51�Թ�

He is not a mere sceptic on the one hand, nor a bigoted theologian on the other, and his verdict on the Mutazilite heretics of his day is especially mild.

But108 at last Al Asha'ari, himself formerly a Mutazilite, renounced his heresies, and sought to defend orthodoxy and confute the heretics on philosophical grounds.

Al-Jubbai was silent, though very angry with his pupil, who was now convinced that the Mutazilite dogma of man's free-will was false, and that God elects some for mercy and some for punishment without any motive whatever.

There is, first, the ancient Sif�tian doctrine that the attributes are eternal and of the essence of God: secondly, the Mutazilite theory that they are not eternal; and, thirdly, the Ash'ar�an dogma that they are eternal, but distinct from His essence.

The Im�m As-Sh�fa'� held a public disputation in Baghd�d with Hafs, a Mutazilite preacher, on this very point.