Wasil ibn Ata

Wasil ibn Ata (c. 80–131 AH / c. 699–748 CE), nicknamed al-Ghazzal ("the spinner") and known by the kunya (honorific by-name) Abu Hudhayfa, was a theologian active in Basra in southern Iraq. Later sources name his birthplace as Medina and report that he studied in the circle of the famous ascetic and Qur'an teacher Hasan al-Basri (d. 110/728), though the details of his early life are thinly documented.

He is best remembered for a position on a question that divided early Muslims: the status of a Muslim who commits a grave sin (kabira). Against those who called such a person an unbeliever and those who kept them a believer, Wasil is said to have placed the grave sinner in "an intermediate position between the two positions" (al-manzila bayna al-manzilatayn) — neither believer nor unbeliever. He is also associated with an emphasis on human free will and on God's justice and unity.

Islamic tradition credits Wasil as a founder of the Mu'tazila, a rationalist school of kalam (speculative theology), and explains the name by a story that he "withdrew" (iʿtazala) from Hasan al-Basri's circle over this dispute. Modern scholars treat that etymology with caution: some (following Carlo Nallino) connect the name instead to earlier groups who stayed neutral in the civil wars over Ali's caliphate, and dispute whether the two senses are linked. What is securely his is the doctrine; much of the surrounding narrative is traditional report rather than firm fact.