To attribute such a statement to Abū ʿAbd Allāh is sheer illusion. You know full well that the truth must lie on one of the two sides; and if it must, the consequence would be that truth itself would reside either in disbelief or in misguidance.

Among all the factions, I have seen none with a flimsier excuse than those who, after the turmoil had already erupted, ordered everyone to keep silent and feign ignorance. Such an injunction might be acceptable before the issue escalated and rancor set in, but it is not in people’s nature to refrain from talking about a religious matter that has spread so widely and become so conspicuous. Even if the prudent held their tongues, the ignorant would not; and even if tongues were restrained, hearts would not be.

Those people had a precedent in the scholars of earlier times. When Jahm and Abū Ḥanīfah began to speak about the Qur’an—a subject that had never before circulated among the people, nor was it familiar or