are more evil (1) in what they say than the Jews and the Christians; the Jews, the Christians, and the followers of every religion have unanimously agreed (2) that Allah, exalted be He, is above the Throne (3), whereas they maintain that He is not upon the Throne (4).”

Al-Bukhārī (5) also reported from Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarrāḥ, who said: “Do not take lightly their claim that the Quran is created. It is one of the worst of their assertions; their real intent is nothing other than taʿṭīl—the negation of the divine attributes.”

What Imām Aḥmad related about the beginnings of Jahm, the leader of these negating theologians, confirms what I have just stated. When he debated (6) one of the Samānīyah polytheists of India, who denied the existence of the Deity because Jahm had not perceived Him with any of his senses—neither sight, nor hearing, nor smell, nor taste, nor touch—the gist of their argument was that whatever a person cannot apprehend with his five senses, he must deny and keep away from (7).

Jahm replied that among existing things there may be that which cannot be sensed (8) by any of these faculties—such as the spirit that dwells within a human being—and he claimed that it is not confined to any particular place. This assertion of his is identical to the doctrine of the ṣābiʾah (9), the Peripatetic philosophers (10).