their realities should be consigned to God alone (tafwid). They believed that every part of the Qur'an, including its Arabic letters, are uncreated (ghayr makhluq); since they held the Speech of God to be an Eternal Divine Attribute. Ahl al-Hadith also held that iman (faith) increases and decreases in correlation with the performance of prescribed rituals and duties, such as the five daily prayers. Theological controversies In 833 the caliph al-Ma'mun tried to impose Mu'tazilite theology on all religious scholars and instituted an inquisition (mihna) which required them to accept the Mu'tazilite doctrine that the Qur'an was a created object, which implicitly made it subject to interpretation by caliphs and scholars. Ibn Hanbal led traditionalist resistance to this policy, affirming under torture that the Quran was uncreated and hence coeternal with God. Although Mu'tazilism remained state doctrine until 851, the efforts to impose it only served to politicize and harden the theological controversy. This controversy persisted until Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari (874-936) found a middle ground between Mu'tazilite rationalism and Hanbalite literalism, using the rationalistic methods championed by Mu'tazilites to defend most tenets of the Ahl al-Hadith doctrine. A rival compromise between rationalism and traditionalism emerged from the work of al-Maturidi (d. c. 944), and one of these two schools of theology was accepted by members of all Sunni madhhabs, with the exception of most Hanbalite and some Shafi'i scholars, who persisted in their rejection of kalam, although they often resorted to rationalistic arguments themselves, even while claiming to rely on the literal text of scripture. Although the scholars who rejected the Ash'ari and Maturidi synthesis were in the minority, their emotive, narrative-based approach to faith remained influential among the urban masses in some areas, particularly in Abbasid Baghdad. Contemporary Era While Ash'arism and Maturidism are generally called the Sunni "orthodoxy", the traditionalist school has thrived alongside it, laying rival claims to be the orthodox Sunni creed. In the modern era it has had a disproportionate impact on Islamic theology, having been advocated by Wahhabi and other Salafi currents and spread beyond the confines of the Hanbali school of law. The classical theologian Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328 C.E/ 728 A.H), played the most influential role in formalising the creedal and doctrinal positions of Ahl al-Hadith through his numerous treatises. Ibn Taymiyya became the most important classical scholar for adherents of the Salafiyya movement and his theological treatises are the