faith and his previous good deeds. This was also the view of the Ash'arites. After his master's death, he seems to have contended with Qatada ibn De'ama (died 735) for the leadership of the school. The fact that he lost this competition may explain, to a certain degree, why he became a Mu'tazilte and created a circle of his own. It seems almost certain that Amr did not start playing a major role in the Mu'tazilite movement until after Wasil's death in 749. In about 759 he had to negotiate, as the doyen of the Mu'tazilities, with the caliph al-Mansur concerning the attitude of his adherents toward Nafs az-Zakiya, who had begun propaganda for the cause of the Alids in Iraq. Although there were strong sympathies for Nafs al-Zakiya among the Mu'tazilities (probably not so much because the members of the movement believed in the 'Alid pretendent as the true Mahdi, but because of their frustration with Abbasid rule), Amr ibn Ubayd managed to remain neutral. He died before the outbreak of Nafs al-Zakiya's rebellion. See also Amr (name) Obaidullah (disambiguation) References Mu'tazilites 8th-century Muslim scholars of Islam 761 deaths 8th-century people from the Umayyad Caliphate 8th-century people from the Abbasid Caliphate