Greek philosophy then beginning to circulate (Fakhry, 1983: 8–9; Watt, 1973:
154–155, 205, 249); but they turned the concepts of substance and accident into
a quite different direction through the dynamics of their own disputes. Democritus’
atomism is mentioned in Aristotle’s refutation of it in the Physics; but a translation
was probably not available in the formative period of Arabic atomism. Most
important, MuÀtazilite atomism is far from Democritean or Epicurean; the durable
and spatial physical atoms of the Greeks are not the time-instants of the MuÀtaz-
ilites. When the genuinely Greek-oriented falasifa (philosophers) did appear, they
polemicized against MuÀtazilite atomism (Peters, 1968: 144). Alternatively, Fakhry
(1983: 33–34) suggests that this point-atomism came from Buddhist, Hindu, and
Jaina schools in India existing by 500 c.e.; he mentions an anonymous treatise,
“Religious Beliefs of India,” circulated in Arabic by the late 700s, contemporary
with the MuÀtazilite founders. The Jainas, however, combined atomism with very
un-MuÀtazilite doctrines in which everything is a substance, including motion,
action, and time. The Nyaya-Vaisesika school of the Hindus combines atomism of
material things with the reality of universals, plus the substances of infinite spirit
(atman) and infinite mind (manas). The Buddhist Sarvastivadins had a time-
atomism which was closest to the MuÀtazilites, but held very un-Muslim doctrines
that the self is an unreal void, that God does not exist, that past and future as well
as the cessation of existence all exist (Raju, 1985: 53, 121, 253–262). It is implau-
sible that the Arabs would have extracted just the relevant aspects of atomism from
these closely knit systems, even if they had access to these kinds of philosophical
texts. Karl Potter (EIP, 1977: 17) concludes that there is little evidence of explicit
East-West borrowing of doctrines in either direction.
- In part MuÀtazilite political policy set in motion this course of events. Initially the
MuÀtazilites were aggressive primarily toward the dualists rather than against the
hadith faction; their alliance with the ÀAbbasids involved the suppression of the
Zoroastrian religion of the old Persian regime and its Manichaean offshoot, which
had flourished in Mesopotamia and the Christian Mediterranean since the 200s
c.e. (Hodgson, 1974: 1:385). This aspect of kalamite religious policy continued,
even with the reversal of caliphal favor toward hadith; it appears that Zoroastrians
may have made up 20 percent of the population of Baghdad in al-MaÁmun’s time,
but were down to perhaps 2 percent two generations later (Massignon, 1982: 241).
The religious pluralism of the early Islamic Empire was closing down at the same
time that a conservative orthodoxy was taking control.
- MuÀtazilites still existed in the early 1100s (the last MuÀtazilite notable enough to
appear in the Figure 8.3 key is 208), and their position was carried on by Jewish
Karaites even longer.
- From the late 700s there were already court astronomers and astrologers at
Baghdad, including foreigners from India, Persia, and Central Asia (see 14 through
18 and 32 through 36 in Figure 8.1).
- On the Nestorians and Jacobites, see Latourette (1975: 167–169, 282–283). The
Nestorian headquarters was at Baghdad. Islam had acquired an empire not through
a holy war to spread the faith, but because its effort to convert the Arabs had
Notes to Pages 403–404^ •^983
