Isites

Isites the name of a Mohammedan sect, who derive their name from their founder. Isa-Alerdad. They hold that the Koran was created, notwithstanding the opposition of Mohammed himself against such a statement, for he held that it was eternal, and in his day anathematized he who dared to dissent from his assertion. The Isites, however, really avow the same belief, 'though they clothe it in very different language. They say that the copy of the Koran delivered by the Almighty to his Prophet was only a transcription of the original, and that the reference of eternal could not therefore be to any copy possessed by man. But their real heresy consists in their declaration that the Koran does not contain that matchless eloquence which Mohammedans generally claim as evidence of the inspiration of the book. See Broughton, Biblioth. Histor. Sac. 1, 547.