the Fire contains no heat, snow contains no cold, and honey contains no sweetness; such qualities, he insisted, are only brought into being at the very moment of tasting or touching.

Al-Marwudhī reported that Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said: “I testified against Dirār ibn ʿAmr before Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān; Saʿīd ordered that his neck be struck, but Dirār fled.”

Hanbal related: “I visited Dirār in Baghdad. He was disfigured and partially paralysed. A convinced Muʿtazilite, he denied the existence of Paradise and Hell, saying, ‘People disagree about them: have they already been created, or not yet?’ The ḥadith scholars leapt upon him and beat him.”

Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal remarked, “To deny their existence is disbelief,” and he recited, “The Fire—to which they are exposed morning and evening” (Q 40:46). Aḥmad added, “So he escaped.”

They said that Yaḥyā ibn Khālid concealed him until he died. I say: This shows that he died during the reign of Hārūn al-Rashīd.

As for the story transmitted by Junayd, it must have come from Aḥmad himself. Moreover, Ḥafṣ al-Fard—whom al-Shāfiʿī declared an unbeliever in their debate—was one of Dirār’s pupils.

Ibn Ḥazm states that Dirār rejected the punishment of the grave. Abū Hammām al-Sakūnī recounted: “A group testified that Dirār was a heretic, whereupon Saʿīd said, ‘I have made his blood lawful; whoever wishes may kill him.’ They then removed Saʿīd from the judgeship.

“Judge Sharīk happened to pass by while a crier was announcing, ‘Whoever captures Dirār will receive ten thousand.’ Sharīk said, ‘I have just left him with Yaḥyā al-Barmakī’—meaning to point out that they were advertising a reward for him while he was actually in their house.”

I say: It was over matters such as this that people questioned the Barmakids’ orthodoxy, and Dirār was a more serious