Dinar - al-Wathiq

Al-Wathiq's reign coincided with the peak of Mutazilite theological dominance at the Abbasid court, a period when caliphs actively enforced the doctrine of the created Quran through the mihna — an inquisition that imprisoned and flogged scholars who refused to conform. That political-religious climate is inseparable from these coins, struck by a caliph who personally interrogated dissidents. Ahmad ibn Hanbal had already endured flogging under al-Wathiq's predecessor; the repression continued until al-Wathiq's death ended the mihna entirely in 848.