got no good from it."[687] Many instances might be given of the high favour which theologians enjoyed at this time, and of the lively interest with which religious topics were debated by the Caliph and his courtiers. As the Caliphs gradually lost their temporal sovereignty, the influence of the _‘Ulamá_--the doctors of Divinity and Law--continued to increase, so that ere long they formed a privileged class, occupying in Islam a position not unlike that of the priesthood in mediæval Christendom. It will be convenient to discuss the religious phenomena of the ‘Abbásid period under the following heads:-- I. Rationalism and Free-thought. II. The Orthodox Reaction and the rise of Scholastic Theology. III. The Ṣúfí Mysticism. [Sidenote: Rationalism and Free-thought.] I. The first century of ‘Abbásid rule was marked, as we have seen, by a great intellectual agitation. All sorts of new ideas were in the air. It was an age of discovery and awakening. In a marvellously brief space the diverse studies of Theology, Law, Medicine, Philosophy, Mathematics, Astronomy, and Natural Science attained their maturity, if not their highest development. Even if some pious Moslems looked askance at the foreign learning and its professors, an enlightened spirit generally prevailed. People took their cue from the court, which patronised, or at least tolerated,[688] scientific research as well as theological speculation. [Sidenote: The Mu‘tazilites and their opponents.] These circumstances enabled the Mu‘tazilites (see p. 222 sqq.) to propagate their liberal views without hindrance, and finally to carry their struggle against the orthodox party to a successful issue. It was the same conflict that divided Nominalists and Realists in the days of Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Occam. As often happens when momentous principles are at stake, the whole controversy between Reason and Revelation turned on a single question--"Is the Koran created or uncreated?" In other terms, is it the work of God or the Word of God? According to orthodox belief, it is uncreated and has existed with God from all eternity, being in its present form merely a transcript of the heavenly archetype.[689] Obviously this conception of the Koran as the direct and literal Word of God left no room for exercise of the understanding, but required of those who adopted it a dumb faith and a blind fatalism. There were many to whom the sacrifice did not seem too great. The Mu‘tazilites, on the contrary, asserted their intellectual freedom. It was possible, they said, to know God and distinguish good from evil without any Revelation at all. They admitted that the Koran was God's work, in the sense that it was produced by a divinely inspired Prophet, but they flatly rejected its deification. Some went so far as to criticise the 'inimitable' style, declaring that it could be surpassed in beauty and eloquence by the art of man.[690] [Sidenote: Rationalism adopted and put in force by the Caliph Ma’mún.]