Al-Bayhaqī also narrated from Abū al-Walīd ibn al-Jārūd, who said: “Hafs al-Fard came to al-Shāfi‘ī, who said to us: ‘For a servant to meet Allah with sins like the mountains of Tihāmah is better than meeting Him believing a single point of what this man and his companions hold.’ Hafs maintained that the Quran was created.”

I say: Hafs al-Fard, who was known to scholars versed in people’s doctrines for affirming divine decree, was among those who denied the divine attributes, maintaining that no attribute, speech, or act subsists in Allah Most High.

Their fundamental argument for this was the previously discussed argument from accidents. The Quran is speech, and in their view speech, like all other attributes and acts, can subsist only in a body, while a body has a beginning. Thus, al-Shāfi‘ī’s condemnation of him concerned the speculative theology that had led them to this position; his debate with him was not about divine decree. Whoever supposes that al-Shāfi‘ī debated him about divine decree has made a manifest error, for everyone who transmitted an account of their debate reported that it concerned the Quran: is it created or not?

Scholars of doctrinal positions agree that Hafs was not among those who denied divine decree, but among