Muʿtazila

Muʿtazila (Arabic: المعتزلة al-muʿtazilah, English: “Those Who Withdraw, or Stand Apart”, and who called themselves Ahl al-ʿAdl wa al-Tawḥīd, English: “Party of Divine Justice and Unity”); is/was an Islamic group that appeared in early Islāmic history and were known for their neutrality in the dispute between Alī and his opponents after the death of the third caliph, Uthman. By the 10th century CE the term had also come to refer to an Islamic school of speculative theology (kalām) that flourished in Basra and Baghdad (8th–10th century).

The later Mu’tazila school developed an Islamic type of rationalism, partly influenced by Ancient Greek philosophy, based around three fundamental principles: the oneness (Tawhid) and justice (Al-‘adl) of God, human freedom of action, and the creation of the Quran. The Muʿtazilites are best known for rejecting the doctrine of the Quran as uncreated and co-eternal with God, asserting that if the Quran is the word of God, he logically “must have preceded his own speech”. This went against the orthodox Sunni position (followed by the Ashʿarī, Māturīdī and the Traditionalist (Aṯhari) schools) which argued that with God being all knowing, his knowledge of the Quran must have been eternal, hence uncreated just like him.