المُعْتَزِلَةُ

A sect of the قَدَرِيَّة [q. v.], who asserted that they seceded from what were in their estimation the two parties of error, the people of the سُنَّة and خَوَارِج: (O, K:) [therefore they were thus called, i. e. the Seceders:] or they were thus called by El-Hasan (K, TA) Ibn-Yesár El-Basree (TA) when Wásil Ibn-'Atà and his companions withdrew from him to one of the columns of the mosque, [agreeably with a common practice of lecturers in a mosque, each of them seating himself on the ground at the foot of a column, while his hearers, with him, seated also on the ground, form a ring,] and he (i. e. Wásil, TA) began to establish the dictum of the condition between the two conditions, that the committer of a great sin is not a believer absolutely (K, TA) nor an unbeliever absolutely (K, TA, but not in the CK,) but between the two conditions: (K, TA:) and they are also called ↓ العُزَّالُ. (TA.)