Tuʾfil, the tyrant of Byzantium, advanced (1). A truce was then concluded after Tuʾfil had written a letter in which he mentioned himself first and used harsh language. Al-Maʾmun was angered and resolved to march on Constantinople, but winter set in (2).

That same year a great fire broke out in Basra and consumed most of the city.

In 218 AH al-Maʾmun turned his attention to building Tuwāna. He assembled craftsmen for the project and constructed it as a square—one mile by one mile—beyond Tarsus. He also captured several fortresses (3), intensified the inquisition concerning the Quran, and imprisoned the Damascene imam Abū Mushir, having first placed him on the execution mat; under duress, the imam spoke the desired formula (4).

Al-Maʾmun then dispatched a letter to his deputy in Iraq, Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm al-Khuzaʿī, instructing him to test the scholars. In it he wrote:

“We are well aware that the great majority—the common rabble and the lowest strata of the populace, who possess neither insight nor deliberation—are people of ignorance and blindness. They are incapable of knowing Allah as He ought to be known, of estimating Him as He deserves, or of distinguishing between Him and His creation. They have therefore equated Allah with His creatures and unanimously claimed that the Quran is eternal, that Allah did not originate it. Yet He has said, ‘Indeed, We have made it a Quran,’ and everything He makes He has created, just as He said, ‘and He made darkness and light.’ He also said, ‘We relate to you some of the stories of what has passed,’ thereby informing that these are narratives of matters He produced afterward.”