that (1) the debate (2) over the interpretation (3) of the term is comparable to the dispute over the exegesis (4) of certain Qur’an verses—yet that is not so. In reality, the deniers are, in essence, rejecting that Allah is a Speaker at all, as is plainly stated by those among them who speak openly. They merely concurred with the Muslims in uttering the word itself—out of hypocrisy on the part of their heretical elements and out of ignorance on the part of the rest.

What Imam Ahmad clarified is the very substance and explicit core of the Sunnah upon which its foremost authorities stood. He refined it with a precision whose worth is recognized only by the select of the ummah, those who know the points where many intelligent and virtuous people stumble in this murky, arduous matter, until polemics and whims proliferated among the sects, while the general public affirm it in one respect but not in another.

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Shaykh al-Iṣfahānī (5) said: “In the book al-Sunnah (6) I read the transmission of Shākir from Abū Zur‘ah (7), who said: ‘What we hold is that the people have always…’”