of persons afflicted with leprosy, blindness and other chronic diseases was instituted and special treatment provided. Umar II is said to have transferred the schools of medicine from Alexandria, where the Greek tradition flourished, to Antioch and Harran.
The Umayyad period also saw the beginnings of several movements of a religious and philosophical nature. Theo- logical speculation provoked by contacts with Christianity led to the rationalist Mutazilite school, while reaction against the harsh predestination of Islam motivated the Qadarite doctrine of free will. Muawiyah II and Yazid III subscribed to the Qadarite doctrine. Chief among the Christian pro- tagonists who induced these speculations was St. John of Damascus (675-about 749), a Syrian who wrote in Greek but no doubt spoke Aramaic at home and also knew Arabic. He was a boon companion of the court and a government councillor before retiring to a life of asceticism and devotion. Besides debating theology with Moslems, he wrote dialogues which emphasize the divinity of Christ and the freedom of human will. He defended the use of images and ritual and composed many hymns. As theologian, orator, apologist, polemicist and father of Byzantine art and music, St. John stands out as an ornament of the church under the caliphate.
Other movements which weakened the universal Moslem orthodoxy included the tolerant Murjiites, who suspended judgment of sinners and tended to justify the secularism of the Umayyad caliphs, and the intolerant Kharijites, who aimed at maintaining the primitive democratic principles of puritanical Islam. In pursuit of their aim the Kharijites caused rivers of blood to flow in the first three centuries of Islam. They opposed the prerogative conferred on the Quraysh that the caliph should be one of their number, forbade the cult of saints with its attendant local pilgrimages and prohibited Sufi fraternities.
More important than all these were the Shiites, partisans of Ali and his descendants. The orthodox Sunnite view
