Manuscripts from the Yemen mention this sect. The following account of it is taken from works in the British Museum; possibly further details could be found in manuscripts in Berlin. It is said that these heretics are to be found in most countries. One writer declares tantalizingly that their errors are too many for him to mention them all. By their show of devotion to the family of the prophet they spread error in Islam, making men think that it was the teaching of the family. They studied their creed in their conventicles. 1 They are called ṭabī‘īya, which D. B. Macdonald translates as deistic naturalists.

They taught2 that God has forty names; they are he and he is they and they are eternal as he is. Therefore they are worse than the Christians in the proportion of forty to three. Nature is outside the power of God though living beings are within it. Such phenomena as creation, the means of livelihood (rizḳ), death, life, growth, and decrease do not come from God but are due to chajiges of bodies and the effects of natures. Therefore sickness and pain do not come from God (one account makes them come from the devil), while storms and hail are the result of chance. God has no grace, no power to give good things to men; the believer gets the means of livelihood as a reward, the unbeliever takes them by force.