Praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds, and peace and blessings be upon our master Muhammad

The khalif’s patronage of the Mu‘tazilites
 
The Mu‘tazilites appeared at the time of the Umayyads but the Umayyads did not oppose them because 
they did not provoke any discord or declare war. They were a group who took no action beyond thinking, 
countering evidence with evidence and proof with proof, and analysing matters by sound criteria. They did not 
involve themselves in politics – their weapons were exposition and proof, not swords. Al-Mas‘udi reported 
that Yazid II espoused their tenets. 
When the Abbasids came to power, heresy and the 
zindiqs
had become a flood and the khalif found in the 
Mu‘tazilites a sword to employ against 
zindiqs
and left them to combat heresy. When al-Ma’mun came to 
power, he took their side and brought them near to him. He saw that there was a disagreement between them 
and the 
fuqaha’
, and thought that debates between the two groups would result in the emergence of a single 
point of view, but he was completely wrong in this.
Al-Ma’mun then sought to use the power of the state to force the 
fuqaha’
and 
hadith
scholars to adopt the 
opinion of the Mu‘tazilites on the Qur’an. This is not the proper role of the state. If it is forbidden to force 
people to embrace the 
deen
, how can they be forced to accept a tenet the denial of which does not constitute 
disbelief? He tried to force the 
fuqaha’
to declare that the Qur’an was created. Some of them complied out of 
taqiyya
and fear, not true belief and adherence, while others endured violence, humiliation and long 
imprisonment and would not say anything other than what they believed.
That inquisition lasted after al-Ma’mun through the khalifates of al-Mu‘tasim and al-Wathiq. Al-Wathiq 
tried to coerce people to deny that Allah will be seen – another orthodox position denied by the Mu‘tazilites. 
When al-Mutawakkil came to power, this inquisition stopped, and things were allowed to take their course 
and opinions to evolve naturally, and people were left to choose their own position regarding these matters.