““The debate over whether the sacred book was created or existed eternally had enormous practical implications. The Mu’tazilites developed a method of Koranic interpretation that was freer from the literal meaning of the text than most Muslim divines dared to venture. For example, they reinterpreted the injunction that Allah “leads the wrongdoers astray” (14:27) so as to reject predestination; they simply denied that Allah would lead people astray and condemn them to Hell. The caliph (Islamic emperor) Ja’far al-Mutawakkil (847–861), however, crushed the Mu’tazilite movement and branded it a heresy. Asserting that the Koran was created became a crime punishable by death. And to this day, the marginalization and discrediting of the Mu’tazilites casts a long shadow over “moderate Islam.” If today’s moderates stray too far from a literal reading of the Koran (including its ferocity toward unbelievers), they risk being accused of advocating long-discredited heresies. The Mu’tazilite experience provides ample historical precedent and a ready methodology that literalists use to cast suspicion on any reading of the Koran that doesn’t take all its words at face value.””
