In the field of science and philosophy, where we get such abundant evidence in the `Abbasid period, we are left with very little material under the `Umayyads. We know that the medical school at Alexandria continued to flourish, and we read of one Adfar, a Christian, who was distinguished as a student of the books of Hermes, the occult authority which did most to divert Egyptian science into a magical direction, and we are informed that he was sought out by a young Roman named Morienus (Marianos) who became his pupil and at his master’s death retired to a hermitage near Jerusalem. Later on the prince Khalid b. Yazid, of the `Umayyad family (d. 85 A.H.—704 A.D.) is said to have become the pupil of Marianos and to have studied with him chemistry, medicine, and astronomy. He was the author of three epistles, in one of which he narrated his conversations with Marianos, another relates the manner in which he studied chemistry, and a third explains the enigmatical allusions employed by his teachers. Long before this medical and scientific studies had passed over to Persia, but Alexandria retained its reputation as the chief centre of such work throughout the `Umayyad period.
Towards the end of the `Umayyad age the influence of Hellenistic thought begins to appear in the nature of criticism upon accepted views of Muslim theology. As in jurisprudence, we have no ground for supposing that Muslims at this stage were directly acquainted with Greek material, but general ideas were obtained by intercourse with those who had been long under Hellenistic influences, and especially by intercourse with Christians amongst whom the premises of psychology, metaphysics, and logic had encroached very largely upon the field of theology by the nature of the subjects debated in the Arian, Nestorian, and Monophysite controversies which turned mainly upon psychological and metaphysical problems. The ideas with which the Muslims were brought into contact suggested difficulties in their own theology, as yet only partially formulated, and in religious theories which had taken form in a community entirely ignorant of philosophy. Some of the older fashioned believers met these questions with a plain negative, simply refusing to admit that there was a difficulty or any question for consideration: reason (`aql), they said, could not be applied to the revelation of God, and it was alike an innovation to dispute that revelation or to defend it. But others felt the pressure of the questions proposed and, whilst strictly faithful to the statements of the Qur´an, endeavoured to bring their expression into conformity with the principles of philosophy.
The questions first proposed were concerned with (a) the revelation of the Word of God, and (b) the problem of free will.
(a) The Prophet speaks of revelation as “coming down” (nazala) from God and refers to the “mother of the book” which seems to designate the unrevealed source from which the revealed words are derived. It may be that this refers to the idea of which the word is the expression, and that in this the Prophet was influenced by Christian or Jewish theories which had originally a Platonic colouring, but it seems probable that he had no very clear theory as to the “mother of the book.” At an early date the view arose that the Qur´an had existed, though not expressed in words, that the substance and meaning were eternal as part of the wisdom of God, though it had been put into words in time and then communicated to the Prophet, which is now the orthodox teaching on the basis of Qur. 80. 15. that it was written “by the hands of scribes honoured and righteous,” this being taken to mean that it was written at God’s dictation by supernatural beings in paradise and afterwards sent down to the Prophet. That is not the necessary meaning of the verse, which may refer to the previous revelations made to the Jews and Christians which the Prophet regarded as true but afterwards corrupted, so that the Qur´an is simply the pure transcription of Divine Truth imperfectly represented by those earlier revelations. Under the `Umayyads, when a rigid orthodoxy was taking form in quarters not sympathetic towards the official Khalif, a view arose that the actual words expressed in the Qur´an were co-eternal with God, and it was only the writing down of these words which had taken place in time. It seems probable that this theory of an eternal “word” was suggested by the Christian doctrine of the “Logos.” It can be traced primarily to the teaching of St. John Damascene (d. circ. 160 A.H. = A.D. 776) who served as secretary of state under one of the `Umayyads, either Yazid II. or Hijam, and his pupil Theodore Abucara (d. 217 = 832), who express the relation of the Christian Logos to the Eternal Father in terms very closely resembling those employed in Muslim theology to denote the relation between the Qur´an or revealed word and God. (cf. Von Kremer: Streifzuege. pp. 7-9). We know from the extant works of these two Christian writers that theological discussions between Muslims and Christians were by no means uncommon at the time.
The Mu`tazilites of whom Wasil b. `Ata (d. 131) is generally regarded as the founder, were a sect of rationalistic tendencies, and they were opposed to the doctrine of the eternity of the Qur´an and the claim that it was uncreated because the conclusions to be drawn seemed to them to introduce distinct personalities corresponding to the persons of the Christian Trinity, and in these views they were undoubtedly influenced by the form in which St. John Damascene presented the doctrine of the Trinity. As it was implied that there was an attribute of wisdom possessed by God which was not a thing created by God but eternally with him, and this wisdom may be conceived as not absolutely identical with God but possessed by him, the Mu`tazilites argued that it was something co-eternal with God but other than God, and so an eternal Qur´an was a second person of the Godhead and God was not absolutely one. Al-Muzdar, a Mu`tazilite greatly revered as an ascetic, expressly denounces those who believe in an eternal Qur´an as ditheists. The Mu`tazilites called themselves Ahlu t-Tawhid wa-l-`Adl “the people of unity and justice,” the first part of this title implying that they alone were consistent defenders of the doctrine of the Divine Unity.
(b) As to the freedom or otherwise of the human will, the Qur´an is perfectly definite in its assertion of God’s omnipotence and omniscience: all things are known to him and ruled by him, and so human acts and the rewards and punishments due to men must be included: “no misfortune happens either on earth or in yourselves but we made it,—it was in the book” (Qur. 57. 22); “everything have We set down in the clear book of our decrees” (Qur. 36); “had We pleased We had certainly given to every soul its guidance, but true is the word which hath gone forth from me,—I shall surely fill hell with jinn and men together.” (Qur. 32. 13). Yet the appeal for moral conduct implies a certain responsibility, and consequently freedom, on man’s part. In the mind of the Prophet, no doubt, the inconsistency between moral obligations and responsibility on the one hand, and the unlimited power of God on the other, had not been perceived, but towards the end of the `Umayyad period these were pressed to their logical conclusions. On the one side were the Qadarites (qadr “power”), the advocates of free will. This doctrine first appears in the teaching of Ma´bad al-Yuhani (d. 80 A.H.) who is said to have been the pupil of the Persian Sinbuya and taught in Damascus. Very little is known of the early Qadarites, but it is stated that Sinbuya was put to death by the Khalif `Abdu l-Malik, and that the Khalif Yazid II. (102-106 A.H.) favoured their views. On the other side were the Jabarites (jabr, “compulsion”) who preached strict determinism and were founded by the Persian Jahm b. Safwan (d. circ. 130). It is baseless to argue that either free will or determinism were necessarily due to Persian pre-Islamic beliefs, it is evident that the logical deduction of doctrinal theology in either direction was done by Persians; they were, indeed, the theologians of early Islam. It must be noted that the full development of fatalism was not reached until a full century after the foundation of Islam and that its first exponent was put to death as a heretic.
The earlier Qadarites had a Persian origin, but the reaction against the Jabarites was led by Wasil b. `Ata whose teaching clearly shows the solvent force of Hellenistic philosophy acting on Muslim theology. Wasil was the pupil of the Qadarite Hasan ibn Abi l-Hasan (d. 110) but he “seceded” from his teacher and this is given as the traditional reason for calling him and his followers the Mu´tazila or “secession,” and did so on the ground of the apparent injustice imputed to God in his apportionment of rewards and penalties. The details of the controversy are quite secondary, the important point is that the Mu`tazilites claimed to be “the people of Unity and Justice,” this latter meaning that God conformed to an objective standard of just and right action so that he could not be conceived as acting arbitrarily and in disregard of justice, an idea borrowed from Hellenistic philosophy for the older Muslim conception regarded God as acting as he willed and the standard of right and wrong merely a dependent on his will.
Throughout the whole `Umayyad period we see the conquering Arabs, so far the rulers of the Muslim world, in contact with those who, though treated with arrogant contempt as serfs, were really in possession of a much fuller culture than their rulers. In spite of the haughty attitude of the Arab there was a considerable exchange of thought, and the community of Islam began to absorb Hellenistic influences in several directions, and so the canon law and theology of the Muslims was beginning, at the end of the `Umayyad period, to be leavened by Greek thought. It was, however, a period of indirect influence; there is no indication, save in a few instances in the study of natural science and medicine, of Muslim teachers or students availing themselves directly of Greek material, but only that they were in contact with those who were familiar with the work of Greek philosophers and jurists. It was a period of suspended animation, to some extent, during which a new language and a new religion were being assimilated by the very diverse elements now comprised in the Khalifate, and those elements were being welded together in a common life. However great were the sectarian and political differences of later times, the church of Islam long remained, and to a great extent still remains, possessed with a common life in the sense that there is a mutual understanding between the several parts and that thus an intellectual or religious influence has been able to pass rapidly from one extreme to the other, and the religious duty of pilgrimage to Mecca has done much to foster this community of life and to promote intercourse between the several parts. Such an understanding has by no means always produced sympathy or friendliness, and the various movements as they have passed from one part to the other have often been considerably modified in the passage; but the motive power behind a movement in Persia has been intelligible in Muslim Spain—though perhaps intensely disliked there—and most often a movement beginning in any one district has sooner or later had some contact with every other district. There is no such division in Islam as that which prevents the average English churchman from knowing about and appreciating a religious movement at work in the Coptic or Serbian church. The common life of Islam is largely based on the use of the Arabic language as the medium of daily life, or at least of prayer and the medium of scholarship, and this was extremely effective before the inclusion of large Turkish and Indian elements which have never really become Arabic speaking. It was this which made the Arabic speaking community of Islam so favourable a medium of cultural transmission. The `Umayyad period was a marking time during which this common life was being evolved, and with it was evolved necessarily the bitterness of sectarian and faction divisions which always result when divergent types are in too close contact with one another.