—was uncompromising in upholding the Sunnah. He died during the Qur’an ordeal, while in prison, and most of what has been criticized about him is what I have already mentioned. I hope the remainder of his narrations is sound (1).
Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Sahl al-Khalidi said: I heard Abu Bakr al-Tarsusi say:
“Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād was seized in the days of the ordeal, in the year 223 or 224 AH, thrown into prison, and he died in 229 AH. He stipulated that he be buried in his shackles, saying, ‘I intend to press my claim.’ (2)”
Ismaʿil ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Muʿaddal informed us in 693 AH; he said: Imam Abu Muhammad ibn Qudamah informed us; he said: Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Baqi informed us; he said: Abu al-Fadl Ahmad ibn Khayrun and Abu al-Hasan ibn Ayyub al-Bazzaz both informed us; they said:
Abu ʿAli al-Hasan ibn Ahmad informed us; he said: Abu Sahl ibn Ziyad al-Qattan informed us; he said: Muhammad ibn Ismaʿil al-Tirmidhi said, “I heard Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād say:
‘Whoever likens Allah to His creation has committed disbelief, and whoever denies what He has attributed to Himself has likewise committed disbelief; yet in what Allah has attributed to Himself, and what His Messenger has attributed to Him, there is no anthropomorphism.’
I say: This statement is true. We seek refuge with Allah from likening Him to His creation and from rejecting the hadiths on the divine attributes. No one possessed of understanding rejects any soundly established report on that subject. Nevertheless, after believing in them there remain two censured approaches:
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Reinterpreting them and diverting them from the intent of the wording. The early generations—the salaf—neither allegorically interpreted them nor distorted their phrasing; rather, they believed in them and let them pass as they had come.
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Going to extremes in affirming them and imagining them to be of the same kind as the attributes—