The best European accounts of the Mu'tazilites with which I am acquainted, besides Dozy's, are those of Steiner* The Mu'tazilite and Greek Philosophy. and von Kremer, but I must content myself here with briefly indicating the results of their investi­gations as to the progress, influence, relations, and final decline of this interesting movement. As to its origin these two scholars differ, the former regarding it, at least in its primary form, as “arising in Islám independently of all external influences,” while the latter, as we have seen, con­siders that it was influenced even in its inception by Christian theology. Be this as it may, at a very early date it was profoundly influenced by Greek Philosophy.

“We may venture to assert,” says Steiner (p. 5), “that the Mu'tazilites were the first who not only read the translations of the Greek Naturalists and Philosophers prepared under the auspices of al-Manṣúr and al-Ma'mún (A.D. 754-775 and 813-833), and evolved therefrom all sorts of useful knowledge, but likewise exerted them­selves to divert into new channels their entire thoughts, which had hitherto moved only in the narrow circle of ideas of the Qur'án, to assimilate to their own uses the Greek culture, and to combine it with their Muhammadan conscience. The Philosophers proper, al-Fárábí († A.D. 950), Ibn Síná (Avicenna, † A.D. 1037), and Ibn Rushd (Averroes, † A.D. 1198), belong first to a later age. Al-Kindí († circ. A.D. 864) was the earliest, and lived somewhat before them, but seems to have devoted his special attention to precisely those problems raised by the Mu'tazilites. His followers, however, avoided theological questions. Without directly assailing the Faith, they avoided all conflict with it, so far as possible. Theology and Natural Science, including Philosophy,* were treated as separate territories, with the harmonising of which no further trouble was taken. Ibn Síná appears to have been a pious Muslim; yet Shah-ristání includes him amongst those who properly belonged to no definite confession, but, standing outside Positive Religion, evolved their ideas out of their own heads (Ahlu'l-ahwá). Ibn Rushd also is accounted a good Muslim. He endeavoured to show that philo­sophical research was not only allowed, but was a duty, and one enjoined even by the Qur'án; but, for the rest, he goes his own way, and his writings are, with few exceptions, of philosophic and scientific contents. Thus was the breach between Philosophy and Dogma already fully established with Ibn Síná. The Mu'tazilite party had exhausted its strength in the subtle controversies of the schools of Baṣra and Baghdád. Abu'l-Ḥusayn of Baṣra, a contem­porary of Ibn Síná, was the last who gave independent treatment to their teaching, and in some points completed it. Zamakhsharí († A.D. 1143-4), the famous and extraordinarily learned author of the Kashsháf, reduced the moderate ideas of his predecessors to a pleasant and artistic form, and applied them consistently and adroitly to the whole region of Qur'ánic exegesis, but gave to the teaching itself no further development.”

The political power of the Mu'tazilites ceased soon after the accession of al-Mutawakkil, the tenth 'Abbásid Caliph (A.D. 847), but the school, as we have seen, was powerfully represented nearly three centuries later by Zamakhsharí, the great commentator of the Qur'án. The subsequent fate of the views which they represented will be discussed to some extent in later chapters, but, for the convenience of the reader, and for the sake of continuity, we may here briefly summarise the chief stages which preceded the final “Destruction of the Philosophers” by al-Ghazzálí and his successors, and the triumph of orthodox Islám in the form wherein it now prevails in all Sunnite countries.

(1) The Period of Orthodox Reaction began with al-Muta-wakkil (A.D. 847-861), the brother and successor of al-Wáthiq. Dozy, after describing some of the acts of barbarity and ingratitude committed by this “cruel and ungrateful tyrant,”* continues: “Notwithstanding all this, al-Muta-wakkil was extremely orthodox, and consequently the clerical party judged him quite otherwise than we should do. A well-known Muslim historian (Abu'l-Fidá) is of opinion that he went a little too far in his hatred for 'Alí, for the orthodox also held this prince, in his capacity of cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, in high esteem; ‘but for the rest,’ says he, ‘he was of the number of the most excellent Caliphs, for he forbade man to believe that the Qur'án was created.’ He was orthodox; what matter then if he was a drunkard, a volup­tuary, a perfidious scoundrel, a monster of cruelty? But he was even more than orthodox: animated by a burning zeal for the purity of doctrine, he applied himself to the persecution of all those who thought otherwise, torturing and exterminating them as far as possible. The prescriptions relative to the Christians and Jews, which during the preceding reigns had almost fallen into oblivion, were renewed and aggravated.”* Towards 'Alí and his descendants this wicked Caliph enter­tained a particular hatred: it pleased him that his Court jester should pad himself with a great paunch (for 'Alí had grown corpulent in later life) and, in the assumed character of the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law, should dance before him with all manner of grotesque buffooneries. A celebrated philologist who, in reply to his interrogations, ventured to prefer the sons of 'Alí to those of the tyrant Caliph, was trampled to death by the Turkish guards. The tomb of al-Ḥusayn, the Martyr of Kerbelá, was destroyed by his order, and its site ploughed and sown, and the visitation thereof forbidden. Even the most eminent and honourable theo­logians, such as al-Bukhárí, the great traditionist, were exposed to charges of heresy.

(2) The Teaching of al-Ash'arí.* So far, as Dozy points out, the triumph of the orthodox was merely material; intellectually, and in methods of dialectic, they retained the same inferiority as before in respect to their opponents the Mu'tazilites. Not till twelve years had elapsed after al-Mutawakkil's death was born (in A.H. 260 = A.D. 873-4) the man who, having been trained in the Mu'tazilite school, renounced their doctrines in his fortieth year, and, armed with the logical weapons with which they themselves had supplied him, deserted to the hostile camp, and, for the remainder of his life, carried on an energetic and successful campaign against their views. This was Abu'l-Ḥasan al-Ash'arí, a descendant of that foolish Abú Músá al-Ash'arí to whose ineptitude Mu'áwiya owed so much in the arbitration of Dawmatu'l-Jandal. His literary activity was enormous, and after he had broken with his teacher, the Mu'tazilite doctor al-Jubbá'í,* he produced polemical works on all manner of theological topics to the number of two or three hundred, of which Spitta* enumerates the titles of one hundred. So distrustful of philosophy were the orthodox that many of them, especially the fanatical followers of Ibn Ḥanbal, unwilling to believe that an alliance with it could result in aught but evil, continued to regard al-Ash'arí with the deepest suspicion; but in the end his services to orthodoxy were fully recognised.

“In course of time,” says Dozy, after speaking of the growing influence of al-Ash'arí's teaching, “the influence of the Mu'tazilites continued to diminish more and more. The loss of temporal power was the first misfortune which befel them; the defection of al-Ash'arí was the second. ‘The Mu'tazilites,’ says a Musulmán author, ‘formerly carried their heads high, but their dominion ended when God sent al-Ash'arí.’ Nevertheless they did not dis­appear all at once, and perhaps they exist even at the present day, but they had no longer any power. Since the eleventh century* they have had no doctor who has achieved renown, while the system of al-Ash'arí, on the contrary, has been more and more elaborated, so that, in its ultimate form, it includes not only religious dogma, but also embraces matters purely philosophic, such as ontology, cosmology, &c.”

*

(3) The Brethren of Purity (Ikhwánu'ṣ-Ṣafá). For our knowledge of this remarkable society or fraternity of Ency-clopædists and Philosophers we are chiefly indebted to Flügel* and Dieterici,* especially the latter, who has summarised and elucidated their teachings in a series of masterly monographs. Favoured by the liberal ideas of the Persian and Shí'ite House of Buwayh, who, displacing for a time the Turkish element, became practically supreme at Baghdad about the middle of the tenth century (A.D. 945), this somewhat mysterious society carried on the work of the Mu'tazilites, aiming especially at the reconciliation of Science and Religion, the harmonising of the Law of Islám with Greek Philosophy, and the synthesis of all knowledge in encyclopædic form. The results of their labours, comprising some fifty separate treatises,* were published, according to Flügel, about A.D. 970, and supply us with an admirable mirror of the ideas which prevailed at this time in the most enlightened circles of the metropolis of the 'Abbásid Caliphs. As authors of these tracts five men of learning are named by Shahrazúrí, viz., Abú Sulaymán Muḥammad b. Naṣr al-Bustí, called also al-Muqaddasí (or al-Maqdasí), Abu'l-Ḥasan 'Alí b. Hárún az-Zinjání, Abú Aḥmad an-Nahrajúrí (or Mihrajání), al-'Awfí, and Zayd b. Rifá'a; of whom, having regard to their nisbas, the first three at any rate would seem to have been Persians. So too was Ibn Síná (Avicenna), the great physician and philosopher with whose death (A.D. 1037), according to Dieterici,* “the development of philosophy in the East came to an end.”