Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/749

* MOHAMMEDAN SECTS. 671 MOHAMMEDAN SECTS. 'Druze') were his propagandists (da'i), and gained many followers in the Lebanon moun- tains. It is interesting to note that one of Xaniza's treatises was intended as a refutation of the Xosairian doctrines, and tried to show that Ilakim, not Ali, was God. See Dri'se.s. A sectary whose name has become familiar through the use made of his story by Thomas Moore in his Lalla Rookh was Hakim ibn Al- lali, better known as al-Mokanna, 'the veiled,' because he wore a mask to conceal the disfigure- ment of his face. He lived in the eighth century, and headed a revolt against the Malidi, the third Abbasside Caliph. He claimed to be an incarna- tion of the deity, and won repute as a miracle- worker. He made many followers, and for a time maintained himself against the Cali])h, but was ultimately defeated and committed suicide. He left «ord that he would reappear as a gray man riding a gra}' beast, and his followers long expected his coming. They dressed onlj' in white. See H.kim iun Allah. All of these Shiite sects were political, or at least politico-religious, sects, whose doctrines turned about the question of the imamah. But there were in Islam also some sects purely theo- logical, difi'ering on such questions as predestina- tion, free will, belief, idea of God, and revela- tion — points upon which Mohannned had not expressed himself clearly. It was again in Per- sia that the movement looking toward inde- pendent religious views took its rise, under the influence of Greek philosophy. The most important of these theological or philosophical sects was perhaps the rationalistic sect of the Motazilites, or JIutazilites (Mu'- litzUdh^ from 'a~(il(i. to separate). They were lallcd also Moattalites — i.e. those who divest (iod of His attributes (Ar. iluUtttUun) — and Kadarites — i.e. "those who hold that man has
 * i free will (Ar. hadar), and deny the strict doc-

trine of predestination." The first beginnings of this sect are traced to 5Iabad, who already in the time of ilohammed himself began to question predestination by pointing out how kings carry on unjust wars, kill men. and steal their goods, and all the while pretend to be merely executing God's decrees. The real founder of the sect, as such, however, was Wasil ibn Ata (c.74.5). He denied God's 'qualities,' such as knowledge, power, will, life, as leading to, if not directly implying, polytheism. As to predestina- tion, he held that it existed only with regard to the outward good or evil that befalls man, such as illness or recovery, death or life, while man's ac- tions are entirely in his own hands. God, he said, had given commandments to mankind, and it was not to be supposed that He had at the same time preordained that some should disobey these commandments, and that, further, they should be punished for it. Man alone is the agent in his good or evil actions, in his belief or tuibclicf, obedience or disobedience, and he is rewarded ac- cording to his deeds. These doctrines were further developed by Wasil's disciple .bu al-Hudhail al- -Mlaf (died c.845), who did not deny so absolute- ly God's 'qualities,' but modified their meaning in the manner of the Greek philosophers, hold- ing that every quality was also God's essence. The attributes are thus not withotit. but within Wim. and so far from being a multijilicity, they merely designate the various ways of the manifestations of the Godhead. God's will he declared to be a peculiar kind of knowledge, through which God did what He foresaw to be salutary in the end. -Man's freedom of action is possible only in this world. In the next all will be according to necessary laws immutably preordained. The righteous will enjoy everlasting bliss, and for the wicked everlasting punishment will be de- creed. A dangerous doctrine of this system was the assumption that before the Koran had been revealed, man had already come to the conclusion of right and wrong. By his inner intellect, Abu al-Hudhail held, everybody nuist and does know — even without the aid of the divinely given com- mandments — whether the thing he is doing be ■right or wrong, just or unjust, true or false. His belief in the traditions was also by no means an absolute one; indeed, it was held by the ilutazil- ites that even some of the earliest 'traditioners' may have told untruths, or have been imposed upon, and every tradition was to be rejected w hich was opposed to the Koran, to more authentic tra- ditions, or even to mere reason. As to the Koran, although its authority was recognized, it was held to be created and not an object of worship. ilany were the branches of the Mutazilites. There were, a])art from the disciples of Abu al- Hudhail, the Jubbrniinx, who adopted Abu Ali ibn Abd al-Wahhab's (Al-.jubbai, d. 914) opinion to the efl'eet that the knowledge ascribed to God was not an 'attribute'; nor w'as his knowdedge 'necessary'; nor did sin prove anything as to the belief or unbelief of him who committed it, who would anyhow be subjected to eternal punish- ment if he died in it. Besides these, there were the Hashimites, the disciples of Abu Hashim Abd al-Salam, son of Al-Jubbai, who held that an infidel was not the creation of God, who could not produce evil. Another branch of the ilutazi- lites were the disciples of Ahmad ibn Habit (or Halt), wlio held that .lesus was the eternal word incarnate, and that He had assumed a real body; that there were two gods or creators, one eternal — viz. the ilost High God — and the other not eter- nal — viz. Jesus — not unlike the Socinian andArian theories on this subject; that there is a successive transmigration of the soul from one body into another, and that the last bod.y will enjoy the reward or suffer the ]ninishments due to each soul, and that God will be seen at the resurrec- tion with the eyes of understanding, not of the body. Four more divisions of this sect are mentioned — viz. the Jilhiziyyah, whose master's (Amr ibn Bahr al-Jahiz) notion about the Koran was that it was "a body that niiglit grow into a man, and sometimes into a beast, or to have, as others put it, two faces, one human, the other that of an animal, according to the dill'erent interpreta- tions." He further taught that the damned would become fire, and thus be attracted by hell; also that the mere belief in God and the Prophet constituted a 'faithful one.' Of rather different tendencies was Isa al-Muzdar, the founder of the branch of the Muzdariiijtnli. He not only held the Koran to be uncreated and eternal, but so far from denying Ciod the power of doing evil, he declared it to be possible for God to be a liar and unjust. Another branch was formed by the liishriyi/ah (from Bishr ibn al-Mutamir), who, while they carried man's free agency rather to excess, yet held that God might doom even an infant to eternal punishment — all the while granting that He would be unjust in so doing.