Al-Ma'mûn, the Inquisition, and the Quest for Caliphal Authority

Under this title and under the same cover two whole books are produced or reproduced here, i.e. a 129 pages monograph of Al-Ma’mun by John Nawas (Leuven Univ.) and Walter Melville Patton’s biography of Ahmad ibn Hanbal and the Mihnah, first published in Leiden, in 1897, and including an account of the inquisition called Mihnah from 218–234 A.H. (pp. 209), a quintessential example of “authority dramatization” (xiii). 'Abd Allah al-Ma’mun, son of the famous caliph Harun al-Rashid (786–809), presided over what is now called the “Golden Age” of Islam (p. 1). He was better known for his view that the Qur’an was created in time and for instituting the mihnah, a Muslim inquisition – a novelty running counter the tradition (and indeed the letter) of Islam. Thus he is now seen as a Muslim homo politicus and the mihnah, lasting some 16 years, as what comes closest to the inquisition of the European Middle Ages, even though the caliph himself only used the term imtahana (to interrogate) (p. 15). Al-Ma’mun designated as his heir [Ali ibn Musa al-Kazim, the eighth Imam of the Twelver Shi‘ah, and replaced the traditional Abbasid black colour with green.