Revisionist history is common. Searching for the truth takes time. It is not always what you find in current compositions. It takes a little digging, but what could be discovered is either gold or ancient deposits of Dung.  I believe Islam has erased much of history which would paint a different picture, or make more clear it’s limitations. It is debated whether or not it is a religion. I am one of those that do not believe that it is. It is more of a political ideology. A political ideology that has evolved over 14 centuries to become a dominant force and a method by which tyrannical leaders, be they presidents, muftis, or imams, oversee a population and direct them in a singular fashion. They leave no room for tolerance.

Islam did not become a majority in any of its locations for a few centuries after Mohammed died. I claim he was murdered by Abu Bakr, the father of his child bride, Aisha. He became the first Caliph and he used the army that Muhammad enlisted for his purposes to invade areas to the north and west of Arabia. His successes came easily because of the weakness of the Byzantine and Sassanid empires, two nations at war which devastated their military. He was emboldened by his success. His reign lasted about two years, and he died of natural causes, the only one of the first four or five Caliphs not to be murdered. He chose his successor, the second Caliph Umar. When Abu Bakr began many of the so-called Muhammed followers decided to split. They were forced to continue fighting or die, being accused of apostasy. Apostasy then became part of Islamic law. 

There were several reasons for differences among the followers of Muhammad, one being those that believed the rightful successor to Muhammad should have been Umar. But Umar was conveniently away at the time of Muhammad‘s death, convenient for Bakr that is. There were also those that were just discontent with the whole idea of Muhammad ‘s monotheism, and serving him to carry out a personal vendetta. That vendetta was served when Muhammed‘s army raided Mecca and forced conversion of the people there. But as long as the spoils of their marauding and battles kept coming, the army stayed intact, until Muhammed‘s death. Besides those that wanted to go back to their homes and no longer participate in the marauding, there were soldiers that were upset that under Abu Bakr the rewards were not as great as they were when fighting for Muhammad. So there were areas of concern. There were people that started to think about what they were doing and why they were doing it.  Thinking is an interesting dynamic in the world of Islam today.

Also during his leadership Abu Bakr was working on the composition, the creation, of the Quran.  It was a process of preservation of the revelations and influences of the Prophet, finding unity in the telling, interspersed, I truly believe, with personal choices for law and control of those ruled. After Bakr, Umar continued making additions to the laws and dictates to come from the temples of his power, all recorded in a manual. Various copies of this manual, or Quran, existed. Text was debated among the leadership and those whose scholarship included recalling Muhammed‘s life, what he believed and said.  Additions and subtractions occurred. Oral recitation which told news and views were shared. There were those that memorized critical statements, a troop of persons to provide Muhammad’s people with this words. Muhammed also had a scribe that worked for him, making notes during his life that became part of the words of Muhammed, or the Sunnah. It took a couple centuries for the hadiths (sunnah) to be recorded.  Battles after Muhammand died resulted in the loss of many of those who knew the words of the Prophet, the result, not everything was kept. And imagine too how oral recall can alter the facts over extended periods of time.

Those not in power, subjects of the realm and of the commanders, gave thought to what they were being told, required to do, the gospel of Islam, or the word of Islam, by the Caliphs. These subjects lived side-by-side with Christians and Jews, learning from them and enjoying conversation as well as their logic. They were aware the Christians referred to their Messiah as Logos, thus embracing reason to know their God. And in turn these Muslim separatists, although still Muslims and living under the constraints of the Caliphs, began to debate what they were being compelled to adhere to. Over the years they were also exposed to writings and literature, as well as Muhammad’s Revelations as recalled by the memorizers. The Christians and Jews had libraries, some books were destroyed, some kept to be translated from Greek or Syrian language texts, into Arabic, accessible to those that were interested.   It must be noted that even though a majority, the Christians and Jews were diminished to being subservient to the marauding Islamic leaders and their militant soldiers. They were taxed for protection. They were asked to convert. Some died for refusing. Those found useful, able to do jobs the Muslims were not up to, or refused, were engaged in administrative functions. They still had to step aside or bow down to the Islamist in their midst. They lived in fear of their lives, ill equipped to confront the military forces that invaded their communities.  The separatists were Muslims that reasonably argued their Islamic philosophical positions as a defense against Christians and believers in other religions. 

Umar was murdered.  Displaced Arabs and Persians (Sassanid’s) that became slaves were disgruntled. There were tensions in the areas conquered and a Persian slave stabbed Umar in his mosque in Medina.  The third caliph was Uthman.  He was not able to fully quell the tensions or debates over succession. He also made the decision to take the collections of writings, and a variety of Qurans, under his wing and produce just one copy so that there would be one and only one Quran, a book of laws and Islamic directives for his subjects and future minions living under the rule of Islam. He was the final author. The book was manmade more than god inspired.

Uthman did not object to the separatist’s thinking, that reasoned faith was better than traditional faith, even when it differed from the mainstream and Islamic rule.  He viewed them as an important component, intellectuals, adding value in considering the future of Islam. This group under the Islamic term of Mu’tazilah applied reason to their adopted political ideology. As to the dogma of revelations they found reason and revelation compatible, defending also the freedom of human will.  They did not attribute human behavior to Allah, but to the person themselves. The Mu’tazilites grew.  They emerged out of Basra, Iraq in the 8th century as the first major ‘rationalist’ school of Islamic theology.  Early Islamic debate considered the Greek, the Stoics, Aristotle and Plato.  

Rebellions against the Islamic rule continued and Uthman was also assassinated 12 years into his reign, in Medina.  Who should actually lead the growing faction of Islam? After Uthman came a Caliph that was directly in the hereditary line of Muhammad, by way of his daughter Fatima by marriage. His name Ali.  A civil war was underway and a schism resulted.  This was when there came to be Sunni and Shia Muslims. The Sunni’s wanted their rulers to be rightly guided.  The Shia wanted descendants of the Prophet.  During all this conflict the separatists withdrew, isolating themselves against whatever might be the outcome.  They took a neutral position to the differences between whether their leaders would be direct descendants of Muhammad or among the brightest minds and most competent guided persons, chosen by council. The different avenues taken by the Islamists, of Sunni or Shia, was not their concern.  But they continued to give full consideration and sought to understand just how Islam would or should work.  They thought about it.  

Ali lost in a fight in Syria when the opposition charged his men with lances impaled with crude copies of the Uthman Quran, calling to “Let Allah decide,” who should be the true leader. Ali yielded. He was subsequently assassinated. 

Those that followed the path of the hereditary group of the successor Mu’awiyah embraced the rational of the Mu’tazilites.  A dynasty was formed, the Umayyad Dynasty. Early Caliphs of this order supported the separatists, more as pragmatists that patrons.  Their school of rational thought grew.  One of them, al-Malik even built the Dome of the Rock atop the Temple grounds in Jerusalem to make known the extent, and as a reminder, of the dominant position of the Muslims. Successors did much to establish the rule of Islam and continue with territorial expansion. It became the largest empire in the world at its peak. From the Atlantic (Spain) to the modern Pakistan. Byzantine and Sassanid influence was evident in the administrative systems. Arab Muslims were favored over converts, the non-Arab often taxed more and with fewer privileges.  There was always some form of conflict.  But art, architecture, poetry flourished.  Knowledge and reason was accepted. A golden age for Islam began.

But then the Umayyad’s became weak and descendants of Muhammad, with Persian support, took over, defeating the last Umayyad Caliph (Marwan II) in 750CE at the Battle of Zab.  The ruling Umayyad family during a banquet in Damascus was massacred.  The Muslims sure like killing to assume control.  All that was left was an Emirate in Cordoba, Spain, as the Abbasid Revolution altered the landscape. Those in Cordoba continued learning under the school of the separatists, the Mu’tazilites, achieving a great deal culturally and scientifically. It was the dawn of the end of the golden age.  

The Abbasid Dynasty took over. The early Caliphs embraced the rational thinkers. A philosopher named al-Kindi brought into the Arab world astrology, medicine, chemistry, music, arithmatic and a great concern for the quality of human life. Kindi was a prominent member of Islam’s House of Wisdom.  He did not always agree with the Mu’tazilites, but encouraged their rational approach. There was a great library in Bagdad, the House of Wisdom, which the Caliphs enjoyed.  Many Islamists today claim it did not exist, denying any idea that Muslims actually study to learn and reason. The library in fact was destroyed in 1250 when the Mongol’s overwhelmed Baghdad and brought this dynasty to an end.  

The Abbasid period at first continued to gain intellectual ground, into the early part of the 9th century.   The rationalist school was the official state doctrine for a while.  It claimed the Quran was created, as I would agree. But there were fundamentalists that disagreed, saying the Quran was uncreated, co-eternal with Allah.  Allah was the creator. In the mid 800’s traditionalists were persecuted if they did not conform to the rational views of the Mu’tazilites.  The Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mun punished traditionalist Sunni scholars, imprisoning them, even executing them, unless they conformed to the doctrine of the created Quran. Referred to as the Mihna, lasting 18 years, even under successors.  When the Milna ended so did much of the emphasis on a created Quran. 

But then came (847CE) a new sheriff in town, Caliph al-Mutawakkil. State policy was reversed.  Muslims were achieving majorities in many locations. The new Caliph required the Quran be used literally, without question. Sunni traditionalist’s position and stature was restored. There was to be no pretense that a Caliph could decide matters of religious orthodoxy. Who were the guardians of Allah’s religion and laws, the community of Islamic scholars (‘ulama) or as is the Shia view, the Imam, as Caliph-Imam? Allah’s omnipotence over human actions was not to be questioned.  Everything that happened was to be accepted, unequivocally, as continuous divine intervention.  Do not give it a thought. 

The school of the Mu’tazilites, the separatists, the thinkers, was abolished and any future for using reason as a fundamentalist Muslim came to an end. It didn’t end rational inquiry overnight, but it marked a pivot toward traditionalism in Sunni Islam.  It was considered speculative theology (Kalãm). The rule of law became what happens was always as Allah would want, as the Quran says, and as supported by the hadiths. The mind of the Muslim was closed.

Where did this then lead?

by

Thomas W. Balderston

Author and Blogger