions which would lead to the fitnah of declaring kufr upon another Muslim. Imam Ahmed ibn Hanbal, may Allah be pleased with him, being a renowned faqih and muhaddith of Baghdad, was not one to be spared. It was this influence during his reign that led him to orchestrate the Minha (inquisition) which led to the imprisonment and persecution of many sincere scholars in all provinces of the Khilafah. This also gave Al-Ma’mun the scope to re-interpret the Shari’ah according to the times and consolidate his position as the ruler. Driven by this influence, Al-Ma’mun considered the ‘createdness’ of the Qur’an an aqeedah issue and sought to have all subjects under his Khilafah confess to this opinion. However, the Mu’tazilah school found favour in the eyes of many, including the Khaleefah Al Ma’mun, given their initial status as the defenders of Islam against the rationally based theological attacks of non-Muslims and their philosophical arguments. They concluded that the Qur’an was created, in contrast to the traditional position that such an investigation was not possible given the limited nature of man’s mind. Eventually this approach became entrenched in their usul in interpreting the Qur’an and Sunnah. Among them were the Mu’tazilah – a deviant group founded on the basis of Ilm ul-Kalam – who sought to deal with such challenges on the grounds of the philosophers who challenged them that is, through logic and syllogism itself. Sects and groups began to emerge in major cities like Damascus, Kufa, Basra and Baghdad. These challenges found the Ummah in a serious ideological battle to tackle the issue of allegorical logic and syllogism when explaining divinity. Typically he would try to dispel the Muslims’ question about the Christian dogma on the divinity of Jesus by rhetorically asking about the reference to Jesus as the ‘spirit’ in the Qur’an and if the Qur’an were part of the attributes of Allah, then the book was divine and therefore Jesus was divine too. The likes of John of Damascus is said to have sparked-off the great debate of the era about the createdness of the Qur’an.
The Greek and Persian dhimmis viewed the new religion of Islam through the opaque windows of their own cultures. Scholastic Theology (Ilm ul-Kalam), mysticism and asceticism were rife in these foreign lands and the Ummah, propelled by the life-breathing progressive nature of Islamic thought, was interacting with these neighbouring societies. The frontiers of the Islamic State had extended well into Roman and Persian provinces. Al-Ma’mun had succeeded to the position of Khalifah. The era was one in which the Ummah found herself under hereditary rule. “The true Shaykh of Islam and leader of the Muslims in his time, the hadith master and proof of the Religion.” – Imam al-Dhahabi “I left Baghdad and did not leave behind me anyone more virtuous, more learned, more knowledgeable than Ahmad ibn Hanbal.” – Imam al-Shafi`i