ibn Sabīḥ say, “I heard Dāwūd al-Aṣbahānī declare, ‘The Qur’an is muḥdath (newly originated), and my lafz (utterance) of the Qur’an is created.’”
[I said] (1):
The leading imams censured Dāwūd for his statement that the Qur’an is muḥdath for two reasons (2).
First: In common understanding this wording carried the same sense as the claim that the Qur’an is created. There were the Wāqifah—those who secretly believed it to be created yet outwardly adopted suspension. They would neither say “created” nor “uncreated”; rather, they would say, “It is muḥdath.” Their intention matched that of those who openly said, “It is created”: they agreed with them in meaning, concealed themselves behind that expression, and refrained (3) from denying creation of it.
The leader of the Wāqifah in the time of Aḥmad was Muḥammad ibn Shujāʿ al-Thaljī (4), a disciple of Bishr al-Marīsī, and they used to call him “the Shield” (5)
(1) The text between the braces is an addition in the Ṭ edition. In the original there is blank space at the end of the line sufficient for five words; in manuscript S, for two words.
(2) In the original it reads “li-amrayn” (“for two reasons”). In manuscripts S and Ṭ it reads “li-qawl al-Shaykh: fa-hādhā aḥad al-wajhayn” (p. 425).
(3) In manuscript S: “ʿinda” (“at”).
(4) He is Abu ʿAbd Allah Muḥammad ibn Shujaʿ, known as al-Thaljī, a Baghdadi Ḥanafī jurist. Imām Aḥmad described him as “an innovator and a follower of desire.” Ibn al-Jawzī reports that he transmitted from Yaḥyā b. Ādam, Ibn ʿUlayya, Wākiʿ, and was a companion of al-Ḥasan b. Ziyād al-Luʾluʾī, yet was considered deficient in his doctrine concerning the Qurʾān. Al-Dhahabī notes that he unjustifiably criticized Aḥmad and his companions. He was born in 181 AH and died in 266 AH. See: al-Muntazam by Ibn al-Jawzī, vol. 5, pp. 57–58; Mīzān al-Iʿtidāl by al-Dhahabī, vol. 3, pp. 577–579; Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb by Ibn Ḥajar, vol. 9, pp. 220–221.
(5) al-tars (with a ḍamma on the tāʾ); its plurals are atarās or turūs. A tars is a protective shield, and to tatarras bi-l-tars means “to shield oneself with it and seek protection.”