The Mutazilites (‘those who withdrew’) are the great rationalist theological school of early Islam, flourishing under Abbasid patronage in the 8th–9th centuries. Their five principles: divine unity (tawhid — God has no attributes separate from his essence, so the Quran, as God’s speech, must be created rather than eternal); divine justice (God cannot do injustice, so humans must have free will); the promise and the threat (God will certainly reward the righteous and punish the wicked); the intermediate position (a grave sinner is neither believer nor unbeliever); commanding right and forbidding wrong. The Mutazilites promoted Greek philosophical methods in Islamic theology — they translated Aristotle and engaged with Neoplatonism. Their greatest controversy: the ‘Mihna’ (Inquisition, 833–848 AD) under Caliph al-Ma’mun, who tried to impose the Mutazilite doctrine of the created Quran by force. Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s resistance became the symbol of traditionalist victory. The Mutazilites were suppressed after the Mihna ended but their rational methods influenced all subsequent Islamic theology.