the ruins of a political party there gradually arose a great religious organisation in which men of the most diverse opinions could work together for deliverance from the Umayyad yoke. The first step towards this development was made by Mukhtár, a versatile genius who seems to have combined the parts of political adventurer, social reformer, prophet, and charlatan. He was crushed and his Persian allies were decimated, but the seed which he had sown bore an abundant harvest when, sixty years later, Abú Muslim unfurled the black standard of the ‘Abbásids in Khurásán. [Sidenote: The oldest theological sects.] Concerning the origin of the oldest theological sects in Islam, the Murjites and the Mu‘tazilites, we possess too little contemporary evidence to make a positive statement. It is probable that the latter at any rate arose, as Von Kremer has suggested, under the influence of Greek theologians, especially John of Damascus and his pupil, Theodore Abucara (Abú Qurra), the Bishop of Ḥarrán.[412] Christians were freely admitted to the Umayyad court. The Christian al-Akhṭal was poet-laureate, while many of his co-religionists held high offices in the Government. Moslems and Christians exchanged ideas in friendly discussion or controversially. Armed with the hair-splitting weapons of Byzantine theology, which they soon learned to use only too well, the Arabs proceeded to try their edge on the dogmas of Islam. [Sidenote: The Murjites.] The leading article of the Murjite creed was this, that no one who professed to believe in the One God could be declared an infidel, whatever sins he might commit, until God Himself had given judgment against him.[413] The Murjites were so called because they deferred (_arja’a_ = to defer) their decision in such cases and left the sinner's fate in suspense, so long as it was doubtful.[414] This principle they applied in different ways. For example, they refused to condemn ‘Alí and ‘Uthmán outright, as the Khárijites did. "Both ‘Alí and ‘Uthmán," they said, "were servants of God, and by God alone must they be judged; it is not for us to pronounce either of them an infidel, notwithstanding that they rent the Moslem people asunder."[415] On the other hand, the Murjites equally rejected the pretensions made by the Shí‘ites on behalf of ‘Alí and by the Umayyads on behalf of Mu‘áwiya. For the most part they maintained a neutral attitude towards the Umayyad Government: they were passive resisters, content, as Wellhausen puts it, "to stand up for the impersonal Law." Sometimes, however, they turned the principle of toleration against their rulers. Thus Ḥárith b. Surayj and other Arabian Murjites joined the oppressed _Mawálí_ of Khurásán to whom the Government denied those rights which they had acquired by conversion.[416] According to the Murjite view, these Persians, having professed Islam, should no longer be treated as tax-paying infidels. The Murjites brought the same tolerant spirit into religion. They set faith