CHAPTER 7

THE MU'TAZILA

THE extreme opponents of the traditionists are the Mu'tazila who are called 'rationalists' in Shāfi'ī's writings and in other ancient sources.¹ The Mu'tazila were not a school of law proper but a political and dogmatic movement;² their speculative method and their insistence on the Koran as the only basis for their system of religious doctrine, however, led them to the rejection of most traditions and, by implication, of legal doctrines based on traditions, and to the consideration of questions of law in the light of their theological tenets.³ Although they did not elaborate a system of legal doctrine of their own, their interest in problems of legal theory and of positive law found expression in numerous works on these subjects written from their particular point of view.⁴

We have had occasion to discuss their opinions on several points of legal theory.⁵ References to their opinions on particular points of positive law occur occasionally.⁶ As far as can be ascertained, the Mu'tazila are throughout dependent upon the development of legal doctrine in the schools of law proper and only revise the results of these last according to their own standards. In particular, their doctrine shows resemblances to that of the Iraqians in several respects;⁷ the Mu'tazila did in fact originate and develop in Iraq.

Shāfi'ī takes the objections of the Mu'tazila to the traditionists seriously,⁸ and devotes the first part of Treatise IV to the