The Miḥna of 218 A. H./833 A. D.

Revisited: An Empirical Study

Author(s): John A. Nawas
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 116, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1996), pp. 698-
708
Published by: American Oriental Society
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 THE MIHNA OF 218 A.H./833 A.D. REVISITED: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY
JOHNA. NAWAS
UNIVERSITYOF UTRECHT

Exhaustive biographical informationfrom numerouschronicles has been found for twenty-eight of

the forty-four men, known by name, who were interrogated on order of al-Ma'min in the mihna.
Comparable information was obtained for fifty-six randomly selected men used as a control group.
The findings indicate that al-Ma'min chose to focus on the interrogees, first, on account of their
greaterintellectual eminence and social influence and, second, to make of them an example to all tra-
ditionists, with the aim of censoring the hadith enterprise.This interpretationsupports the hypothesis
which explains the mihna as a design on the part of al-Ma'mun to secure for the caliphal institution
full control over religious matters. An alternative hypothesis which explains the mihna as an attempt
by the caliph to quell opposition is cast into further doubt, in that there was no predominance of
(Arab-) Khurasanianswithin the ranks of the opposition, as this hypothesis states.

As ONE OF A SEEMINGLYinterminable series of pa-
pers written in the last hundred years in search of ex-
plaining the mihna, it is fitting to introduce this article'
by recalling Thomas Kuhn's thesis about the manner in
which ideas change and evolve.2 No matter how defec-
tive, tattered, and vehement the attack on it is, Kuhn
wrote, an explanation, a theory, a supposition, an idea
will retain a permanence that will outlive the eloquence
and logic of its critics; it will die away only when an
alternative comes along, one that explains better, pre-
dicts more accurately, and encompasses a wider range of
diverse facts in total harmony. We can scarcely aspire
to such an ultimate stage, but in the 1970s, explanations
of the mihna have undergone what Kuhn calls a "para-
digm shift," an intermediate and decisive phase in the
natural evolution of ideas. This shift, and the sig-
nificance to it of the results of the investigation being
reported in this article will be described shortly. First,
however, a few words about the mihna itself, a phe-
nomenon that-though now over a millennium old, and
a single event in the twenty-years-long reign of the man
who ordered it-continues to puzzle researchers and en-
gage their attention.3
1 This research was supported by the Netherlands Organiza-
tion for Scientific Research (NWO). I am grateful to Prof.
RichardW. Bulliet for the valuable suggestions he made on an
earlier draft. The responsibility for the content of the paper is,
of course, fully my own.
2 T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chi-
cago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1962).
3 For a general overview see, Encyclopaedia of Islam, new
ed. (EI2), s.v. (MartinHinds). A monographic treatmentof the
The name of the seventh Abbasid caliph al-Mamunn
(r. 198-218/813-833) has become synonymous with the
mihna, "inquisition," which in 218/833, just four months
before his sudden death, the caliph ordered his gover-
nor of Baghdad, Ishaq b. Ibrahim, to initiate. Of the vari-
ous reasons for this lasting link between al-Ma'muin and
the mihna, the following are of signal importance. 1) An
order which essentially aimed at forcing compliance with
a particular doctrinal issue runs counter to all that is
known about al-Ma'muin-his breadth of intellectual ho-
rizon, commitment to the path of reason, patronage of
wide-ranging and open debates, dedication to infusing
Islamic scholarship and modes of thought with alien
ideas and novel outlooks on the world. 2) The mihna had
no precedent in Islam, al-Ma'mun barred no means for
implementing it, and the number of men subjected to
it ran into the hundreds. 3) The mihna stood in violation
of the letter and spirit of the Qur'an.4 4) As though this
infringement on the Qur'an were not enough, the caliph
saw fit to make its status the touchstone of the inquisi-
tion, requiring the interrogees to acquiesce in the doctrine
that the Book was a created object (the khalq al-qur'an).
For some seven decades beginning with the first
extensive and serious study of the mihna by Patton in
1897,5 explanations-more accurately, explanatory hy-
focused on some variation or other of a
potheses-have
subject is Fahmi Jad'an, Al-Mihna: Bahth fi jadaliyyat al-dini
wa al-siyasifi al-islam (CAmman:Dar al-shuriq li-al-nashr wa
al-tawzic, 1989).
4 See, for instance, Qur'an 2:256: "la ikraha fi al-din ... ,"
meaning "no compulsion in religion."
5 Walter M. Patton, Ahmed ibn Hanbal and the Mihna (Lei-
den: E. J. Brill, 1897).

698

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 NAWAS:The Mihna of 218 A.H./833
Muctazilite/Shicite theme. Proponents of this perspec-
tive would have us believe that what drove al-Mamunnto
write this extraordinarychapter in the history of Islam
was his need to gain the approbationof Muctazilites and
Shicites, by expressing supportfor their views. This out-
look, extensively discussed by Gabrieli and Sourdel,6
leaves the impression that al-Ma'mun was a naive senti-
mentalist, a view that runs counter to the overwhelming
consensus that he was, rather, a very shrewd, realistic,
foresighted politician, if not an outright"Machiavellian,"
as al-Duri thinks he was.7 It is true that al-Ma'mun ap-
preciated the Mu'tazilites' openness to unfamiliar per-
spectives and ideas, but some of their tenets did not sit
well with him, and al-Ma'mun's circle of intimate intel-
lectual companions included both Muctazilite thinkers
and stronganti-MuCtazilitesas well.8 It is also truethatthe
caliph did have a soft spot for CAlib. Abi Talib, son-in-
law of the Prophet,and was partialto the CAlidsand their
followers, the shilat CAll ("partisans of CAli,"hence
Shicism), but this does notjustify the inferentialjump that
the mihna was a consequence. Only when proponentsof
the Muctazilism/Shicismexplanationare able to meet two
essential requirementscan their views be taken seriously.
First, they have to spell out those elements which trans-
cend or cut across the heterogeneity of the vague, clash-
ing, directionless strandsof ideas-in-the-makingwhich is
all thatShiCism/MuCtazilism of the time had. Second, they
must identify the causal bond between this rhapsody and
al-Mamuin's issuance of the mihna order.
The Mu'tazilite/Shi'ite genre of hypotheses has lost
ground in the last twenty years in two ways. Central to
the first is the idea that, in carrying out the mihna, al-
Ma'mun was basically setting his sights on the future,
aiming to secure for the caliphal institution a universal
and unquestionedauthorityon all matters,secular and sa-
cred, a status that was in force during the Umayyad pe-
riod and was especially characteristicof the founders of
Islam but had since vanished. Allowing for variations in
6 Francesco
Gabrieli,Al-Ma'man e gli 'Alidi (Leipzig: Verlag
EduardPfeiffer,1929). DominiqueSourdel,"Lapolitiquere-
ligieuse du calife Cabbasideal-Ma'mun,"Revuedes etudes islam-
iques 30 (1962): 27-48.
7 CAbdal-'Aziz al-Duri, al-CAsral-CAbbasial-awwal (Beirut:
Dar al-talica li-al-tibaa wa al-nashr, 19882), 173.
8 Josef van Ess, "Diraribn 'Amr und die 'Cahmiya':Biogra-
phie einer vergessenen Schule," Der Islam 43 (1967): 241-79;
44 (1968): 1-70, 318-20, in particular,
pp. 30ff. JohnA. Na-
was, "A Reexamination of Three CurrentExplanations for al-
Ma'mun's Introductionof the Mihna,"International Journal of
Middle East Studies 26 (1994): 615-29, especially pp. 616-17.
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A.D. Revisited 699
details and accents, this hypothesis was championed by
Tilman Nagel and by Crone and Hinds, and it continues
to gain support.9The second explanatory perspective,
adopted by Ira Lapidus and Wilferd Madelung, albeit in
somewhat differing versions, regardsthe mihna as a mea-
sure al-Ma'mun had taken to quell festering resentments
and ongoing opposition to his regime by several group-
ings and factions in which a Khurasanianbackgroundis
quite prominent.'0
The work of Lapidus signals two breaks with past
tradition, one in content, the other in the direction of
researching the mihna. His alternative explanatory hy-
pothesis, just sketched and to which we shall returnlater,
has already opened up a new avenue of inquiry and de-
bate. No less importantis the course he has taken,leading
us away from the well-trodden path of probing the mo-
tives and external influences which may have induced the
caliph to order the inquisition. Instead, Lapidus turned
the focus to characteristicsof the men whom al-Ma'mun
happened to single out for inquisition. In his recent call
for a systematic, in-depth, scrutiny of biographical en-
tries on the interrogees, van Ess, too, is of the opinion
that clues to whatever al-Ma'mun sought to accomplish
may well be found in the men whom al-Ma'mun surely
did not pick at random.1
The study reported in this article derives from the
outlook of Lapidus and van Ess, but the method and
procedures of its execution owe their logic to a direc-
tion in historical research that is firmly embedded in
an empirical, social-scientific approach,which gives fac-
tual data priority over impressionistic constructions.The
results of our investigation will have direct bearing on
our postulated "paradigm shift," and on the "Khurasa-
nian connection" and "caliphal authority" hypotheses,
9 Tilman Nagel, Rechtleitung und Kalifat: Versuchiiber eine
Grundfrage der islamischen Geschichte, Studien zum Minder-
im Islam,2 (Bonn:Selbstverlagdes Orientali-
heitenproblem
schenSeminarsderUniversitat,1974).PatriciaCroneandMartin
Hinds, God's Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries
of Islam (Cambridge:
CambridgeUniv. Press, 1986). Nawas,
"Reexamination."
10IraM. Lapidus,"TheSeparationof StateandReligionin
the Developmentof EarlyIslamicSociety,"International
Jour-
nal of Middle East Studies 6 (1975): 363-85. Wilferd Made-
lung, "The Vigilante Movement of Sahl b. Salama al-Khurasani
and the Origins of Hanbalism Reconsidered,"Journal of Turk-
ish Studies (Fahir Iz Festschrift, I) 14 (1990): 331-37.
11 Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3.
Jahrhundert
Hidschra(Berlin:Walterde Gruyter,1992),3:448,
n. 28.
700 Journal of the American Oriental Society 116.4 (1996)
allowing us to evaluate which of the two has the greater
cogency and explanatory power.
METHOD AND PROCEDURE
Rationale for the Method Used
This study and the method chosen for its implemen-
tation are anchored in one fundamental assumption or
hypothesis and two requirements that are essential for
testing it. The assumption is simply that the interrogees,
as a group, did have in common some characteristics
which rendered them a suitable locus for the realization
by al-Ma'muin of whatever he had hoped to achieve
through the mihna. Required for a fair test of this hy-
pothesis is a set of characteristics or variables that are
comprehensive in scope and objectively definable. The
other requirement-and one which has been largely met
by Lapidus-pertains to the sources selected for check-
ing the presence or absence of these characteristics;the
sources will have to be sufficiently wide-ranging and
detailed to permit the optimal unveiling of relevant data
and cross-checking them.
If, on the condition that the two requirementsare met,
the search fails to uncover denominatorscommon to the
interrogees, the hypothesis would have to be rejected
as unsubstantiated.The opposite is not necessarily true,
however. The presence of shared characteristics among
the interrogees lends validity to the hypothesis only if
it is shown that a comparable peer group, a "control
group,"did not possess these same characteristics. The
criteria for defining the "comparablepeers," or control
group, will be set forth in the body of the next paragraph.
Composition of the Two Groups, the Interrogees
and Controls
The most comprehensive list of names of the men who
were interrogatedby al-Ma'mun himself or on his order
by Ishaq b. Ibrahim, his governor in Baghdad, is found
in al-Tabari'sTa'rikhal-rusul wa al-muluk, where forty-
four names are given.12 The listing of names is, how-
ever, one thing; a straightforwardverification of who,
for instance, "Ibnal-Hirsh"or "al-Sindi"are is altogether
another matter. Thanks to the contributions of Edmund
12
Al-Tabari,Ta'rikhal-rusul wa al-muluk,ed. M. J. de Goeje
et al. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1879-1901), 3:1116-32. It is certain
that, as al-Tabaristates, more than forty-fourmen were involved
in this interrogation,a matterto be discussed at length later.
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Bosworth, van Ess, and especially Hans Uhrig,'3 it was
possible to establish, with a high degree of confidence,
the identity of twenty-eight of the forty-four men men-
tioned by al-Tabari.The empirical part of this study is
restricted to these twenty-eight men.'4
Decisions had to be made about the size of the con-
trol group; the criteria defining their "comparability"to
the interrogees;and how, accordingto the accepted norms
statisticiansuse, they ought to be selected. Strictly speak-
ing, a control group of twenty-eight individuals would
suffice, since it would match numerically the group of
the men interrogated. A larger size is not only permissi-
ble but would also increase the pool of information. It
was therefore decided to double the number by selecting
fifty-six "control group" individuals.
13 C. Edmund Bosworth, The History of al-Tabari, vol. 32:
The Reunification of the CAbbasidCaliphate (Albany: State
Univ. of New York Press, 1987), 204-19; Josef van Ess, The-
ologie und Gesellschaft, 3:455-56; Hans F Uhrig, Das Kalifat
von al-Ma'mun (Frankfurt:Verlag Peter Lang, 1988), 256-85.
14 The twenty-eight interrogees with, in parenthesis, their Is-
lamic years of death when known are: CAbdalaCla' b. Mushir (d.
218); CAbdalmalikb. CAbdalCaziz(d. 228); 'AbdalmunCimb.
Idris (d. 218); CAbdalrahman b. Ishaq (d. 232); CAbdalrahman b.
Yunus (d. 224); Ahmad b. Ibrahim (d. 246); Ahmad b. Hanbal
(d. 241); Ahmad b. Yazid; CAlib. al-Ja'd (d. 230); CAsimb. CAli
(d. 221); Bishr b. al-Walid (d. 238); al-Fadl b. Ghanim (d. 236);
al-Hasan b. Hammad (d. 241); al-Hasan b. CUthman(d. 242);
Ibrahimb. Muhammadal-Mahdi (d. 224); Ishaq b. Ibrahim(d.
246); Isma'il b. Ibrahim(d. 236); Ismacil b. Abi Mascid; Jacfar
b. 'Isa (d. 219); Muhammad b. Sacd (d. 230); Muhammad b.
Hatim (d. 236); Muhammad b. Nuh al-Madrub (d. 218); al-
Muzaffarb. Murajja;Qutaybab. Sacid (d. 240); Sacid b. Sulay-
min (d. 225); 'Ubaydallah b. 'Umar (d. 235); Yahya b. Macin
(d. 233); Zuhayr b. Harb (d. 234).
The names of the sixteen men excluded because of lack of
furtheridentificationare: Ismacilb. Dawud; CAlib. Abi Muqatil;
al-Dhayyal b. al-Haytham;Ibn al-Hirsh; Ibn CUlayyaal-Akbar;
Yahya b. CAbdal-Rahman al-'Umari; "another descendant of
CUmarb. al-Khattabwho was judge of al-Raqqa";al-Fadl b. al-
Farrukhan;al-Nadrb. Shumayl;Ibn Shujac;'Ubaydallah b. Mu-
hammadb. al-Hasan; Ibn al-Bakka'; "a blind man who was not
a faqih"; Ibn al-Ahmar; al-Sindi; CAbbas.Though suggestions
have been made as to the identity of some of these sixteen
names (like IsmaCilb. DawOdor Ibn CUlayyaal-Akbar), it was
nevertheless considered better to leave them out if any doubt
remained. All sources report, for example, that al-Nadr b. Shu-
mayl had died more than a decade before the inception of the
mihna; he was, consequently, not included in the final list of
interrogees.
 NAWAS: The Mihna of 218 A.H./833
To assure comparability,four criteria were used. First,
names of the fifty-six men had to be drawn from that
one single source which happens to provide information
about more of the twenty-eight interrogees than any
other. In a pilot study, I scrutinized several promising
sources and found al-Khatibal-Baghdadi'sTa'rikhBagh-
dad to have entries on all of the twenty-eight men inter-
rogated. Consequently, this source was used as basis for
selection (first criterion). Statisticians counsel the use of
a "table of randomnumbers"for the purposeof eliminat-
ing selection bias-and such a table was used, and quite
easily, since the entries in Ta'rikh Baghdad are num-
bered. However, not everyone who happened to turn up
via this randomizationprocedurewas selected as part of
the pool of fifty-six men. Of these, only the individuals
who met the other three criteria of comparability to the
interrogees were taken up in the final list: they had to be
members of the same sex, all men; who had not been sub-
jected to the mihna; and, who were contemporaries of
the twenty-eight men, in that they died between 218/833
and 246/861-respectively, the earliest and latest years
of death of the interrogees.
The Variables Used for Comparing the Two Groups
I startedoff with a list of ninety-four distinct pieces of
data covering as many aspects and phases of human life
as I could think of. After scrutinizing the sources used
in this study, it became clear that this list of variables
was too ambitious, as the vast majority of the variables
fell beyond the scope of what medieval chroniclerstended
to present in their biographical dictionaries. Of the orig-
inal list of ninety-four variables, nineteen emerged as
usable due to availability of information and practical
relevance for this investigation. These variables and the
three main categories under which they are classifiable
are the following.
a) Vital statisticsand means of livelihood: year of birth;
places of birth, upbringing, residence, death and burial;
occupational pursuits of the men and their ancestors.
b) Geographic origin and ethnic background: geo-
graphic origin; Arab versus mawla (a non-Arab client).
c) Intellectual standing and ideology: course of study;
where they studied; specialization (e.g., legal expert,
genealogist); places of transmission;where they taught;
ascription as transmitter of hadith (e.g., trustworthy,
weak); names and number of teachers; names and num-
ber of pupils; ideological position.
The Sources Used
Inasmuch as Lapidus paid close attention to the inter-
rogees as a group, I used the same biographical sources
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A.D. Revisited 701
he had employed, but added others for a more complete
picture and a broaderbase for comparing the two groups
of interrogees and controls. The sources used by Lapidus
are al-Dhahabi, Tadhkiratal-huffaz; Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib
al-tahdhib; al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Ta'rikhbaghdad; Ibn
al-CImad,Shadharadt al-dhahab;IbnSacd,Kitabal-tabaqat
al-kabir; Ibn al-Taghribirdi,al-Nujum al-zdhirafi muluk
misr wa al-qdhira; al-Subki, Tabaqdtal-shdficiyyaal-ku-
bra; al-SamCani, al-Ansdb; Wakic, Akhbdr al-qudat wa
tawdrikhihim.'5In the initial phase of this study, I added
to this list Ibn Hajar,Lisdn al-mizdn, and two majorbio-
graphical dictionaries that had not been published when
Lapidus wrote his article, al-Dhahabi, Siyar acldm al-
nubalad, and al-Mizzi, Tahdhib al-kamal fi asma' al-
rijal.'6 Additional sources, to be cited later in this article,
were used for answering questions which arose as re-
search progressed.
In collecting the information, all but the safest infer-
ences were avoided, and I have remained very close to
the explicit statements made in the texts. Determination
of whether a person was a mawld or not illustrates my
approach.Even though the "adjective of relation"(nisba)
in a name can help determine ethnicity, it was deemed
prudent to designate a person as Arab or mawld only if
the chronicler himself unequivocally tells us that he was
one or the other. The same stringency was applied in re-
cording information on all the variables.
RESULTS
As the results are being presented, the reader will en-
counter percentages and absolute numbers. Both have to
15Lapidus,"Separation,"
381,n. 1.TheeditionsI usedforthis
study are: al-Dhahabi, Tadhkiratal-huffaz, 5 vols. (Hyderabad:
Da'irat al-mac'rif al-'uthmaniyya, 1968); Ibn Hajar,Tahdhibal-
tahdhib, 14 vols. (Beirut: Dar al-fikr al-'arabi, 1984); al-Khatib
al-Baghdadi, Ta'rikh Baghdad, 15 vols. (Beirut: Dar al-kutub
al-Cilmiyya);Ibn al-'Imad, Shadharat al-dhahab, 8 vols. (Bei-
rut: Dar al-afaq al-jadida); Ibn Sacd, Kitab al-tabaqat al-kabir,
ed. Ihsan CAbbas,9 vols. (Beirut: Dar sadir); Ibn al-Taghribirdi,
al-Nujumal-zdhirafi mulukmisrwa al-qdhira,16 vols. (Cairo:
Wizarat al-thaqafa wa al-irshad al-qawmi, 1929-72); al-Subki,
Tabaqdt al-shdfiCiyya al-kubrd, ed. Mahmud al-Tanahi and
cAbdalfattahal-Hilw, 10 vols. (Cairo: Dar ihya' al-kutub al-
Carabiyya,1964); al-SamCani,al-Ansab, ed. CAbdallahal-Baridi,
5 vols. (Beirut: Dar al-janan, 1988); Wakic, Akhbdr al-qudat
wa tawarikhihim,3 vols. (Beirut: cAlam al-kutub).
16 Ibn Hajar, Lisdn al-mizan, 7 vols. (Beirut: Mu'assasat al-
aClamili-l-matbuicat,1986); al-Dhahabi,Siyar acldm al-nubald',
ed. Shucayb al-Arna>it and others, 25 vols. (Beirut: Mu'assasat
702 Journal of the American Oriental Society 116.4 (1996)
be kept in mind at the same time, for otherwise a dis-
torted picture is likely to emerge. As will be recalled, the
two groups varied in size-the controls counting twice
as many as the interrogees-and the amount of data
found for each group on most of the variables differed
even more radically. These divergences dictate the need
for presenting the results in terms of percentages. How-
ever, percentages alone can be misleading. (A difference
between 25% and 50% is impressively large but such a
difference can arise from a single case-a ratio of 1:4 is
25% while for 2:4, the percentage jumps to 50.) It is
thereforeessential to keep both absolute numbersas well
as percentages in the backgroundas the one or the other
is being pondered.
Turningto contents, a bird's eye view of the totality
of the data which the sources generated on the interro-
gees and the control group separately discloses a strik-
ing dissimilarity from two perspectives. First, on fifteen
of the nineteen variables studied, the sources contained
more information on the men interrogatedthan on their
counterparts, the control group.17Second, the sources
yielded 225 pieces of data on the twenty-eight inter-
rogees but only 299 on the fifty-six members of the con-
trol group, averaging 8 and 5.3, respectively. These
findings have two implications. They tell us that ancient
chroniclers have accorded the men interrogated a rela-
tively high degree of attention. This can be taken as an
index of eminence, but it is just as likely to be a reac-
tion on the part of the chroniclers to a unique event, the
mihna. The second implication of the findings is that the
amount of information available in the sources is far
more restricted than one hopes for; this is not surpris-
ing to modern scholars who know that their ancient
counterpartshad no use for the variables contemporaries
deem important,nor do these restricteddata form an im-
pediment to historians who are used to working with
precious few and fragmented data. The presentation to
follow immediately will report the findings pertaining
to each of the three categories under which the nineteen
variableswere grouped,one at a time, and discusses them
as we go along.'8
al-risala, 1993) and al-Mizzi, Tahdhibal-kamalfi asmadal-rijal,
ed. Bashshar Macrif, 35 vols. (Beirut: Mu'assasat al-risfla,
1992).
17 The four variables regarding which more information was
found for the control group than for the interrogees are: num-
ber of men whose teachers are listed; number of men whose
pupils are listed; towns where the men lived; and place(s) of
transmission.
18 In the interest of brevity and to spare the readernonessen-
tial details, only highlights of the results are presented in the
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Vital Statistics and Means of Livelihood
In the year of the mihna the average age of the two
groups was close; the interrogees had an average age of
66 while the control group's average was 62. Consider-
ing, however, that the age of only 12.5 percent of the
controls was given in the sources (versus 64% of the
interrogees), the age difference is probably simply a re-
flection of this variation in raw data.
There is much similarity as to where members of both
groups were born, brought up, lived, died and were in-
terred. That Baghdad was central to the two groups is
not unexpected. There was little information on where
the men were born or where they were raised (nasha'a).
Of the interrogees, two were born and raised in Bagh-
dad and one in Wasit; one member of the control was
born in Marw and another in Basra. While the majority
of both the interrogees and members of the control
group spent and ended their lives in Baghdad, this was
somewhat more so for the former.19
The sources had precious little to say about the oc-
cupational pursuits of members of the two groups and
even less about the occupations of their ancestors. In all,
four different occupations were mentioned, and of these
the legal profession claimed more than the others-five
of the twelve interrogees on whom information was
available (42%) versus four of the eight controls (50%).20
Geographic Origin and Ethnic Background
In investigating the geographic origin of the two
groups, I have paid close attention to whether or not
Khurasanwas a prominentplace of origin,2'the aim being
to shed light on the formulation of Lapidus, Madelung,
article.Detailedresultsas well as informationaboutany other
aspectof this study(completelist of variables,thenamesof all
the teachersand/orpupils of the two groups,etc.) will be
gladlysupplieduponrequest.
19Of the was available
interrogeesaboutwhominformation
on these particularvariables,all lived in Baghdad(11:11),75
percent(15:20)diedin Baghdadandall (6:6)wereburiedthere
versus,respectively,77 percent(20:26),54 percent(15:28)and
67 percent(2:3) for the controls.
20 The otherthreeoccupationalpursuitsweremerchants: in-
terrogeesfour,controlstwo;mustamli/katib ("clerks"):interro-
gees three,controlsone; khadim(servant):interrogeeszero,
controlsone.
21 My thanks go to Professor Lapidus who, in a personal
communicationdatedJuly 18th, 1994, helped me to decide
how to define"of Khurasani
origin."
 NAWAS: The Mihna of 218 A.H./833
and van Ess, who all had something to say about the mat-
ter.22To determine which places belonged to Khurasan,
I relied largely on Yaqut'sMucjamal-bulddn.23Accord-
ing to this source, the following towns were located in
Khurasan:Balkh, Hara, Marw, Nasa, TUs. The village of
Zamm (not in Yaqut) was also included because the bio-
graphical works stated that it lay in Khurasan.Our data
indicate that of the interrogees 46 percent (6:13) came
from Khurasan,while 54 percent (7:13) did not. For the
controls, 43 percent (6:14) had Khurasanianroots, and
57 percent (8:14) originated elsewhere. Information on
ethnicity, defined as being Arab or mawla, was found
on sixteen interrogees and twelve controls. There were
four Arab interrogees (25%) and four Arab control group
members (33%). The mawlas among the first-mentioned
totaled twelve (75%), versus eight controls (67%). In a
word, the mawlds greatly outnumberedthe Arabs in both
groups. The issue of geographic and ethnic origins of the
interrogees will be discussed later.
Intellectual Standing and Ideology
The informationon course of study,place of study,spe-
cialization, places of transmissionor teaching was much
too scant to warrantconsideration. There was, however,
sufficientinformationabout the "ascriptionof quality"of
the men as transmittersof hadith. Data were uncovered
for twenty-three of the twenty-eight interrogees (82%)
and thirty-nine of the fifty-six control group members
(70%).24The general patternsuggests that the chroniclers
accord the interrogees a higher rating as transmitters.
Of the interrogees, 87 percent were rated thiqa (reliable)
or saduq (veracious), while 13 percent were rated as Id
ba's bihi (not bad, neutral)or daCif(weak, objectionable).
Comparablefigures for the control group are 72 percent
positive and 28 percent weak/objectionable.
If this picture reflects intellectual stature, is it con-
firmed elsewhere? In answering this question, I sought
specific informationabout the presence or absence of the
men in the six canonical Sunnite hadith collections. The
rationale for this exploration is that if the interrogees,
as compared to the controls, had any special claim to
intellectual eminence, this should be reflected in the so-
22 Lapidus,
"Separation";Madelung, "Vigilante Movement";
van Ess, Gesellschaft, 3:448-9.
23 5 vols.
(Beirut, Dar sadir).
24 In
general, the sources relied heavily on al-Khatib al-
Baghdadi's ascription of reliability for the individual con-
cerned. The variations offered are restricted to the degree in
which someone was rated as either positive or negative.
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A.D. Revisited 703
called isnads ("chains of transmission")found in the six
standardcollections of hadith.25Al-Mizzi's Tahdhibal-
kamdlfi asmda al-rijdl lists where all transmittersare to
be found in the six canonical books.26 A search in this
source revealed that seventeen (61%) of the interrogees
are mentioned in the canonical works, versus twenty-
seven (48%) of the controls. An inspection of details
provides an even more impressive difference between the
two groups. Of the seventeen interrogees who appearin
the canonical collections, five (29%) are found in all six
of them, versus only two of the twenty-seven controls
(7%). Greater confidence can be lent to this trend if it
were to be corroboratedby other data-which turns out
to be the case as one inspects the numberof teachers and
pupils of the two groups.27
Al-Khatib al-Baghdfdi usually starts off his entries
by listing teachers of the individual in the form of had-
datha Can("he reported from") or rawd Can("he trans-
mitted from") or samiCamin ("he heard from") and so
forth. Counting the names of such teachers listed in al-
Khatib al-Baghdadi for each of the twenty-five (of the
twenty-eight) interrogees and fifty-three(of the fifty-six)
controls, I found that the formerhad a total of 150 teach-
ers (averaging six per person) while the controls had a
total of 221, thus averaging a little over four-which is
distinctly less than what the interrogees averaged.28 The
25 A chain of transmission lists the names of the
people who
reportedly transmitted the text of the hadith which is pre-
sented after the isndd. The six canonical collections are those
by al-Bukhari, Muslim, al-Tirmidhi,Abu Da'ud, Ibn Maja, and
al-Nasa'i.
26 On al-Mizzi and his Tahdhib al-kamal see El2, s.v.
(G. H. A. Juynboll).
27 The sources included many overlaps in the names of
teachers and pupils. In order to overcome the difficulty of man-
aging the hundredsof names listed of both groups, I relied, as
did most of the sources used, on al-Khatib al-Baghdadi. How-
ever, as the findings on the numbers of teachers and pupils ap-
peared compelling, I consulted, as a check, al-Mizzi's Tahdhib
al-kamal and al-Dhahabi's Siyar aclam al-nubald3 who, just
like al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, have elaborate listings of teachers
and pupils.
28 The two groups had five teachers in common. The vast ma-
jority of the teachers mentioned were prominenthadith scholars
of their day. Sufyan b. CUyayna(a famous hadith scholar who
died in Mecca in 198/814) heads the lists for both groups. The
others who are unique to each group do not show that the inter-
rogees can be associated with any particular group of hadith
scholars or with any particularregion since their teachers were
spread over the main centers of the Islamic empire.
704 Journal of the American Oriental Society 116.4 (1996)
results obtained from other sources point in the same
direction.29
The size of the "student body" for each of the two
groups was almost an exact parallel for the body of
teachers. More specifically, twenty-threeinterrogeeshad,
according to al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, 104 pupils (averag-
ing between four and five) compared to 150 individuals
who came under the tutelage of the fifty-three controls,
an average of less than three.30Once again, these results
are confirmed elsewhere.31These findings clearly mean
that the interrogees were more sought after as teachers
than were their peers of the control group. And, inas-
much as the pupils of both groups were geographically
very widely spread, it can be concluded that, throughout
the Islamic empire, the overall influence of the interro-
gees was greaterthan that of the controls.
The informationavailable on the ideological positions
(e.g., Shicite, Muctazilite, Hanbalite,etc.) of membersof
either group was much too limited to have any signif-
icance. Data on only five of the interrogees (17.6%) and
on four (7.1%) of the control group was found and these
show no trend whatsoever. The matter was pursued fur-
ther, however, by consulting pertinent sources to see if
posterity saw fit to link any of the men to a particular
ideology. I decided to use for this purpose representative
works from each of the four Sunnite schools of law (Mal-
ikites, Hanafites, Shaficites, Hanbalites), together with a
compendium of ShiCitehadith collectors.32Disregarding
29 Al-Mizzilists 802 teachersfor 17 interrogeesand771 for
31 controls,averaging47 teachersperinterrogeeversus25 per
controlgroupmember.Al-Dhahabi's Siyarmentions345 teach-
ers for the 18 interrogeeshe includes(averageperinterrogeeis
19)and215 for24 controls(averagingnine).(Thedifferencein
numberof controlsfoundin al-Mizziwith the numbermen-
tionedpreviouslyin thearticle[i.e., 27], hasto do withthe fact
thatfourof the 31 controlsfoundin al-Mizzi'sworkdo notap-
pearin the canonicalcollections,which was the point being
madeearlier.)
30 Justas was the case with the teachersof the two groups,
therewas overlapin the namesof theirpupilsbut no specific
patternof scholasticaffiliationemerged.
31 Al-Mizzigives the namesof 574 pupils for 17 interro-
gees-on theaverage34 perinterrogee. For31 controls,he lists
773 pupils,which is about25 per controlgroupmember.In
al-Dhahabi's Siyar,18 interrogeeshad304 pupils(average:17
per person)while 24 controlshad 218 pupils-which is nine
permemberof this group.
32Al-Qadi CIyad, Tartibal-madirik wa taqrib al-masilik li-
macrifat aclam madhhab malik, ed. Ahmad Mahmud, 3 vols.
(Beirut:Dar maktabatal-hayat,n.d.); Ibn Abi al-WafSa,al-
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
overlap (i.e., mention of a person in, say, the Hanbalite
source and the Shaficiteone), thirteenof the twenty-eight
(46.4%) comparedwith a mere seven of the fifty-six con-
trol (12.5%) had earned mention in these works.33
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Our closing remarkswill addresstwo basic issues. The
first explores the reason for al-Ma'min's singling out for
inquisition this one particulargroup of forty-four men-
and whose characteristicswe have sought to identify in
the present investigation. Next to be discussed is whether
our findings shed further light on the "paradigm shift"
which has occurred when the mihna is explained by re-
lating the results to the two hypotheses which underliethe
shift-the caliphal authorityhypothesis, and its alternate
which links the mihna to oppositional forces, in which the
Khurasanianswere key players.
Why These Forty-four Men in Particular?
Judging by the subset of the twenty-eight on whom
information was available and who are assumed to be
no different from the total group, our findings indicate
that there was something exceptional about the forty-
four men as a whole. They were selected by the caliph
as a target because of who they were and, as such, they
served as a most convenient vehicle for getting a par-
ticular message across to others.
Not before our comparisons included the category of
intellectual standing did it become clear why al-Ma'min
had singled out this particular group. The interrogees
stood out on virtually every one of the five indices
used in this study for gauging intellectual quality and
social influence; herein lies their uniqueness and why al-
Ma'mun selected them as a target.
The high-profile attributesof the interrogees are indi-
cated by the following specific findings. 1) They were
mentioned in far more biographical dictionaries and at
Jawahir al-mud4ia fi tabaqat al-hanafiyya, ed. CAbdalfattah
al-Hilw,5 vols. (Riyad:Daral-'ulum,19932);al-Subki,Tabaqat
al-shafitiyya; Ibn Abi YaCla,Tabaqatal-hanabila, ed. Muham-
mad al-Fiqi, 2 vols. (Cairo: Matbacatal-sunna al-muhammad-
iyya); al-Irdabili,Jami' al-Ruwdt,2 vols. (Beirut: Dar al-adwa',
1983).
33 Distribution of the entries is as follows. For the interro-
gees: two in the Malikite, six in the Hanafite, one in the
Shafi'ite, four in the Hanbalite, and none in the Shicite source.
For the control group: Shaficite, two; Hanbalite, four; Shicite,
one; no Malikite or Hanafite entries.
 NAWAS:The Mihna of 218 A.H./833 A.D. Revisited
greaterlength than their counterparts.2) The interrogees
were ascribeda quality as transmittersof hadith superior
to that of their counterparts.3) Proportionately,more of
the interrogees were part of one or more of the isndds
in the canonical Sunnite hadith collections. 4) The inter-
rogees averaged more teachers than did members of the
control group. 5) An even more impressive difference
emerged in the comparison of the number of pupils to
whom the interrogees were tutors; they averaged more
than one-and-a-half times as many pupils as did the
controls.
Unambiguously, then, the findings tell us that the in-
terrogees were muhaddithin of distinction, men highly
esteemed for their intellect, as well as their social status
and influence34-indeed, the "creme de la creme" of
Baghdadi hadith-scholarship,as van Ess aptly put it.35
The caliph's inquisition aimed at more than simply
humiliating and muzzling the traditionists. This group
of luminaries was itself a target, to be sure; but it was
also the proxy throughwhich al-Ma'mun sent a loud and
clear message that henceforwardthe business of hadith
was under his censorship, and those who transmit or
teach it accountableto him. By making an example of the
"leadership,"as the caliph characterized the men to be
put to the test,36he was serving notice to all traditionists,
the muhaddithun,whose number and tomes were bur-
geoning and followers spreading far and wide, that it is
now the Commanderof the Faithful who has the author-
ity on religious matters. As though to give immediacy
and concreteness to the aim of exercizing this authority,
al-Ma'mun issued an interdict to two reluctant interro-
gees that further hesitation would result in their being
banned from transmittingor teaching hadith "in private
or in public."37It is evident from the very decree of the
mihna itself, as well as from the tactics used in imple-
menting it, that the caliph was determined to leave no
stone unturned in order to convey that message to the
34 This may well have been what al-Tabariwas trying to say
without committing himself. I base such an inference on the
general drift of his narrativeand an intriguing slip of the pen
he made. Al-Tabari included al-Nadr b. Shumayl among the
forty-four interrogees although he had died a decade earlier. It
is understandablefor al-Tabari to have made such a slip; al-
Nadr b. Shumayl was known to have been "a foremost figure
(imam) in... hadith and the first to have expounded the sunna
(awwalu man azhara al-sunna) in Marw and all of Khurasan"
(al-Mizzi, Tahdhibal-kamal, 29:383).
35 Van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, 3:455.
36 Al-Tabari, Ta'rikh,3:1114.
37 Al-Tabari, Ta'rikh,3:1125; 3:1129.
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705
traditionists as effectively, energetically, and swiftly as
his and the talents of his governor allowed.38 And al-
Mamuiinhad good reasons.
Why the Traditionists as Mihna Target?
The traditionists were a threat. Al-Ma'miin saw them
as sowing seeds of destruction, menacing for who they
were, for what they had come to be within the social fab-
ric, andfor the kinds of activities they were carrying out.
The sheer number and influence of these self-appointed
spokesmen for Islam, involved in an enterpriseto which
they had not been commissioned and without any con-
trol from above, made them a force no ruler could afford
to ignore. The traditionists were no ordinarymen harm-
lessly busying themselves within the confines of ivory
38 In all, the literal texts of four letters on the mihna issued
by al-Ma'mun are found in al-Tabari'sTa'rikh: the first letter,
3:1112-16; second letter, 3:1117-21; third letter, 3:1125-31;
fourth letter, 3:1131-32. Much that is of relevance to this point
can be gleaned directly from the text of these mihna letters and
the circumstancessurroundingtheirdispatch. 1) Practicallyevery
interrogee was threatened with loss of function and means of
livelihood if compliance was not obtained(in particular,3:1115);
some men were tortured;others threatenedwith death;and about
a dozen were blackmailed into acquiescence by accusations that
they were "usurers,thieves, liars, bribe-takers,or polytheists,"
etc. (see, especially, first and third letters). 2) Indicators of the
sense of urgency are the fact that the first mihna letter was writ-
ten by al-Ma'mun while he was away from Baghdadon the Byz-
antine battlefront and that the third letter was dispatched by a
special courier (3:1130-31). 3) The governor was instructed to
remain alert by keeping a watchful eye on even those who ac-
knowledged the doctrine (3:1116 and 3:1120-21). 4) On several
occasions the governor was instructedto make public the names
of the men who had acquiesced in the doctrine (3:1116; 3:1117;
3:1126-27, twice; 3:1130). 5) Intriguing, too, is an episode
whose components stand out for their oddities but which fall
into place once viewed within the context underdiscussion. The
episode is embodied in another mihna letter whose literal text
was not preserved by al-Tabari.In it, the caliph asked the gov-
ernor to dispatch to him at al-Raqqa seven specific men he
wanted to interrogate in person (3:1116-17). Though all did
profess to the caliph their acceptance of the doctrine, and appar-
ently without pressureor duress, al-Ma'mun chose to send them
back to Ishaq b. Ibrlhim with a dual instruction. The governor
was, first, to put the men to the test once again, but this time be-
fore a "gathering of experts in religious law and senior tradi-
tionists" (3:1117) and, second, to lose no time in making their
confession before this group public.
706 Journal of the American Oriental Society 116.4 (1996)
towers, but "deluded... depraved... untrustworthy...
heretics... the tongue of Iblis (the devil)... making a
pretense of piety and knowledge" in order to "lead the
masses astray"-expressions continuously used by the
caliph in the mihna letters to describe the interrogees;
and, as he tells it in the preamblesto both the firstand sec-
ond mihna letters, al-Ma'mun saw it was his "solemn
duty" to call to order anyone he saw as a renegade. The
mihna was an expression of this "duty."
The ascent of the muhaddithunto prominence is but
one part of the mihna equation. The other is the product
of the traditionists'labors, the mountains of hadith that
were transforming the social order, with promises of
more to come, for the momentumhad alreadybeen build-
ing for some time. In the course of the first two centuries
of Islam, countless numbers of hadiths had been col-
lected in various regions of the empire, all alleging to
be authentic records of what the Prophet and his Com-
panions (al-Sahaba) had said and how they conducted
themselves (al-sunna). These hadiths were in reality con-
coctions which mainly reflectedregional and local needs,
local law, customs, and tastes, with flavorings from the
men who transmitted,taught and copied them.39
The changes in society attending the dramaticexpan-
sion of the Islamic empire created needs too manifold
and circumstances too pressing to be accommodated by
the then existing set of laws, making it necessary to turn
to hadiths to supplement the Qur'an as the basis for
extending and updating the sharca, the Islamic law. But
a sharica whose objective is to define what is just and
right and how Muslims ought to conduct themselves and
deal with one another cannot be founded on hadiths of
questionable reliability. Something had to be done. In
response, initiatives were undertakento purify, resolve
contradictions, classify, collate and set standardsfor the
authentificationof hadiths. This dauntingtask was shoul-
dered largely by the four emerging schools of Islamic
jurisprudence,40and instrumentswere createdfor execut-
ing it. The most importantof these instrumentswas the
ijmad (consensus), which was to become in its own right
a pillar upon which the sharica rests (holding a position
of prioritynext to the Qur'an and hadith, in this order).
Qiyas (analogy with a rule derived from any of the other
39 G. H. A. Juynboll, Muslim Tradition: Studies in Chro-
nology, Provenance and Authorship of Early Hadith (Cam-
bridge: CambridgeUniv. Press, 1983).
40 These are the Malikite, Hanafite, Shaficite, and Hanbalite.
They were named for Abu Hanifa (d. 150/767), Malik b. Anas
(d. 179/795), Muhammadb. Idris al-Shafici (d. 205/820), and
Ahmad b. Hanbal (d. 241/855).
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three) was then added as the fourth foundation for the
shariCa(and its lowest in hierarchy).
These activities were in full swing duringthe caliphate
of Harun al-Rashid (r. 170-193/786-809) and the ten-
ure of his son, al-Ma'miin. They were exhaustive, fo-
cusing on hadiths which were to be incorporated into
the canon to regulate the totality of a person's conduct
and to preparehim or her for likely encounters with the
unknown, perplexing ethical issues-and trivialities, as
well. This corpus served as a mainspringon which defini-
tive canonical compilations, such as those of al-Bukhari,
Muslim and others, drew. Very active in these endeavors
were Ahmadb. Hanbaland especially al-Shafici,two con-
temporaries of al-Ma'miin who did not have an easy
time with the Abbasids; al-Shafici was imprisoned in
Baghdad for participationin a Shicite revolt in Yemen,
and Ibn Hanbal was the man interrogatedon orders of
al-Ma'mun, and who never acquiesced in the doctrine of
the creatednessof the Qur'an, even when threatenedwith
the sword.
While Ibn Hanbal taught that a caliph must be obeyed,
there was a limit to this duty when it came to matters
which touch faith deeply. Al-Shafici and his followers
held the view that the caliph was the state's executive
head, but one whose voice in terms of ijmai counted no
more than that of any other member of the commun-
ity.4' Such thoughts must have infuriatedthe caliph, who
saw himself, long before the mihna, as "God'sdeputy on
earth... inheritor of the prophethood.... direct recipi-
ent of knowledge from God"42and the man responsi-
ble for the "salvation of the souls of Muslims" (letters 1
and 2). The more so since, by the natureof things, it was
the traditionists, the living repository of hadith knowl-
edge, who were now in the saddle, leaving the caliph
behind. Al-Ma'mun knew full well that principles codi-
fied without his authorization offered enough room for
circumventing and delegitimizing his commands, indeed
41 On al-Shafici and these
developments, see Joseph Schacht,
The Origins of MuhammadanJurisprudence (Oxford: Claren-
don Press, 1950); MarshallG. S. Hodgson, The Ventureof Islam,
vol. 1: The Classical Age of Islam (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago
Press, 1974), 315-50.
42 The same theme was expressed at the outset of al-
Mamuin's reign, some twenty years prior to the mihna, in the
Risalat al-khamis, an epistle written for the purpose of rallying
the forces behind him; for the text of this epistle see Ahmad
Zaki Safwat, Jamharat rasa'il al-'arab, 4 vols. (Cairo:Mustafa
al-Halabi, 1937), 3:377-97. For an analysis of al-Ma'mun's
conception of the "caliphate"throughouthis reign, see Nawas,
"Reexamination,"619-21.
 NAWAS:The Mihna of 218 A.H./833 A.D. Revisited
overruling him-especially since these were anchoredin
religion.
Having thus far succeeded in maneuvering their way
into the legal establishment, perhaps these men could be
undercut by taking on the entire legal system. This is
precisely what al-Ma'mun planned to do. His instruc-
tions to Ishaq b. Ibrahim specified three groups as tar-
gets for the inquisition: 1) the qu.dat(judges, plural of
qadi) and shuhud (court officials, witnesses, plural of
shdhid);432) The muhaddithun,including the forty-four
men named; and 3) thefuqahda (plural of faqih), experts
in law and theology who had one foot in each of the two
other camps. It follows from this, then, that an adequate
explanation of the mihna must be based on the totality
of men subjected to it, not only, as has been done in the
past, on the interrogees whose names are known and
who are but a small fraction of the total-a matter to be
taken up shortly.
Implications for Explanations of the Mihna
There are two viable explanatory hypotheses for the
mihna, as we have indicated earlier. One views the
mihna as an instrument which al-Ma'min used to se-
cure for the generations of caliphs to come the total
and unquestioned authority-on all matters, religious
and secular-that was vested in the founding fathers of
Islam. The other hypothesis centers on the caliph's in-
tent to do away with opposition to his regime by several
groups and factions, notably those of (Arab-)Khurasa-
nian coloring.
Our investigation has not been designed to test either
of these two hypotheses directly or to pit one against the
other; the information early chronicles provide is too
scanty for such an endeavor. The investigation did, how-
ever, furnish data which have a direct bearing on the
(Arab-)Khurasanianhypothesis. In addition, our findings
on the characteristicsof the forty-fourmen, together with
the logic of construing these interrogees as proxy for
traditionists as a whole, have straightforwardimplica-
tions for the caliphal authority hypothesis and, indeed,
supports it strongly.
The superiority of this hypothesis has three constitu-
ents: the untenability of its alternative, at least in so far
as the (Arab-)Khurasanianconnection is concerned; its
43 The shuhud were court notaries working for and directly
under the responsibility of the judges to whom they were as-
signed. By the time of al-Ma'mun, the shuhid had been func-
tioning for nearly a century,duringwhich time they had acquired
status as professionals. El2, s.v. "Shahid" (W. Heffening).
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707
parsimony; and, the width of its focus. We must sketch
first, however, the various elements of this hypothesis,
for it includes more than the Khurasaniancomponent.
As mentioned earlier, Lapidus identifies as a central
target of the mihna a group of men who had a Khur-
asanian origin. The invocation of a Khurasanianelement
impresses van Ess; and, in a reaction to the paper by
Lapidus, Madelung acknowledges its importance as
well.44Lapidus and Madelung agree also that the mihna
had the aim of neutralizing and quelling the opposition
of various groups and factions, though the groups are
not the same for the two authors. As one reads through
their articles, it becomes extremely difficultto distinguish
between primary, secondary, and tertiary fronts of op-
position to al-Ma'min, and the associative connections
the authors make between the various groups and fac-
tions and shifting alliances and platforms become hope-
lessly intricate, if not forced and far-fetched. The sheer
multitude of groups and factions is burdensome: Han-
balites, proto-Hanbalites,the Abnda,Khurasanianloyalist
fighters, vigilantes, Abbasids, Hashimites, Persian ele-
ments, CAlids,Shicites, Kharijites,Murji'ites and, course,
Arabs and non-Arabs of recent and remote Khurasanian
ancestry. We are told that besides the (Arab-)Khurasani-
ans whose number was predominant, antagonism came
from (proto-)Hanbaliteswho found themselves in some
kind of unspoken alliance with other foes of al-Ma'mun.
According to Lapidus the foes included the vigilantes of
Baghdadunderthe leadershipof a certainSahl b. Salama,
who, like Ahmad b. Hanbal, the renowned mihna inter-
rogee, was quite orthodox in outlook and of Khurasanian
origin as well. Madelung, rather,sees as crucial the role
of the Abnda;these were Baghdadis descended from the
Khurasanianswho were indispensable in the victory of
the Abbasids over the Ummayyd dynasty close to a
century earlier. On the contemporary scene, the Abna'
were enemies of al-Ma'mun, still suffering the conse-
quences of their support for his brother al-Amin during
the Civil War, which the latter lost and in which he per-
ished. Besides their grudge on this score, the Abnadwere
resentful of al-Ma'mun's favoritism toward his viziers
and other high-rankingcourt officials of Persianorigin-
a resentmentthat made them see eye-to-eye with the Ab-
basids who also had previously supported al-Amin and
had tried to dethrone al-Ma'mun. The Abbasids, in turn,
were as dead set against the Persianor eastern element as
they were against the Tahirids(who fought the Civil War
on the side of al-Ma'mun and were now reaping the
44 Lapidus, "Separation";Madelung, "Vigilante Movement";
van Ess, Gesellschaft, 3:448-49.
708 Journal of the American Oriental Society 116.4 (1996)
rewards) and especially against the caliph's strong par-
tiality to the CAlidswhom they saw as antagonists. If
these complexities of factions, motives, and happenings
stand in the way of clarity, no less disconcerting is the
wantof a causal link which straightforwardlyand directly
connects them to the mihna. There is, finally, another
difficultythat faces this hypothesis. Unless it switches to
another ad hoc explanatoryframework,it cannot account
for the fact that al-MuCtasim,brother and successor to
al-Ma'mun, did continue the mihna even though he and
the main forces which opposed his predecessor had no
axes to grind.
In contrast, the caliphal authority hypothesis is com-
pact and it identifies one single target for the mihna, that
is, members of the legal establishment-as defined in
this paper. There is no speculation in this inference: al-
Ma'mun says it in so many words in the mihna letters.
The text of the first letter is explicit, in that he wanted
Ishaq b. Ibrahim, his governor, to interrogate first the
court officials of Baghdad,then have these, once they ac-
knowledgedthe doctrineof the creatednessof the Qur'an,
test the men under them. In his later letters, al-Ma'mun
asked for the interrogationof the fuqahda and muhaddi-
thun and gives the names of the forty-four men on whom
our investigation has focused. Common to all the men
subjected to the mihna-and whose number must have
been in the hundreds-is that they all had something to
do with the sharica and the legal establishment which it
signifies. Proponentsof the caliphal authorityhypothesis
assert thatthe caliph orderedthe mihnain orderto acquire
the authorityof the sharia, to secure for himself and fu-
ture caliphs unquestionedsupremacyon issues of faith.45
Applying a criterion which modern scholarship uses
for assessing the comparative merit of two alternative
hypotheses, the canon of parsimony, there would be no
doubt that the hypothesis invoking a Khurasaniancon-
nection trails far behind the caliphal authority hypothe-
sis. This canon-also called the principleof economy and
Ockham'srazor46-states that the simpler of two hypo-
theses or explanationsis the better.The Khurasaniancon-
nection hypothesis is overloaded with excess baggage.
A more direct, and content- rather than form-related
challenge to this hypothesis comes from the findings of
45 Crone and Hinds, God's Caliph, 90-93.
46 Thus called afterWilliam of Ockham c.
(d. 1349), the scho-
lastic philosopher who used the principle in his theological and
philosophical studies.
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this study. Our results indicate that there is no "prepon-
derance" of an (Arab-)Khurasanianelement at all. Spe-
cifically, of the interrogees on whose origin information
is available,46 percentwere of Khurasaniandescent com-
pared with 43 percent of the controls. Only 25 percent
of the interrogees and 33 percent of the controls were
Arabs. The conclusion of (Arab-)Khurasanian"predomi-
nance" is, then, clearly an artifact which probably owes
its origin to the all too common practice of disregarding
the need for a reference point, a control group in the
case under discussion.
Would the hypothesis retain any merit as a bona fide
explanationwithoutthe Khurasanianelement being a part
of it? It would not, or at least it would suffer much strain
because even after excision of the Khurasaniancompo-
nent it remains inelegant, convoluted, and too specula-
tive. On the other hand, the most essential feature of the
hypothesis, "opposition to al-Ma'mun," can easily and
without force be absorbed by the caliphal authority hy-
pothesis. After all, the aim of al-Ma'muinwas to subdue
opposition to his will, focusing the mihna on members of
the judiciary establishment who were no strangersto the
equally orthodox (proto-)Hanbalites and vigilantes of
whom Lapidus and Madelung speak.
Not much else needs to be said in favor of the caliphal
authorityhypothesis. It is straightforward,measured.It is
clear, disciplined, and has no loose ends. There is no con-
taminationin the hypothesis between what is central and
what is peripheral,and it is free of multi-dimensionalities
and complexities which hamper a scrutiny of the good
fit between a hypothesis and other information of rele-
vance. Its compass is wide, yet focussed: the hypothesis
takes in the totality of the men subjected to the mihna-
court functionaries, fuqaht3, muhaddithiun-not just a
portion of them; and it identifies that which all the men
shared in common, the sharia enterprise, thereby mak-
ing the link between the inquisition and its target self-
evident.
We startedthis paperby speaking of a "paradigmshift"
in explaining the mihna, proposing that since the 1970s
two contenders have assumed center stage. The findings
of our investigation and the ensuing line of reasoning
seem to narrow the shift to one-the caliphal authority
hypothesis, in which al-Ma'mun sought to ensconce him-
self as the unquestionedmaster on matters of the sacred
as he was the master of its secu-
affairs of the state-just
lar affairs.