Some uninformed people have claimed that Ibn Kullāb introduced his innovations in order to smuggle Christian doctrine into our religion, and that he did so to gratify his sister. This is baseless. Of all the theologians he was the closest to the Sunnah—indeed, in their debates he stood at the forefront (1).

He used to say that the Qur’an subsists in the Divine Essence, without (being described by) power or will. No one before him had ever made such a statement; he advanced it only to counter those who maintained that the Qur’an is created.

He authored works on tawḥīd, on affirming the divine attributes, and on the fact that the Exalted One’s elevation above His creation is known by innate disposition and by sound reason in accordance with revelation. Al-Muḥāsibī affirmed the same point in his book Fahm al-Qur’ān.

I have not discovered a precise date for Ibn Kullāb’s death, but he was still alive sometime before 240 AH.

Ibn al-Najjār offered a biographical notice for him, though without due scrutiny. He said that Ibn Kullāb lived in the time of al-Junayd, heard some of the Sufi expressions, marvelled at them, and stood in awe of al-Junayd.

Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Nadīm said: “Ibn Kullāb was one of the offshoots of the Ḥashwiyya. He held debates with ʿAbbād ibn Salmān in which he would say, ‘The speech of Allah is Allah.’ ʿAbbād replied, ‘With that statement he is a Christian.’ ”

Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Baghawī reported: “Faythūn the Christian said to me, ‘May Allah have mercy on ʿAbd Allah; he used to come to the church, take knowledge from me, and had he lived longer, we would have converted the Muslims.’ ”

Someone asked Faythūn, “What do you say about the Messiah?” He answered, “Exactly what the people of your Sunnah say about the Qur’an.”