Mu’tazilism (also spelled “Muʿtazilism”) is a school of Muslim theology that emerged in the eighth century, primarily in present-day Iraq. It is distinguished by the importance it gives to human reason in understanding God, interpreting religious texts and reflecting on good and evil. Its adherents are known as Mu’tazilites. It is not a religion separate from Islam, but a current of thought that profoundly shaped its intellectual history.
Mu’tazilism took shape in Basra and then developed in Baghdad, at a time when Muslims were debating fundamental questions: Are human beings free to choose their actions? Can God be the source of evil? How should passages of the Quran that appear to attribute human characteristics to God be understood? Two figures are traditionally associated with its beginnings, Wasil ibn Ata (died in 748 or 749) and Amr ibn Ubayd (died in 761). The exact circumstances of the movement’s origins remain debated among historians.
The name “Mu’tazilism” comes from an Arabic term conveying the idea of withdrawing or standing apart. According to one tradition, Wasil ibn Ata withdrew from Hasan al-Basri’s teaching circle after a disagreement.
In an article published in 2022, Faker Korchane also calls for a reconsideration of the movement’s social history. He challenges the idea that Mu’tazilism concerned only a small circle of scholars and highlights its role in the religious and political debates of the Abbasid period. He also questions the traditional account that presents Wasil ibn Ata as the starting point of the movement and argues for an older intellectual lineage.
Mu’tazilite thought is organized around five major principles. The first is the absolute oneness of God. The Mu’tazilites reject any depiction of God as a being comparable to human beings. They therefore interpret certain Quranic passages figuratively when a literal reading seems incompatible with this oneness.
The second principle is divine justice. For the Mu’tazilites, God is perfectly just and cannot punish a person for actions they did not freely choose. They therefore emphasize human freedom and individual responsibility. In their view, reason also makes it possible to recognize certain actions as good or bad without necessarily waiting for an explicit religious command.
The third principle concerns God’s promises and warnings: reward and punishment must be taken seriously. The fourth holds that a Muslim who has committed a grave sin occupies an intermediate position: that person is regarded neither as a fully faithful believer nor as a non-believer. The fifth principle calls for encouraging good and opposing evil in society. These formulations encompass complex debates, and Mu’tazilite authors did not all agree on their practical consequences.
Another well-known Mu’tazilite idea concerns the created Quran. According to this school, the Quran, as revealed speech, was brought into being by God; it has not existed eternally alongside Him. This position differs from the doctrine of the uncreated Quran that became established across much of Sunni Islam. It was a theological debate about the nature of divine speech, not a rejection of the Quran’s sacred character.
In the ninth century, Mu’tazilism gained considerable influence among certain rulers of the Abbasid Empire. In 833, Caliph al-Ma’mun imposed a procedure for examining religious scholars, known as the mihna, notably over the question of the created Quran. Opponents faced pressure and sanctions. This policy was continued by his successors before being abandoned under al-Mutawakkil in the middle of the ninth century. This period shows that the Mu’tazilites’ commitment to reason did not prevent their doctrine from being associated, at certain times, with coercion exercised by political power.
Subsequently, other theological schools came to dominate Sunni Islam. Mu’tazilism gradually lost its standing as a major institutional current, without disappearing from intellectual history. Several of its arguments were adopted, debated or transformed in other Muslim traditions, particularly within Zaydi Shiism, which has played an important role in Yemen’s religious history.
This tradition has also experienced a contemporary revival. In France, the philosopher and imam Faker Korchane, co-founder of the Association for the Revival of Mu’tazilite Islam, advocates the possibility of an interpretation of Islam grounded in reason, freedom of conscience and individual responsibility. In his book Épître aux musulmans perplexes. Réflexions pour un islam rationnel (Atlande, 2024), he proposes a contemporary application of Mu’tazilite thought rather than merely reproducing medieval doctrines.
Today, Mu’tazilism remains studied as a major current of classical Islamic thought, but it also inspires some contemporary Muslims. This rediscovery does not mean that medieval Mu’tazilites defended all the ideas associated today with rationalism or liberalism: their primary aim was to offer a coherent understanding of their faith. Their legacy is a reminder that the place of reason has been debated within Islam for more than twelve centuries.
Further reading: Faker Korchane, “What Is Mu’tazilism?”; writings and translations by Faker Korchane, including an introduction to The Book of the Five Principles by Abd al-Jabbar; Racha el-Omari, The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology; Oxford Bibliographies, “Mihna”; Jan Thiele, “Zaydi Theology in Yemen”.