THE MU'TAZILA 259

refutation of their criticism of traditions.¹ According to Shāfiʿī, the Muʿtazila exist in all countries and have their own authorities in the same way as the schools of law; but his interlocutor excludes them from the orbit of those whose opinions count for establishing a consensus, because they form only a small minority (Tr. IV, 256 f.).

In the time of Khaiyāṭ, who wrote towards the end of the third century A.H., the essential thesis of the traditionists and of Shāfiʿī had been generally accepted in orthodox Islam, and the Muʿtazila of that time had to take this changed attitude into account. We therefore find Khaiyāṭ re-interpret or reject the opinions of the old Muʿtazila on consensus and on raʾy,² and mitigate their criticism of traditions, which changes its emphasis and becomes no more negative than that of the ancient schools of law.³ He even defends the traditionists, and when he comes to formulate in his own words the guiding principle of Jaʿfar b. Mubaṣhshir (d. 234), a specialist on law among the Muʿtazila, he gives it as 'to follow the outward and obvious meaning (ẓāhir) of Qurʾān, sunna and consensus, and not to base one's opinions on raʾy and qiyās'.⁴ This formula would be unexceptionable to the traditionists, but certainly does not represent the doctrine of the ancient Muʿtazila. Jaʿfar's own attitude was more complex; among his writings are mentioned works directed not only against the aṣḥāb al-raʾy waʾl-qiyās, by which the Iraqians seem to be meant, but also against the aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth, the traditionists.⁵ Khaiyāṭ's younger contemporary, Balkhī, also called Kaʿbī (d. 319), is on the defensive against the traditionists to such a degree that he is prepared to admit even the khabar al-wāḥid (see above, p. 50) under certain conditions, whilst trying to show the unreliability of most traditionists.⁶