Free Peace Be Upon You by Zachary Karabell Page A

occurred in Egypt and later in Andalusia, but the movement began in the late eighth century under the caliph al-Mansur, his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
    The range of translated works stretched from classical Greece through the early years of the Roman Empire. There was a particular focus on the Neoplatonists, who, beginning in the third century B.C. , had combined the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle with the science of Hellenistic geniuses such as Ptolemy and the mysticism of later thinkers such as Plotinus. The subjects covered by these writers were eclectic and sometimes obscure, but the net effect for the Abbasids was a burst of theological discourse as complicated, arcane, and divisive as the debates over the nature of Christ had been in early Christianity.
    Among the central concerns of the Neoplatonists was the divide between the material and the spiritual, between the body and the soul. That in part accounts for the almost obsessive concern in early Christianity over whether Christ was fully divine, fully human, or an alchemical combination of the two. It also explains the evolution of Muslim theology under the Abbasids, and the emergence of three distinct approaches to Islam.
    Encouraged by successive caliphs, philosophers debated whether the Quran was the “uncreated” word of God or created by God. Those who believed that the Quran was created came to be known as the rationalists, as opposed to traditionalists, who believed that the Quran was the pure emanation of God. The traditionalists were not open to using Greek philosophy to illuminate the Quran, and they did not approve of debates with the People of the Book. For them, the Quran was part of God, and hence unquestionable, unalterable, and not subject to human interpretation. The rationalists (or mu’tazaliin Arabic) disagreed. They felt that the idea of an uncreated Quran came perilously close to the Christian idea of the Trinity, which to their thinking meant worshiping more than one God. That was heresy. Not only was the Quran created by God, and hence separate from him, but it could, as one of God’s creations, be examined by human reason in order to understand it better. Itcould be “interpreted,” and humans were entitled to use their minds in order to become better acquainted with God’s will.
    This split between rationalists and traditionalists has continued in one form or another to the present day. At various points, rationalists, by whatever name, have had the upper hand. At other points, the traditionalists have. In the modern era, the rationalists have been the reformers, those who have argued for change and modernization in the Muslim world. The traditionalists have resisted science and innovation as contrary to God’s will, and the most extreme have turned toward forms of radical fundamentalism. Over the course of centuries, however, the rationalists have been just as central, perhaps more so, and they were the guiding force in the heyday of Baghdad.
    There was another group, loosely defined but still part of the warp and woof of society, that distanced itself from both factions and refused to enter the debate or serve as judges and officials. They were men, and not a few women, of quiet piety. At some point, they began to call themselves Sufis, named for the wool cloth they wore. They preferred to stay clear of the court and worship God as simply and purely as they could. They too borrowed from Christianity, but from the tradition of hermits and ascetics. Like the Desert Fathers and Saint Antony, they embraced physical extremes and practiced self-denial, isolated themselves in remote and unforgiving regions, and engaged in constant prayer.
    These ninth-century divisions—between rationalists and traditionalists, between those who believed that reason, science, and philosophy were tools meant to be used for God’s glory and those who looked to a literal reading of the scripture with minimal human innovation, along