and one of the greatest Imams of Islam; yet some people have attached themselves to him while introducing novel doctrines.’
I replied, ‘That is certainly true, but it is not peculiar to Ahmad. There is no Imam without (1) people who claim affiliation to him while he himself disowns them. Groups have done so with Mālik, though he is innocent of them; the same with al-Shāfiʿī, and likewise with Abū Ḥanīfa. Some have even claimed allegiance to Jesus, yet he is free of them, and to Moses as well—and likewise to ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (2). Our Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—has had the Qarmatians, the Bāṭiniyyah, and other types of unbelievers and hypocrites claim him, while he is utterly clear of them.
He also said that certain members of the ḥashawiyyah (crude literalists) and the mushabbihah (anthropomorphists) had affiliated themselves to Ahmad, and he spoke in that vein.
I responded, “Those guilty of tashbīh and tajsīm—anthropomorphism and corporealism—are actually more numerous outside the circle of Imam (3) Ahmad’s followers than within it. Take the various Kurdish groups: they are all Shāfiʿīs, yet among them is a degree of tashbīh and tajsīm not found in any other faction. The people of Gīlān include both Shāfiʿīs and Ḥanbalīs. (4) As for the unadulterated Ḥanbalīs ⦗84⦘, none of them harbour such notions to the extent found elsewhere.”