The Traditionalists, whom follow the broad school of thought commonly called "Traditionalism" or "Ahl al-Hadith", are one of the two major Islamic theological groupings that emerged out of a debate in the Abbasid Caliphate on whether or not the Qur'an was a created text. The Traditionalists believe the Qur'an to be an eternal, divine, and uncreated text, being opposed to the Rationalists who say the Qur'an is a created text that was defined by the historical context of the time period. Traditionalists have become dominant in Sunni Islam, whereas Rationalists have become dominant in Shia Islam.
Criticism[]
Reza Aslan[]
Main articles: Reza Aslan, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam
The Traditionalist position of the Qur'an being eternal, divine, and uncreated has been criticized in the book No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam by the Iranian-American Shia scholar named Reza Aslan. In the chapter of his book titled "This Religion Is a Science", he argues that, due to the fact that later Qur'an verses contradict previous ones, that the Qur'an developed over time and couldn't have been strictly created, but rather progressively developed over time. The book takes this a step further to argue that using only the original contents of the Qur'an to create political legal systems of law as the Qur'an in early Islamic Medina would be different from what modern revelation would be like. Because of this, Reza Aslan instead promotes the Rationalist idea that the Qur'an, while undeniably important in the Islamic religion, is ultimately a created text defined by the historical time period in which it was revealed.