Page:Arabic Thought and Its Place in History.djvu/98

 its first exponent was put to death as a heretic.

The earlier Qadarites had a Persian origin, but the reaction against the Jabarites was led by Wasil b. 'Ata whose teaching clearly shows the solvent force of Hellenistic philosophy acting on Muslim theology. Wasil was the pupil of the Qadarite Hasan ibn Abi l-Hasan (d. 110) but he "seceded" from his teacher and this is given as the traditional reason for calling him and his followers the Mu'tazila or "secession," and did so on the ground of the apparent injustice imputed to God in his apportionment of rewards and penalties. The details of the controversy are quite secondary, the important point is that the Mu'tazilites claimed to be "the people of Unity and Justice," this latter meaning that God conformed to an objective standard of just and right action so that he could not be conceived as acting arbitrarily and in disregard of justice, an idea borrowed from Hellenistic philosophy for the older Muslim conception regarded God as acting as he willed and the standard of right and wrong merely a dependent on his will.

Throughout the whole 'Umayyad period we see the conquering Arabs, so far the rulers of the Muslim world, in contact with those who, though treated with arrogant contempt as serfs, were really in possession of a much fuller culture than their rulers. In spite of the haughty attitude of the Arab there was a considerable exchange of thought, and the community of Islam began to absorb Hellenistic influences in several directions, and so the canon law and theology