106 DESTINY DISRUPTED
Ibn Hanbal drastically demoted such methods: rely only on Qur'an and
hadith, he said.
He was hauled into the imperial court and made to debate a leading the-
ologian on the question of whether the Qur'an was created or uncreated, an
issue that contained the whole question of the role of reason in moral in-
quiry. The philosopher hit Ibn Hanbal with logic, the scholar struck back
with scripture. The philosopher tied him up in knots of argument, Ibn Han-
bal burst free with invocations to Allah on high. Obviously, no one could re-
ally "win" a debate of this sort because the debaters did not agree on terms.
When Ibn Hanbal refused to disavow his views, he was physically beaten,
but it didn't change his mind. He was clapped into prison. Still he dung to
his principles: never would he let reason trump revelation, never!
So the authorities ratcheted up the pressure. They beat Ibn Hanbal
until his joints popped out of their sockets, bound him in heavy chains,
and tossed him into prison for several years. Ibn Hanbal refused to re-
nounce his views. As you might guess, the well-publicized abuse failed to
discredit his ideas but instead gave them a certain prestige. Common folks,
who already resented the Abbasids for their wealth and pomp, grew restive
now; and when the masses grew restive, even the mighty Abbasids had to
pay attention because almost every time a khalifa died, a scuffie broke out
to determine his successor, a scuffie in which either side might use the pas-
sions of the crowd as artillery. When the aging, aching Ibn Hanbal was re-
leased from prison, reverent crowds greeted him and cheered him and
carried him home. Seeing this, the imperial court developed some reserva-
tions about Islamic philosophy and the Greek ideas from which it derived.
The next khalifa demoted the Mu'tazilites and heaped honors upon Ibn
Hanbal, which signaled the waning prestige of the Mu'tazilites, and with
them the philosophers. And it signaled the rising status of the scholars who
maintained the edifice of orthodox doctrine, an edifice that eventually
choked off the ability of Muslim intellectuals to pursue inquiries without
any reference to revelation.
THE SUFIS
Almost from the start, however, as the scholars were codifying the law,
some people were asking, "Is this all the revelation comes to in the end-