In brief...

In brief, the word i'tizal means to withdraw or secede, and the Mu'tazilites are the people who in some of their beliefs were diametri­cally opposed to the unanimous consent of the early theologians or the People of the Approved Way ( ahl al‑sunnah ). The leader of all of them was Wasil b. `Ata who was born in 80/699 at Madinah and died in 131/748. Muslims generally speak of Wasil's party as the Mu'tazilites, but the latter call themselves People of Unity and Justice ( ahl al‑tawhid wal `adl ).

By justice they imply that it is incumbent on God to requite the obedient for their good deeds and punish the sinners for their misdeeds. By unity they imply the denial of the divine attributes. Undoubtedly, they admit that God is knowing, powerful, and seeing, but their intellect does not allow them to admit that these divine attributes are separate and different from the divine essence.

The reason for this view of theirs is that if the attributes of God are not considered to be identical with the essence of God, “plurality of eternals” would necessarily result and the belief in unity would have to be given up. This, in their opinion, is clear unbelief ( kufr ).

Unity and justice are the basic principles of the beliefs of the Mu'tazilites and this is the reason why they call themselves “People of Unity and Justice.” Now, from the basic beliefs of unity and justice a few more beliefs necessarily follow as corollaries: God Almighty's justice necessitates that man should be the author of his own acts; then alone can he be said to be free and responsible for his deeds. The same was claimed by the Qadarites.

The Mu'tazilites accepted totally the theory of indeterminism and became true successors of the Qadarites. If man is not the author of his own acts and if these acts are the creation of God, how can he be held responsible for his acts and deserve punishment for his sins? Would it not be injustice on the part of God that, after creating a man helpless, He should call him to account for his sins and send him to hell?

Thus, all the Mu'tazilites agree in the matter of man's being the creator of his volitional acts. He creates some acts by way of mubasharah and some by way of tawlid . By the term tawlid is implied the necessary occurrence of an­other act from an act of the doer, e.g., the movement of Zaid's finger necessitates the movement of his ring. Although he does not intend to move the ring, yet he alone will be regarded as the mover.