Mu‛tazilite ethics: Moral interpretation of the five principles

So far it has been shown that ethical thought in its initial stage reflects internal, political, and social interests and developed from various debates and arguments raised by different Islamic groups. The second stage in the development of AraboIslamic ethical thought might be distinguished by the rise of I‛tizāl or Mu‛tazilism which was an intellectual movement, headed by devoted, pious, and highly committed figures who took upon themselves the task of expanding religious and ethical knowledge. The roots of this movement lie deep in previous cultural, political, and social structures and its origins have been traced back to figures who were dissatisfied with the impiety of the umayyads, and with the extremism of the Khawārij, and to those who appreciated ‛Alī, but couldn’t adopt the exclusively Shi‛īte position regarding the nature of the Imamate. The Mu‛tazilites seem to have accepted the doctrine of the early Irjā’, which implied the postponement of judgment on the participants of early strives, yet they totally opposed later Murji’ism and its pro-Umayyad political implications. It is beyond the scope of this study to investigate the various opinions regarding the origin of the Mu‛tazilites and their name.1 It should be mentioned that the popular story which links the beginnings of the Mu‛tazilites to Wāsil’s disagreement with al-Hasan al-basri, although accepted and narrated by Mu‛tazilite authors themselves, should not be taken for granted, because the word “Mu‛tazila” encompasses various groups of people who withdrew from public or political life during internal strives. The people who might be linked to the early Mu‛tazilite movement are those who dissociated themselves from all immediate political concerns, out of grief, when Mu‛āwiya prevailed and al-Hasan b. ‛Alī abandoned his father’s cause. Muhammad Zāhid al-Kawtharī (d.1371/1952), in an introduction of a book edited by him,2 drew attention to a paragraph written by Abu al-Husayn Muhammad al-Malati (d.377/987) which says:

When al-Hasan relinquished and gave over the Caliphate to Mu‛āwiya, a group of people abandoned both parties and separated themselves (i‛tazalū) from both, they stayed in their mosques devoting themselves to the pursuit of knowledge and worship. They were, before that, close companions of ‛Alī. These were the origins of the Mu‛tazilites.3