Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Maḥāmilī said, “I once saw Dāwūd ibn ʿAlī in prayer, and I have never seen a Muslim whose humility matched his.” (1)

Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī used to frequent the lessons of Dāwūd ibn ʿAlī for a time. Later he stopped attending and opened a session of his own, whereupon Dāwūd recited by way of illustration:

Had my ordeal been with a man of Hāshim—
whose mother’s kin are the sons of ʿAbd al-Madān—
I would have borne his hurt with patience; yet come
and see the one by whom I have been tried. (2)

Aḥmad ibn Kāmil the judge related to me, saying: Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Warrāq told me that he used to copy books for Dāwūd ibn ʿAlī, and that he once heard him asked about the Quran. Dāwūd replied, “As for that which is in the al-Lawḥ al-Maḥfūẓ, the Preserved Tablet, it is uncreated; but the copy that is among the people is created.” (3)

I say: To the best of my knowledge no one before him ever made this distinction or detailed statement. The Muslims have always maintained that the Noble Quran is the speech of Allah—His revelation and His sending-down—until the caliph al-Maʾmūn advanced the claim that it is created and the doctrine of the Muʿtazila became manifest. Imam Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and the champions of the sunnah stood firm on the position that it is uncreated, until the view of Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī al-Karābīsī appeared. (4) His thesis was that the Quran is the uncreated speech of Allah, but that our utterances of it are created. Imam Aḥmad rejected this, judged it an innovation, and said, “Whoever says, ‘My wording of the Quran is created,’ intending the Quran thereby, is a Jahmite.” (5) He also said, “Whoever…"