a fly persistently annoyed al-Manṣūr, so he sent for Muqātil and asked him, “Why did Allah create the fly?”
He replied, “To humble the tyrants by means of it.”
Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah said: I said to Muqātil, “People allege that you never heard anything from al-Ḍaḥḥāk.” He answered, “A door used to be shut upon him and me.” Then I said to myself, “Indeed—the city gate!”
It was also reported that he once said, “Ask me about anything beneath the Throne.” So they asked, “Where are an ant’s intestines?” He fell silent.
They asked him, “When Adam performed the pilgrimage, who shaved his head?” He replied, “I do not know.”
Wakīʿ remarked, “He was a liar.”
And Abū Ḥanīfah said, “Two vile doctrines have come to us from the East: Jahm, a denier of the divine attributes, and Muqātil, an anthropomorphist. (1)”
Muqātil died a little after 150 AH.
Al-Bukhārī said, “Muqātil amounts to absolutely nothing.”
I say: the scholars unanimously agreed to abandon his narrations.
80 – Shuʿbah ibn al-Ḥajjāj ibn al-Ward al-Azdi al-ʿAtakī * (ʿ)
The Imām, the ḥāfiẓ, the Commander of the Believers in ḥadīth,
(1) Ta‘til (negation) is to withhold from Allah the attributes He has affirmed for Himself or that His Messenger ﷺ has affirmed for Him, whereas tashbih (anthropomorphism) is to liken Allah to any of His creatures. Both views are erroneous. The sound creed—obligatory for anyone who accepts Allah as Lord, Islam as religion, and Muhammad ﷺ as Messenger, and which is the creed of the early generations (the Sahabah, the Tabi‘un, and those who followed them)—is to describe Allah only with the attributes He has mentioned in His Book and those His Messenger ﷺ has authentically transmitted, without tashbih (likening), tamthil (resemblance), taʾwil (allegorical reinterpretation), or taʿtil (negation), in keeping with the Quranic verse: “There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing” (Surah al-Shura, 11).
(*) Ibn Saʿd, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra, 7:280-281; Khalifah, al-Tabaqat, p. 222; Khalifah, al-Tarikh, pp. 301, 430; al-Bukhari, al-Tarikh al-Kabir, 4:244-245; al-Tarikh al-Saghir, 2:135; Ibn Qutaybah, al-Maʿarif, p. 501; al-Fasawi, al-Maʿrifah wa-l-Tarikh, 2:283-287; Ibn Abi Hatim, al-Jarh wa-l-Taʿdil, 1:126-176 and 4:369-371; Ibn Hibban, Mashahir ʿUlamaʾ al-Amsar.