When these statements of the people of the Sunnah became widespread, a group fell into error and said, “Our utterance of the Quran is uncreated, and our recitation of it is uncreated.” Imam Ahmad declared these people innovators and instructed that they be shunned.

For this reason, al-Ashʿarī recorded this position of the people of the Sunnah and the scholars of hadith in his account of doctrinal positions, saying:

“In their view, taking either position concerning the utterance of the Quran, or withholding judgment, is an innovation. Whoever says that the utterance of the Quran is created is an innovator in their view, and whoever says that it is uncreated is likewise an innovator.”

Similarly, Muhammad ibn Jarīr al-Tabarī stated in Sarīh al-Sunnah (The Unambiguous Sunnah) that he had heard more than one of his companions report that Imam Ahmad said:

“Whoever says, ‘My utterance of the Quran is created,’ is a Jahmī, and whoever says that it is uncreated is an innovator.”

Abū Ahmad ibn Qutaybah wrote a book on this subject. Abū Bakr al-Khallāl also discussed it at length in his Book of the Sunnah. He mentioned what Abū Bakr al-Marwazī had written on the subject and recounted the well-known incident involving Abū Tālib, which was transmitted from Imam Ahmad by his foremost companions, including his two sons, ʿAbd Allāh and Sālih, al-Marwazī, Abū Muhammad Fūrān, Muhammad ibn Ishāq al-Sāghānī, and others.