حرية الفكر والاستبداد في تاريخ الإسلام

حرية الفكر والاستبداد في تاريخ الإسلام

In his preface Arslan offers an overall thesis: an early age of free reasoning and ijtihad, followed by a shift from consultative caliphate to despotic rule, which narrowed free thought and gave tradition the upper hand over reason. He says the Mu'tazila began as a free-thinking school, and that Umayyad rulers who first favoured them turned against them once they acquired political weight. He treats the later dominance of traditionalists as part of this long decline. This is the preface's thesis, which needs checking against histories of theology and politics and is not accepted by all historians.