Re: The Implications of considering Quran the Creator or Created (khaliq or makhlooq)
There was a fierce debate about it in second and third century of Islam on this issue. It looks weird now because Mutazilah completely lost this debate. But at that time it was not weird and sick debate.
Because if it existed before then it would mean that all incidences in Prophet’s time for which aayats were revealed, were pre-destined. It would mean that man can not change the future, because everything is already written by Allah. This is the Ashari view, which exists today.
Mutazilah thought that future is uncertain, and depends on individual choices people make out of their own free will.
Yes guidance for sure, but guidance for which era of Muslims? That was the question. At least that’s the question I understand from reading about it.
Ashari, that is present day Muslims, think that whatever God ordered in Quran is absolute and has to be taken in the literal sense of the word by Muslims of all times. Mutalizah, those who lost, thought that Quranic orders were primarily for people of Prophet’s era, and that they can be interpreted in other ways by people of other eras based on the conditions of time.
Mutazilah considered reason to precede revelation. They thought that if something does not appear to be good through reason then it can not be God’s will. Ashari thought that nothing is good or bad, except when it is defined as such by Allah. Hence according to Asharis, killing a person is bad, not because reason tells us so, but because Allah said so.
These ideas can have huge implications on a society. Because they form the basis of how Quran and hadith are interpreted to consider what is Islamic and what is un-Islamic.
I know nobody even knows whether he is Ashari or Mutazilah. But I can assure you that even without knowing, most people follow Ashari school, because that is what they have been taught from the beginning.