the non-Arabic Moslims, especially those of Christian origin, who suggested such doctrinal questions.  At first they met with a vehement opposition that condemned all dogmatic discussion as a novelty of the Devil.  In the long run, however, the contest of the conservatives against specially objectionable features of the dogmatists’ discussions forced them to borrow arms from the dogmatic arsenal.  Hence a method with a peculiar terminology came in vogue, to which even the boldest imagination could not ascribe any connection with the Sunnah of Mohammed.  Yet some traditions ventured to put prophetic warnings on Mohammed’s lips against dogmatic innovations that were sure to arise, and to make him pronounce the names of a couple of future sects.  But no one dared to make the Prophet preach an orthodox system of dogmatics resulting from the controversies of several centuries, all the terms of which were foreign to the Arabic speech of Mohammed’s time.

Indeed, all the subjects which had given rise to dogmatic controversy in the Christian Church, except some too specifically Christian, were discussed by the mutakallims, the dogmatists of Islam.  Free will or predestination; God omnipotent, or first of all just and holy; God’s word created by Him, or sharing His eternity; God one in this sense, that His being admitted of no plurality of qualities, or possessed of qualities, which in all eternity are inherent in His being; in the world to come only bliss and doom, or also an intermediate state for the neutral.  We might continue the enumeration and always show to the Christian church-historian or theologian old acquaintances in Moslim garb.  That is why Maracci and Reland could understand Jews and Christians yielding to the temptation of joining Islam, and that also explains why Catholic and Protestant dogmatists could accuse each other of Crypto-mohammedanism.

Not until the beginning of the tenth century A.D. did the orthodox Mohammedan dogma begin to emerge from the clash of opinions into its definite shape.  The Mu’tazilites had advocated man’s free will; had given prominence to justice and holiness in their conception of God, had denied distinct qualities in God and the eternity of God’s Word; had accepted a place for the neutral between Paradise and Hell; and for some time the favour of the powers in authority seemed to assure the victory of their system.  Al-Ash’ari contradicted all these points, and his system has in the end been adopted by the great majority.  The Mu’tazilite doctrines for a long time still enthralled many minds, but they ended by taking refuge in the political heresy of Shi’itism.  In the most conservative circles, opponents to all speculation were never wanting; but they were obliged unconsciously to make large concessions to systematic thought; for in the Moslim world as elsewhere religious belief without dogma had become as impossible as breathing is without air.