without his knowledge. Al-Nazzam was not among those whose learning and intellect proved of any benefit, and a number of scholars even declared him an unbeliever.

Some went further, saying that al-Nazzam actually followed the religion of the Barāhima, who deny prophethood and resurrection, but that he kept this hidden.

He possessed polished verse, a refined epistolary style, and produced many writings, among them: Kitāb al-Tafrah, Kitāb al-Jawāhir wa-l-Aʿrāḍ, Kitāb Ḥarakāt Ahl al-Jannah, Kitāb al-Waʿīd, Kitāb al-Nubuwwah, and many other works that are no longer extant. ⦗1⦘

It is reported that he fell drunk from an upper room and died during the caliphate of al-Muʿtaṣim—or perhaps al-Wāthiq—sometime in the 220s AH.

At that very time there was also the eminent dialectician, one of the senior figures of the Jahmiyyah, Ibrāhīm ⦗2⦘, the son of the ḥadīth scholar Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUlayyah of Basra.

173 – Abu Hudhayl al-ʿAllāf, Muḥammad ibn al-Hudhayl al-Baṣrī*

He was the leading figure of the Muʿtazilites: Abu Hudhayl Muḥammad ibn al-Hudhayl al-Baṣrī, known as al-ʿAllāf, a prolific author who maintained that the bliss of Paradise and the torment of Hell will eventually cease, so that the movements of the people of Paradise will come to a halt and they will not utter a single word. He rejected the sacred attributes—even knowledge and power—claiming that those two are identical with Allah, that what Allah is able to do has a finite limit and an end, and that power itself has a limit: were it to proceed to actualization, then once it had done so it would be incapable of