of falling into any suspicion, and he would marry only a woman ten years younger than himself, lest she turn out to have been nursed by him.

He was a Jahmite who enjoyed standing with the ruling authorities. He drank nabidh, and once he said to a man named Kamil, “His very name is proof that the name is other than the thing named.”

He composed a Book on Tawḥīd, a Book on Irjāʾ, a Refutation of the Khārijites, a Book on Istiṭāʿah (Human Capacity), a Refutation of the Rāfiḍah concerning the Imamate, a Book entitled The Disbelief of the Anthropomorphists, a Book on Knowledge, a Book on Threat, and other writings of the same sectarian stripe.

More than one transmitter relates that a man said to Yazīd ibn Hārūn, “In Baghdad we have a man called al-Marīsī who says that the Qur’an is created.” He replied, “Is there no youth among you who will finish him off?” (1)

I say: al-Marīsī was arrested during the reign of al-Rashīd and was humiliated on account of this doctrine.

Abū Dāwūd narrated from Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal that he heard Ibn Mahdī, at the time when what was done to Bishr was done, saying, “Whoever claims that Allah did not speak to Moses must be summoned to repent; if he repents, so be it, otherwise his neck is to be struck.”

Al-Marwadhī said: I heard Abū ʿAbd Allah—when al-Marīsī was mentioned—remark, “His father was a Jew; what do you expect him to be?” (2)

Abū ʿAbd Allah also said: “Bishr used to attend the sessions of Abū Yūsuf, shouting and seeking help, so Abū Yūsuf once said to him, ‘Will you not desist, or must I break a stick on you?’” (3)

Then Abū—