and he escaped to Basra. Even then they remained humiliated and subdued: no word of theirs was accepted, no opinion of theirs given any regard, until they attached themselves to certain rulers who had never sat with the scholars nor crowded into the gatherings of the jurists…"

The Muʿtazilites subsequently exploited the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Maʾmūn, Abū Jaʿfar ʿAbd Allah ibn Hārūn al-Rashīd (1), making him a tool for disseminating their falsehood and promoting their innovation. They beautified for him the claim that the Qurʾān is created, whereupon he adopted their view, imposed it upon the people, and forced them to embrace it. Before that he had been hesitant to publicize this innovation or compel the populace to accept it—perhaps because he was still mindful of the few senior scholars who retained great esteem among the masses (2)—but in the final days of his life he resolved to proclaim the doctrine and coerce everyone into it.

He therefore wrote to his deputy in Baghdad, Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm (3), a letter (4) ordering him to test the judges and scholars on affirming that the Qurʾān is created, and to send to him a number of them whom he had specified by name in that very letter (5).