When the Jahmiyya debated him during his well-known ordeal, the judge ʿAbd al-Rahmān ibn Ishāq asked him, “What do you say about the Quran: is it Allah or other than Allah?” He meant that if Ahmad said, “It is Allah,” this would be false; and if he said, “Other than Allah,” then whatever is other than Allah is created.

Ahmad answered by putting the same question to him concerning Allah’s knowledge: “What do you say about Allah’s knowledge: is it Allah or other than Allah?” He then said, “I say about His speech what I say about His knowledge and all His other attributes.” In his refutation of the Jahmiyya, he explained that we do not use the term “other” without qualification, either to deny or to affirm it, because it is an ambiguous term. By “other than a thing,” one may mean something distinct from it that has become separate from it; one may also mean something that can be conceived without conceiving that thing; and the term may carry still other meanings.

Allah’s knowledge and speech are not other than His self in the first sense, but they are other than it in the second sense. Yet the statement that they are not other than Allah in the first sense holds without qualification, whereas the statement that they are other than Allah in the second sense requires a distinction. If conceiving Him means knowing Him with the knowledge that is obligatory for a servant and within the servant’s capacity, then no one knows Him with this