anyone forgets and eats or drinks, let him complete his fast, for it was
Allah who caused him thus to eat or drink.”^8
Here ‘Abdan was the most recent witness to a saying of the Prophet, with Abu
Huraira the closest to the source. A well-known “Companion” of the Prophet
Muhammad, Abu Huraira was named as the ultimate authority for thousands of
hadith.
Even the Qur’an did not escape scholarly scrutiny. While some interpreters read
it literally as the word of God and thus part of God, others viewed it as something
(like humankind) created by God and therefore separate from Him. For Caliph al-
Ma’mun, taking the Qur’an literally undermined the caliph’s religious authority.
Somewhat like the Byzantine Emperor Leo III (see p. 45), whose iconoclastic
policies were designed to separate divinity from its representations, al-Ma’mun
determined to make God greater than the Qur’an. In 833 he instituted the Mihna, or
Inquisition, demanding that the literalists profess the Qur’an’s createdness. But al-
Ma’mun died before he could punish those who refused, and his immediate
successors were relatively ineffective in pursing the project. The scholars on the
other side—the literalists and those who looked to the hadith—carried the day, and in
848 Caliph al-Mutawakkil (r.847–861) ended the Mihna, emphatically reversing the
caliphate’s position on the matter. Sunni Islam thus defined itself against the views of
a caliph who, by asserting great power, lost much. The caliphs ceased to be the
source of religious doctrine; that role went to the scholars, the ulama. It was around
this time that the title “caliph” came to be associated with the phrase “deputy of the
Prophet of God” rather than the “deputy of God.” The designation reflected the
caliphate’s decreasing political as well as religious authority (see Chap. 4).
AL-ANDALUS: A SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE
Taking advantage of the caliphs’ waning prestige was the ruler of al-Andalus (Islamic
Spain). In the mid-eighth century Abd al-Rahman I, an Umayyad prince on the run
from the Abbasids, managed to gather an army, make his way to Iberia, and defeat
the provincial governor at Córdoba. In 756 he proclaimed himself “emir”
(commander) of al-Andalus. His dynasty governed al-Andalus for two and a half
centuries. In 929, emboldened by his growing power and the depletion of caliphal
power at Baghdad, Abd al-Rahman III (r.912–961) took the title caliph. Nevertheless,
like the Abbasid caliphs, the Umayyad rulers of Spain headed a state poised to break
