المُعْتَزِلَةُ
Root: عزل
Full Definition
المُعْتَزِلَةُ
A sect of the
قَدَرِيَّة [q. v.], who asserted that they seceded from what were in their estimation the two parties of error, the people of the
سُنَّة
and
خَوَارِج: [therefore they were thus called, i. e. the Seceders:] or they were thus called by El-Hasan Ibn-Yesár El-Basree when Wásil Ibn-'Atà and his companions withdrew from him to one of the columns of the mosque, [agreeably with a common practice of lecturers in a mosque, each of them seating himself on the ground at the foot of a column, while his hearers, with him, seated also on the ground, form a ring,] and he began to establish the dictum of the condition between the two conditions, that the committer of a great sin is not a believer absolutely nor an unbeliever absolutely but between the two conditions: and they are also called
العُزَّالُ .