Nu'aym al-Asbahānī, Abū al-Hasan al-Dāraqutnī, Abū Hafs ibn Shāhīn, Muhammad ibn Ishāq ibn Mandah, Abū Abd Allāh ibn Battah, Abū Umar al-Talamankī, Abū Dharr al-Harawī, Abū Muhammad al-Khallāl, al-Bayhaqī, Abū Uthmān al-Sābūnī, Abū Nasr al-Sijzī, Abū Umar ibn Abd al-Barr, Abū al-Qāsim al-Lālakā'ī, Abū Ismā'īl al-Ansārī, Abū al-Qāsim al-Taymī, and many times as many others—will find therein firmly established reports transmitted through numerous independent channels from the Companions and their followers. These make it inescapably clear that the Companions and their followers held positions consistent with what these texts entail and signify. They followed the position of those who affirm the attributes: affirming that Allah Himself is above His creation, affirming that He will be seen, and maintaining that the Quran is His speech, not a created entity separate from Him.

This constitutes evidence on two grounds:

First, the consensus of the early generations: it is impossible for them to agree upon an error in subsidiary matters, so how could they do so in matters of fundamental principle?

Second, their statements accorded with what the texts signify and convey; they did not understand them to mean anything contrary to that.

Hence, those who lived to meet the followers of the Companions were among the strongest in affirming the attributes and rejecting the position of those who deny them. As Yazīd ibn Hārūn al-Wāsitī said:

“Whoever says that Allah rose over the Throne in a sense contrary to what is firmly understood by ordinary people is a Jahmī.”

Al-Awzā'ī said:

“We used to affirm—while the followers of the Companions were still numerous—that Allah is above His Throne, and we believed in His attributes as reported in the Sunnah.”

[The third ground]

Anyone who carefully studies the reports of the early generations knows with certainty that the position of those who deny the attributes arose among them only during the second century AH, and that the first person known to espouse it was al-Ja'd