the circle of al-Hasan al-Basrī’s companions, such as Qatādah, Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, and others like them. From that time, after al-Hasan’s death, they were called the Mu‘tazilah. It is reported that Qatādah used to say: “Those are the Mu‘tazilah.”

People disputed “religious designations and rulings”: that is, religious designations such as Muslim, believer, unbeliever, and sinner, and the rulings concerning such people in this world and the Hereafter. The Mu‘tazilah agreed with the Khawārij regarding their fate in the Hereafter, but not their treatment in this world. Thus, they did not deem it lawful to shed their blood and seize their property as the Khawārij did. As for religious designations, they introduced “the position between the two positions.” This was the distinctive doctrine of the Mu‘tazilah alone; others shared all their other views.

The Murji’ah also emerged, most of them from Kūfah. Neither the companions of ‘Abd Allāh nor Ibrāhīm al-Nakha‘ī and others like him belonged to the Murji’ah. They took the opposite position to the Khawārij and the Mu‘tazilah, saying: “Actions are not part of faith.” This innovation was the least serious of innovations, since much of the dispute over it concerned names and wording rather than substantive rulings. The jurists to whom this view is attributed, such as Hammād ibn Abī Sulaymān, Abū Hanīfah, and others, agreed with the rest of Ahl al-Sunnah that Allah punishes in the Fire those perpetrators of major sins whom He chooses to punish, then brings them out through intercession, as established in authentic hadiths, and that faith necessarily requires