and it smashes their position to pieces, for they do not acknowledge that there is any Being dwelling in heaven. He cited a portion of their statements and then said (1):
He said, ʿAlī (2) reported: I heard ʿAbd Allāh (3) say (4), “We can repeat the speech of the Jews and the Christians, but we cannot bring ourselves to repeat the speech of the Jahmiyyah.”
In one of his poems he also said (5):
“I would never say—as Jahm does—that he possesses …
a statement that at times rivals the utterance of polytheism.”
He went on: ʿUbayd Allāh, meaning Ibn Wāṣil, related to us; ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad, an elder of Baghdad, related to us; Ibn Ṣāliḥ related:
“I met Jahm and asked, ‘Did Allah speak?’ He said, ‘No.’
“I asked, ‘Will He speak?’ He said, ‘No.’
“I said, ‘Then who will say on the Day of Resurrection, “To whom belongs the dominion today?” and who will answer, “To Allah, the One, the All-Compelling”?’
“I said, ‘They have added to the Quran and taken away from it.’”
(1) The speaker is Muhammad ibn Salam al-Baykandi—teacher of al-Bukhari.
(2) He is Abu ‘Abd al-Rahman ‘Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Shaqiq ibn Dinar al-Marwazi, the imam and ḥāfiẓ, sheikh of Khorasan. He studied under Ibn al-Mubarak for a time, repeatedly heard his works, and was narrated from by al-Bukhari, Imam Aḥmad, and others. He was born in 137 AH and died in Marw in 215 AH. See: Tabaqāt al-Kubrā by Ibn Sa‘d, 7:376; al-Jarḥ wa’l-Ta‘dīl by Ibn Abī Ḥātim, 3:180; Siyar A‘lam al-Nubalā’ by al-Dhahabī, 10:349–352.
(3) i.e., ‘Abd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak, whose biography appeared above on p. 148.
(4) In his As-Sunnah (p. 41), ‘Abd Allāh ibn Imam Aḥmad records a statement of ‘Abd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak. He reports: “‘Abd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Shubayhi (Abu ‘Abd al-Rahman) told me: I heard ‘Ali ibn al-Husayn (i.e., ibn Shaqiq) say: I heard ‘Abd Allāh say, ‘Faith is words and deeds; it increases and decreases.’ And I heard him say, ‘Truly, we are recounting the words of the Jews…’ ”
(5) In his book Khalq Af‘āl al-‘Ibād (p. 31), al-Bukhari records three verses by Ibn al-Mubārak, the opening line of which the Shaykh (may Allah have mercy on him) has cited here. He will present them a few pages later in this work.