Anarchism , the belief that human society can function without the state, is rarely found anywhere in premodern times, but it is attested in the Islamic world among third/ninth-century Muʿtazilīs and Khārijites. It left no enduring legacy. Among the Muʿtazilīs, the dispensability of a central government was upheld by al-Aṣamm (d. c.200/816), al-Naẓẓām (d. between 220/835 and 230/845), Hishām al-Fuwaṭī (d. c.218/832), and his pupil ʿAbbād b. Sulaymān (d. c.250/864), as well as by the ascetics (ṣūfiyyat al-