We also observe a pronounced disparity in both the quality and originality of the period’s intellectual output. Numerous works are weak, mere repetitions of what earlier tomes already contain, whereas only a few are marked by genuine originality, creativity, and a distinctive scholarly method.

The quest for originality was made all the more difficult by the sheer weight of the legacy confronting any scholar who wished to write on a given subject—a situation very different from that of the early authors, who faced no such amassed tradition.

Damascus in this era likewise witnessed fierce sectarian and doctrinal strife. The Mamluk rulers often intervened, supporting one faction over another (1).

The Ayyubids before them had devoted great effort to spreading the school of Imām al-Shāfiʿī: they founded institutions dedicated to it and endowed them with ample waqf properties (2). At the same time they strove to disseminate the creed of al-Ashʿarī, regarding it as the sunnah that must be followed (3). Consequently, the Ashʿarites gained considerable strength in Egypt and Greater Syria.

This state of affairs weakened the other legal schools, which slipped into languor and decline—apart from the Hanbalis, who remained relatively strong and maintained in Damascus a number of ḥadīth lodges and madrasahs (4).

Theological contention between the Hanbalis and the Ashʿarites raged on, heightened by the Hanbalis’ reliance on transmitted texts in the study of creed, and the Ashʿarites’ dependence on rational inference.