Al Buwaiti, a famous disciple of
As-Shafa'i, used an ingenious argument to fortify his own mind when being
punished by the order of the Khalif. He was taken all the way from Cairo to
Baghdad and told to confess that the Quran was created. On his refusal, he
was imprisoned at Baghdad and there remained in chains till the day of his
death. As Ar-Rabi Ibn Sulaiman says: "I saw Al Buwaiti mounted on a mule:
round his neck was a wooden collar, on his legs were fetters, from these to
the collar extended an iron chain to which was attached a clog weighing
fifty pounds. Whilst they led him on he continued repeating these words,
'Almighty God created the world by means of the word _Be!_ Now, if that
word was created, one created thing would have created another.'"[121] Al
Buwaiti here refers to the verse, "Verily our speech unto a thing when we
will the same, is that we only say to it, 'Be,' and it is,--Kun fayakuna."
(Sura xxxvi. 82). This, in the way Al Buwaiti applied it, is a standing
argument of the orthodox to prove the eternity of the Quran.

When times changed men were put to death for holding the opposite opinion.
The Imam As-Shafa'i held a public disputation in Baghdad with Hafs, a
Mutazilite preacher, on this very point. Shafa'i quoted the verse, "God
said _be, and it was_," and asked, "Did not God create all things by the
word _be?_" Hafs assented. "If then the Quran was created, must not the
word _be_ have been created with it?" Hafs could not deny so plain a
proposition. "Then," said Shafa'i, "All things, according to you, were
created by a created being, which is a gross inconsistency and manifest
{138} impiety." Hafs was reduced to silence, and such an effect had
Shafa'i's logic on the audience that they put Hafs to death as a pestilent
heretic. Thus did the Ash'arian opinions on the subject of the Divine
attributes again gain the mastery.[122]

The Mutazilites failed, and the reason why is plain. They were, as a rule,
influenced by no high spiritual motives; often they were mere quibblers.
They sought no light in an external revelation. Driven to a reaction by the
rigid system they combated, they would have made reason alone their chief
guide. The nobler spirits among them were impotent to regenerate the faith
they professed to follow. It was, however, a great movement, and at one
time, it threatened to change the whole nature of Islam. This period of
Muslim history, famed as that in which the effort was made to