Note 63 — Chapter VIII · FREETHOUGHT UNDER ISLAM1

Steiner, p. 8. An association called “Brethren of Purity” or “Sincere Brethren” seem to have carried Motazilism far, though they aimed at reconciling philosophy with orthodoxy. They were in effect the encyclopedists of Arab science. Ueberweg, i, 411; Nicholson, p. 370 sq. See Dr. F. Dieterici, Die Naturanschauung und Naturphilosophie der Araber im 10ten Jahrhundert, aus den schriften der lautern Brüder, 1861, Vorrede, p. viii, and Flügel, as there cited. Flügel dates the writings of the Brethren about 970; but the association presumably existed earlier. Cp. Renan, Averroès, p. 104; and S. Lane-Poole’s Studies in a Mosque, 1893, ch. vi, as to their performance. Prof. Macdonald is disposed to regard them as “part of the great Fatimid propaganda which honeycombed the ground everywhere under the Sunnite Abassids,” but admits that the Fatimid movement is “the great mystery of Muslim history” (pp. 165–70). ↑