An-Nazzam (d. 231) has the credit among later historians of having made use, to a high degree, of the doctrines of the Greek philosophers. He was one of the Satans of the Qadarites, say they; he read the books of the philosophers and mingled their teachings with the doctrines of the Mu‘tazilites. He taught, in the most absolute way, that God could do nothing to a creature, either in this world or in the next, that was not for the creature’s good and in accordance with strict justice. It was not only that God _would_ not do it; He had not the power to do anything evil. Evidently the personality of God was fast vanishing behind an absolute law of right. To this, orthodox Islam opposed the doctrine that God could do anything; He could forgive whom He willed, and punish whom He willed. Further, he taught that God’s willing a thing meant only that He did it in accordance with His knowledge; and when He willed the action of a creature that meant only that He commanded it. This is evidently to evade phrases in the Qur’an. Man, again, he taught, was spirit (_ruh_), and the body (_badan_) was only an instrument. But this spirit was a fine substance which flowed in the body like the essential oil in a rose, or butter in milk. In a universe determined by strict law, man alone was undetermined. He could throw a stone into the air, and by his action the stone went up; but when the force of his throw was exhausted it came again under law and fell. If he had only asked himself how it came to fall, strange things might have happened. But he, and all his fellows, were only playing with words like counters. Further, he taught that God had created all created things at once, but that He kept them in concealment until it was time for them to enter on the stage of visible being and do their part. All things that ever will exist are thus existing now, but, in a sense, _in retentis_. This seems to be another attempt to solve the problem of creation in time, and it had important consequences. Further, the Qur’an was no miracle (_mu‘jiz_) to him. The only miraculous elements in it are the narratives about the Unseen World, and past things and things to come, and the fact that God deprived the Arabs of the power of writing anything like it. But for that, they could easily have surpassed it as literature. As a high Imamite he rejected utterly agreement and analogy. Only the divinely appointed Imam had the right to supplement the teaching of Muhammad. We pass over some of his metaphysical views, odd as they are. The Muslim writers on theological history have classified him rightly as more of a physicist than a metaphysician. He had a concrete mind and that fondness for playing with metaphysical paradoxes which often goes with it. [Sidenote: BISHR; MA‘MAR]