PrintSeptember 5, 2010
Dross in Yet Another Islamic 'Golden Age'
The myth of a golden age of rational Islam plays a critical role in maintaining the somnolence of America's establishment in grasping the implacability of political jihad. Currently (see here, reviewed 9/2/10 at The National Review Online), the Mutazilites, typified by the Abbasid Muslim rulers al-Mamun (r. 813-833) and al-Mutasim (r. 833-842), are being lionized as avatars of the kind of "rationalist freethinking" which might have spared both Muslims and non-Muslims from the consequences of traditionalist Islamic irredentism. These views are a contemporary repackaging of idealized portrayals initially put forth by Heinrich Steiner in 1865 and reiterated afterward by late 19th- and early 20th-century writers. All such romantic and apologetic portrayals -- past and present -- maintain that the Mutazilites were "liberal" rationalists and freethinkers.But these roseate characterizations are grossly oversimplified and ahistorical. The Mutazilites were pious Muslims...(Read Full Article)
