Page:Arabic Thought and Its Place in History.djvu/139

 subtile kind of substance permeating the whole body in the same way as butter permeates milk, or as oil permeates the sesame: both soul and body are equal in size and alike in shape. Freedom of the will is peculiar to God and man, all other created things are subject to necessity. God created all things at once in remote eternity, but reserved them in a state of quiescence so that they may be described as "concealed," and then projected them into active existence at successive intervals.

The next great Mu'tazilite leader was Bishr b. Mu'tamir (d. 226 circ.) in whose work we find a more definite attempt to apply philosophical speculation to the practical needs of Islam. In the case of free will he enters directly into the question of how far external influences limit freedom of the will and so diminish responsibility. Infants cannot be condemned to eternal punishment because they have no responsibility, having never exercised free will. Unbelievers, however, are condemned to punishment because, although they have not the help of revelation, it is possible for them to know that there must be a God, and only one God, by the light of reason. In dealing with actions and their moral values we have to consider not only one agent and one object, but often a series, the act being transmitted from one to the other so that each of the intervening objects becomes the agent to the next object. This serial connection he termed "begetting" (tawullud).

Ma'mar b. Abbad as-Sulami (d. 220) describes God