Note 504 — Chapter VI

The Mâtazalah, or “Separatists,” were the followers of Wasel Ebn Ata. He was the disciple of Hassan al Baśri, of whom hereafter. When he separated from his master, the latter exclaimed: Kad êttazal amma Wassel, “Wassel separates from us:” hence is derived the name of his followers, Mâtazalah—(See Herbelot). They entirely rejected all eternal attributes of God, saying that eternity is the proper or formal attribute of his essence; that God knows by his essence, and not by his knowledge, and the same they affirmed of his other attributes, and hence this sect were also named Mâtalah, or Mâtalites, from their divesting God of his attributes, in which they place the unity of God. They denied also all vision of God in paradise by the corporeal eye, and rejected all comparison or similitude applied to God. They established further, that the word of God is created; that God is necessarily holden to the observation of justice in his decrees, to the rewarding of good and the punishment of the wicked. Moreover they refuted the dogma of absolute predestination, maintaining that God was not the author of evil, but of good only, and that man was a free agent: on which account they are also called Kadarian, from kadr, “destiny.” They are subdivided into twenty sects, taxing each other with infidelity—(See Sale’s Koran, vol. I. Prelim. Discourse, pp. 211-212). The latter are to be particularly mentioned in these pages hereafter.