Zuhayr ibn Harb. Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Muhammad ibn Nūh continued to refuse to give the required answer, so they were taken to him in chains. Muhammad ibn Nūh died on the way, and al-Ma’mūn died before Ahmad ibn Hanbal reached him.

All this is well known among those versed in these events, and they have not differed over it. If a debate did take place with Zuhayr ibn Harb, perhaps it was with someone other than al-Ma’mūn. Perhaps it took place before his deputy, Ishāq ibn Ibrāhīm, since he was the one who personally conducted their interrogation during the Inquisition. The one who debated the Jahmiyyah during the Inquisition was Ahmad ibn Hanbal. This took place during the caliphate of al-Mu‘tasim, after Ahmad had spent more than two years in prison. They assembled theologians from Basra and elsewhere to debate him, drawn from the Jahmiyyah, Mu‘tazilah, and Najjāriyyah, including Abū ‘Īsā Muhammad ibn ‘Īsā Barghūth, a companion of Husayn al-Najjār. Ahmad debated them for three days and decisively refuted them in those debates, which we have discussed in detail elsewhere.

This argument mentioned in the account concerning Zuhayr ibn Harb was also mentioned and discussed by Imam Ahmad in his writings refuting the Jahmiyyah, composed while he was in prison, before he met them for debate. Thus the answer to this lay with imams such as Ahmad ibn Hanbal and others like him.

[Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s discussion of the Quran in his refutation of the Jahmiyyah]

Ahmad said in his writings:

“Then the Jahmī made another claim, saying: