AHMED IBN HANBAL AND THE MIHNA pdf download

Ahmed Ibn Hanbal And the Mihna

AHMED IBN HANBAL AND THE MIHNA

The following pages contain the record of the Imam Ahmed ibn Hanbal and of a struggle ‘) with which he stood connected, whose issues were so great as to warrant a close study of all that is involved in the movement.

The history of Dogma in Islam as written by Western writers has given us an idea of the questions which were being disputed at this time, and the outward history of events has recorded in very meagre outline the most important public occurrences of our narrative;

but there has been, so far, no use made of the rich opportunity presented in the biography of Ahmed ibn Hanbal to see the theological controversies of Islam in their connection with the outward history of the State.

This kind of historical study is the more interesting, because from it we are enabled to understand the relation of the State to religion at that time, and the place occupied by religion and its teachers in the State.