[Ed. Qadariyya are not to be confused with the Sufi order of the Qadiriyya].

The Mu'tazila [Separatists] came to be so called on account of their separation [i'tizal] from the truth, or, as some prefer to put it, because of their separation from the generally accepted doctrines [aqawil] of the Muslims. This separation came about in the following circumstances:

The members of the Muslim community were in disagreement over the question of how to classify a person who has committed a major sin [kabira]. Some of them said: "Such people are believers [mu'minun], to the extent of the faith [iman] they still possess." There were also some among them who said: "No, they are unbelievers [kafirun]." Then along came Wasil ibn 'Ata' with a third opinion on the issue. He parted company with the Muslims, and separated himself off from the believers, for he said: "Those who commit major sins are neither believers nor unbelievers."

There we have one explanation of how they [as the followers of Wasil ibn 'Ata'] came to be known as the Mu'tazila. According to some, however, they acquired this name on account of their i'tizal [separation in the sense of withdrawal or secession] from the council [majlis] convened by al-Hasan al-Basri (may Allah bestow His mercy upon him). As he walked past them, al-Hasan remarked:

"These people are mu'tazila [a bunch of separatists]," and so it came about that this nickname stuck to them.

They also looked up to 'Amr ibn 'Ubaid as one of their leaders. On a certain occasion, when al-Hasan al-Basri became angry with 'Amr ibn 'Ubaid, and was sharply criticized on that account, he responded by saying: "How dare you rebuke me so harshly for the sake of a such a man? I saw him in a dream, prostrating himself in worship to the sun instead of to Allah!"

As for the Qadariyya, they are so called because of their refusal to acknowledge the foreordainment [qada'] of Allah (Almighty and Glorious is He) and His predestination [qadar] with respect to the sins of disobedience committed by His human servants, and because of their insistence that human beings are themselves the authors of those actions.

With respect to the denial of the divine attributes [nafy as-sifat], the doctrine of the Mu'tazila, the Jahmiyya and the Qadariyya is one and the same. We have already discussed some of their teachings on the subject of religious belief [i'tiqad].

The name of the authors who compiled their textbooks are as follows: Abu'l-Hudhail, Ja'far ibn Harb, al-Khayyat, al-Ka'bi, Abu Hashim, Abu 'Abdi'llah al-Basri, and 'Abd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad al-Hamadhani.

The majority of the people who adhere to their doctrine are to be found in [the districts of the Iranian province of Khuzistan called] al-'Askar, al-Ahwaz and Jahzam.1

They can be subdivided into six factions, namely:

1. The Hudhaliyya,
2. The Nazzamiyya,
3. The Mu'ammariyya,
4. The Jubba'iyya,
5. The Ka'biyya
6. The Bahshamiyya.

1. The Hudhaliyya,

As for the Hudhaliyya, their shaikh, Abu Hudhail, was idiosyncratic in teaching the following doctrines:

• That Allah does have a kind of knowledge, a kind of power, a kind of hearing and a kind of sight.

• That the Speech of Allah (Exalted is He) is for the most part a product of creation [makhluq], but that one part of it is uncreated [ghair makhluq], namely His saying: "Be!" [kun].

• That Allah (Exalted is He) is not set apart in opposition to His creatures.

• That the scope of Allah's effective power is not unlimited, so the people of the Garden of Paradise may be stranded forever in a state of immobility, while Allah (Exalted is He) is unable to set them in motion, and since they are incapable of making themselves move. It is possible, however, for actions to be performed by the dead, the disabled and the decrepit.

Abu Hudhail rejected the idea that Allah (Exalted is He) has always been All-Hearing [Sami'].

2. The Nazzamiyya,

Their shaikh an-Nazzam used to teach that inanimate bodies [jamadat] are activated by the forces of nature. He used to deny the existence of accidents [a'rad], with the exception of dependent motion [haraka i'timadiyya].

He maintained that the real human being is the spirit [al-insan huwa'r-ruh], and that no one has seen the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), since all that anyone ever saw was his envelope [zarf], meaning his physical body.

He made a radical break with the general consensus [ijma'], when he declared that if a person deliberately refrains from performing the ritual prayer [salat], even though he is reminded of it, he is not required to make it up later. He actually refused to recognize the infallibility of the general consensus of the Muslim community [umma], and allowed for the possibility that its members might agree to accept an untruth [batil].

He also maintained that faith [iman] is the same thing as unbelief [kufr], and that worshipful obedience [ta'a] is the same thing as sinful disobedience [ma'siya]. He held that the conduct of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) was no different from the conduct of Iblis the accursed, and that the behavior of 'Umar and 'Ali (may Allah be well pleased with them both) was no different from the behavior of al-Hajjaj. His emphasis on this theme, and his insistence on pursuing it, is less inexplicable than it may seem at first sight, because he often used to say: "All animate creatures are one single species [al-hayawan kulluhu jins wahid]."

He asserted that the Qur'an does not represent a miracle [mu'jiz] in its mode of composition. He claimed that Allah (Exalted is He) would not be capable of exposing an infant to the fire, even if he stood on the very brink of Hell, nor of casting him into it.

He was the first to propound the doctrine of unbelief [kufr] among apparently devout Muslims [ahl al-Qibla].

He used to say: "The physical body can be divided up into an infinite number of parts." He also used to say: "There are snakes, scorpions and dung beetles in the Garden of Paradise. As a matter of fact, there are even dogs and pigs in the Garden of Paradise."

3. The Mu'ammariyya,

The Mu'ammariyya take their name from their Shaikh al-Mu'ammar, who used to profess the doctrines of the physicists or natural scientists [ahl at-taba'i']. He carried those teachings to excessive lengths, however, for he went so far as to maintain that Allah (Exalted is He) has created neither any color, nor any flavor, nor any scent, and neither any death nor any life. He held that all of this is the work of the physical body [fi 'l al-jism], functioning in accordance with its nature [bi-tab'ihi].

Al-Mu'ammar also used to profess the doctrine that the Qur'an is the work of the physical bodies, and not the work of Allah. What is more, he refused to accept the idea that Allah (Exalted is He) could be Pre-Existent from All Eternity [Qadim].

May he be doomed to perdition, and may Allah (Exalted is He) keep him far removed from this Community [Umma].

4. The Jubba'iyya,

The Jubba'iyya derive their name from their Shaikh, al-Jubba'i, who violated the Islamic consensus [ijma'] and broke away from it to formulate several doctrines peculiar to himself.

For one thing, he maintained that human beings are creators of their own actions, a conclusion which no one had arrived at before him. He also used to profess the following eccentric teachings:

• That Allah (Exalted is He) is obeying His servants, whenever He does what they wish.

• If someone takes an oath to the effect that he will give his creditor his due on the following day, and if he qualifies this statement by saying, "if Allah wills [in sha'a'llah]," the qualification gives him no advantage, and he will therefore be guilty of perjury if he does not pay up.

• If someone steals the value of five dirhams [silver coins], that person is to be classed as a fasiq [an immoral person; one who falls short of the legal standard of rectitude under Islamic law, and is therefore unacceptable as a witness]. This does not apply, however, if the value of what is stolen is less, even by a tiny amount.

5. The Ka'biyya

They trace their name and origin to a certain Abu'l-Qasim al-Ka'bi, who was a native of Baghdad. He refused to accept that Allah is All-Hearing [Sami '], All-Seeing [Basir], and denied that He exercises any will in reality. According to his teaching, the will [irada] of Allah (Exalted is He) in relation to the action of His servants is the commandment [amr] to perform it, and His will in relation to His own action is His knowledge and the absence of constraint.

Abu'l-Qasim al-Ka'bi also maintained that the entire universe is a composite whole [mala']; that anything that moves is no more than the first layer of the physical bodies; that the human being, even if he were greased with oil and seemed to move along, would not be what was actually in motion, since it would only be the oil that was moving.

He used to profess the doctrine that the Qur'an is muhdath [produced, originated--and therefore not existing from all eternity], but he did not refer to it as makhluq [created].

6. The Bahshamiyya.

The Bahshamiyya, trace their origin to Abu Hashim ibn al- Jubba'i. This Abu Hashim used to maintain that it is possible to conceive of the sane adult [mukallaf] as potentially active [qadir], even though he may be neither performing nor refraining from an action, so Allah (Exalted is He) will punish him for his deed [as if he had actually done it].

Abu Hashim also used to maintain that, if a person repents of all his sins but one, his repentance cannot be regarded as valid, not even with respect to the sins of which he has repented.



The point on which all the various factions of the Mu'tazila are in virtually unanimous agreement is the negation of the divine attributes [sifat] in their entirety. They deny that Allah (Almighty and Glorious is He) has knowledge ['ilm], power [qudra], life [hayat], and the faculties of hearing [sam'] and sight [basar].

They likewise deny the reality of those divine attributes that have been corroborated by traditional report, such as istiwa' [firmly establishing Himself (on the Throne)], nuzul [descending (to the heaven of this lower world)], as well as others that could be mentioned.

They are also in general agreement in professing the following doctrines:

• That the Speech [kalam] of Allah is not eternal, but has been created subsequent to the beginning of time, and that His Will [irada] is likewise a product of creation [muhdatha].

• That He speaks [not directly but] by means of a faculty of speech that He has created in others, and that He wills by means of a will that has been brought into existence for no effective purpose [la fi mahall].

• That He (Exalted is He) may wish for something contrary to that which has been fixed by His own predetermination [yuridu khilafa ma'lumih].

• That He may want from His servants something that will never come to be, while something that He does not wish may actually come into being.

• That He (Exalted is He) is powerless to influence the decisions made by others, and that the very idea of His exercising such influence is really quite absurd.

• That He does not create the actions of His servants, since they themselves, not their Lord, are the creators of those actions.

• That much of the food consumed as nourishment by a human being is not made available to him by the providence of Allah-not, that is, in the case where the food is unlawful [haram], since the only food provided by Allah is that which is lawful [halal], to the exclusion of what is unlawful.

• That a human being may be killed before his appointed time [ajal], and that the killer may cut the life of his victim short, before the moment when he was destined to die.

• That if anyone professing to be a monotheist [muwahhid] is guilty of committing a major sin, even if the offense does not amount to explicit unbelief [kufr], he thereby removes himself from the protection of his faith [iman] and is doomed to abide in the Fire of Hell for all eternity, while all his good deeds are rendered null and void. They even maintain that the intercession [shafa'a] of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) can be of no avail as far as people guilty of major sins [ahl al-kaba'ir] are concerned.

• Most of them deny the reality of the torment of the tomb ['adhab al-qabr].

• They regard it as permissible to rebel against the ruler [sultan] and to withdraw one's obedience from him.

• They reject the idea that a person who has died can receive any benefit through an offering made on his behalf by someone who is still alive, whether it be a prayer of supplication [du'a'] or an act of charity [sadaqa], for they do not believe that the spiritual reward for such an offering could ever reach him.

• They also maintain that Allah (Glory be to Him) did not speak to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (the blessings of Allah be upon them all), not to Gabriel, not to Michael, not to Israfil, and not to the bearers of the Heavenly Throne [hamalat al-'arsh], nor did He look upon them, just as He does not speak to Iblis and the Jews and Christians.

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The Me you have always known, the Me that's a stranger still.