on the validity of the argument from motion and the argument from composition. He did not, however, agree with them in denying the attributes altogether. Rather, he and his followers affirmed that Allah is above creation, high above the world, and possesses attributes, establishing this through reason. Nevertheless, the substance of his doctrine was to deny acts and other matters subsisting in the essence of Allah Most High that relate to His will and choice. It was on this basis that he developed his position on the question of the Quran.

This is what is known to those familiar with Ahmad’s statements, whether his followers or other scholars of hadith and the Sunnah. Abū ‘Abd Allāh al-Husayn—the father of Abū al-Qāsim al-Khiraqī, author of the famous compendium—wrote a book recounting the cases of those whom Ahmad shunned. In it, he asked Abū Bakr al-Marwadhī about them, and al-Marwadhī explained their cases to him one by one.

Abū Bakr al-Khallāl also mentioned this in his Book of the Sunnah, as did Ibn Khuzayma and others who understood the true nature of these matters. Likewise, al-Sarī al-Saqatī used to warn al-Junayd ibn Muhammad against al-Hārith’s rhetorical outpourings.

More than one scholar subsequently mentioned that al-Hārith abandoned that position, as Mu‘ammar ibn Ziyād mentioned in his accounts of