[40] The Flight (of the Prophet to Medina from Mecca, in 622), from which begins the Mohammedan era. [↑]
[41] Sale, as cited, p. 160. [↑]
[42] Weil, Geschichte der Chalifen, ii, 261–64; Dugat, Histoire des philosophes et des théologiens Mussulmans, 1878, pp. 48–55; H. Steiner, Die Mu`taziliten, oder die Freidenker im Islam, 1865, pp. 49–50; Guyard, p. 36; Sale, p. 161 (sec. viii); Nicholson, p. 222 sq. The term Motazila broadly means “dissenter,” or “belonging to a sect.” [↑]
[44] Palmer, Introd. to Haroun Alraschid, p. 14. [↑]
[45] As to the Persian influence on Arab thought, cp. A. Müller, Der Islam, i, 469; Palmer, as last cited; Weil, Geschichte der Chalifen, ii, 114 ff.; Nicholson, p. 220; Van Vloten, Recherches sur la domination arabe, p. 43. Van Vloten’s treatise is a lucid sketch of the socio-political conditions set up in Persia by the Arab conquest. [↑]
[47] G. Dugat, Histoire des philosophes et des théologiens Mussulmans, p. 44; Sale, pp. 161, 174–78. [↑]
[48] Dugat, p. 55; Steiner, p. 4; Sale, p. 162. [↑]
[49] “Motazilism represents in Islam a Protestantism of the shade of Schleiermacher” (Renan, Averroès et l’Averroïsme, 3e ed. p. 104). Cp. Syed Ameer Ali, Crit. Exam. of Life of Mohammed, pp. 300–308; Sale, p. 161. [↑]