from him, as Imam Ahmad—may Allah have mercy on him—mentioned: a group of the followers of ‘Amr ibn ‘Ubayd adopted these doctrines from Jahm. The followers of ‘Amr ibn ‘Ubayd are the Mu‘tazilah, for he and Wāsil ibn ‘Atā’ were the first of the Mu‘tazilah. Initially, their distinguishing doctrines were the position between the two positions and the fulfillment of divine threats of punishment; on these grounds they withdrew from the community. They subsequently adopted the denial of divine decree, while the denial of Allah’s attributes emerged only later.

Likewise, attributing these doctrines to the Khawārij can apply only to the later Khawārij, who lived after the emergence of these doctrines set down by the Mu‘tazilah and the Shī‘ah, as he himself mentioned. As for the early Khawārij, who lived during the time of the Companions and their Successors, they died before the emergence of these doctrines attributed to the Mu‘tazilah and the Jahmiyyah.

This is because he derived his accounts of the doctrines of these groups and others like them only from works on sectarian doctrines compiled by the Mu‘tazilah and the Shī‘ah, as he himself mentioned. He himself had not come across anything