The two leading Sects were the Sifatians (or Attributists) and the Mutazilites. The Sifatians whom the early orthodox Muslims follow, taught that the attributes of God are eternally inherent in His essence without separation or change. Every attribute is conjoined with Him as life with knowledge, or knowledge with power. They also taught that the mutashabih verses were not to be explained, and such were those which seemed to show a resemblance between God and His creatures. So at first they did not attempt to give the meaning of the terms, "hands, eyes, face, &c.," when applied to God. They simply accepted them as they stood. In course of time, as will be seen, differences of opinion on this point led to some sub-divisions of this sect. The Mutazilites were the great opponents of the Sifatians. They rejected the idea of eternal attributes, saying that eternity was the formal attribute of the essence of God. "If," said they, "we admit the eternal existence of an attribute then we must recognize the multiplicity of eternal existences." They also rejected the attributes of hearing, seeing and speech, as these were accidents proper to corporeal existences. They looked upon the divine attributes as mental abstractions, and not as having a real existence in the divine essence. The Mutazilites were emphatically the Free thinkers of Islam. The origin of the sect was as follows: Al Hasan, a famous divine, was one day seated in the Mosque at Basra when a discussion arose on the question whether a believer who committed a mortal sin became thereby an unbeliever. The Kharigites (Ante p. 76) {125} affirmed that it was so. The orthodox denied this, saying that, though guilty of sin, yet that as he believed rightly he was not an infidel.[112] One of the scholars Wasil Ibn Ata, (who was born at Madina A.H. 80), then rose up and said: "I maintain that a Muslim who has committed a mortal sin should be regarded neither as a believer nor an unbeliever, but as occupying a middle station between the two." He then retired to another part of the Mosque where he was joined by his friend 'Umr Ibn Obaid and others. They resumed the discussion. A learned man, named Katada, entering the Mosque, went up to them, but on finding that they were not the party in which Al Hasan was, said 'these are the Seceders (Al-Mutazila).' Al Hasan soon expelled them from his school. Wasil then founded a school of his own of which, after the death of his master, 'Umr Ibn Obaid became the head.