and they beguile the uninformed masses with the ambiguities they cast over them. A case in point is their refrain, “He is not confined, nor in any direction, nor such-and-such, nor such-and-such.” These are vague, equivocal phrases that can be construed in a sound sense and can equally be twisted to an unsound sense. Those who brandish them make the ordinary Muslims imagine that their purpose is to exalt Allah above being contained within any part of creation, while at the same time they fabricate lies against the people who affirm the divine attributes. One of their judges (1) even told a certain ruler, “They claim that Allah is in this very corner.” Another of their tyrants declared, “They say that Allah is packed into the heavens; that is why they are called ḥashawiyyah (2).” Such are the fabrications
(1) The sheikh—may Allah have mercy on him—probably refers to al-Qāḍī Ibn Duʾwad. He says, pointing to this meaning: “Indeed, many of the negators, although renowned among people for scholarship, leadership, judicial office, or authorship, may suppose that someone who says, ‘He is in the sky’ or ‘in a direction’ means that the heavens surround and encompass Him; likewise, if someone says muhayyiz (positioned), they understand this in the strictly linguistic sense of being confined within part of His creation. They then attribute this misunderstanding to their opponent, either deliberately or by mistake, and may narrow the hayz (space) until they claim, ‘Allah is in this spot’ or ‘in this place,’ and so on among the fabrications.” See Bayān Talbīs al-Jahmiyya, 2:13.
(2) In Arabic usage, al-ḥashw (lit. “padding”) denotes superfluous merit that is not relied upon; expressions like huwa min al-nās and ḥashwat al-nās likewise signify human baseness. See Lisān al-ʿArab, vol.14, p.180 (entry ḥ-sh-w). This appellation was first coined by the Muʿtazilites, who used al-ḥashw to refer pejoratively to the community and the majority—just as the Rafidites call them al-jumhūr—and, as Shaykh al-Islām reports, ʿAmr ibn ʿUbayd, their early leader, was the first to describe Ibn ʿUmar as a ḥashawī (“a member of the masses”). Thereafter any sect whose views opposed those of the common people was labeled Ḥashawiyya.