The whole course of Mu`tazilite speculation shows the influence of Greek philosophy as applied to Muslim theology, but the influence is for the most part indirect. The ideas of Aristotle, as the course of speculation projected to the forefront the problems with which he had dealt in times past, were received through a Syriac Christian medium, for the most part imperfectly understood and somewhat modified by the emphasis which Christian controversy had given to certain particular aspects. More or less directly prompted by the Mu`tazilite controversy we have three other lines of development: in the first place we have the “philosophers” as the name is used by the Arabic writers, meaning those students and commentators who based their work directly on the Greek text or at least on the later and better versions. In their hands philosophical enquiry took a somewhat changed direction as they began to understand better the real meaning of what Aristotle had taught. In the second place we have the orthodox theology of al-Ash`ari, al-Ghazali, and others, which represents Muslim theological science as modified and partly directed by Aristotelian philosophy, consciously endeavouring to make a working compromise between that philosophy and Muslim theology. The older Mu`tazilite tradition came to an end in the time of al-Ash`ari: men who felt the force of philosophical questions either adopted the orthodox scholasticism of al-Ash`ari and those who came after him, or followed the course of the philosophers and drift away from the traditional beliefs of Islam altogether. In the third place we have the Sufi movement, in which we find neo-Platonic elements mingled with others from the east, from India and Persia. The Mu`tazilites proper come to an end with the fourth century A.H. CHAPTER VI THE EASTERN PHILOSOPHERS