Al-Mutawakkil

Al-Mutawakkil (r. 847-861 CE) ended the Mihna in 848, reversing roughly fifteen years of state-enforced Mu'tazilite doctrine. Historians studying the episode note that judicial compliance with the earlier policy had never been more than thin — by some estimates ten to fifteen percent of provincial judges fully capitulated even at the height of enforcement — so the reversal looks less like a change of philosophical conviction than a political actor aligning with a traditionalist camp that had never actually been dislodged.