The impact of the post-mihna theopolitical situation on Sunni theology

The mihna, which focused on the discussions on the createdness of the Qur'an (khalq al- Qur'an), was a process initiated by the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun in 218 AH, continued by al-Mu'tasimbillah and al-Wāthiqbillah, and abolished by al-Mutawakkil in 232 AH. These inquiries, which consist a break in the history of Islamic thought, have pioneering social reasons that can be traced back to the Umayyad period. The rapid spread of Islam in a short time caused different questions and problems. The Arab-Mawāli relationship is the most prominent problem area in this society. The urge to protect the position of the 'ulama (the scholars) and the umara (the administrators), which arose from the need to respond to both internal and external problems, led to conflicts of interest between them. It should be recalled that, in addition to the 'ulama-umarā tension, the Abbasid state also emphasized and encouraged translation activity, which had begun with the Umayyads, in order to control the input from foreign cultures. The translation crusade was probably both a pre-emptive move against the phenomenon of zanadiqa and an attempt to revive the scholarly accumulation of dormant Greek, Indian and Syriac civilizations. The Ahl al-Hadīth circle was the target of the mihna that al-Ma'mun enacted in order to consolidate the sovereignty of the state against all these problem areas and to establish social unity. Despite the close relationship between al-Ma'mun and his predecessors with the Mu'tazilites, Ahmad b. Hanbal's resilient attitude during the mihna created an aura of admiration around his name. As a result, the mihna left deep traces in the social imagination. The practices that were reversed by al-Mutawakkil after the mihna increased the social polarization between Ahl al-Ra'y and Ahl al-Hadīth. Subsequently, the suppression of the Mu'tazilites led to the disappearance of the moderate line in theology. On the other hand, after Hanbalism, the cooperation with the state was carried out through Ash'arism, which was presented in a more conservative/traditionalist line, leading to the formation of Sunnism in this medium. The moderate understandings of theology represented by thinkers such as Abū Hanifa, Ibn Kullab, al-Qalānisī, al-Muhasibī, and al-Maturīdī were also pushed to the background. In this respect, the mihna can be considered as a new process that deeply influences theology both as a subject and as a method.