Hātim related with his chain of transmission: Hishām ibn Ubayd Allāh al-Rāzī, the judge and associate of Muhammad ibn al-Hasan, imprisoned a man for espousing Jahmī beliefs. The man repented and was brought before Hishām to be examined. Hishām said, “Praise be to Allah for your repentance. Do you testify that Allah is upon His Throne, distinct from His creation?”

He replied, “I testify that Allah is upon His Throne, but I do not know what ‘distinct from His creation’ means.”

Hishām said, “Return him to prison, for he has not repented.”

Shaykh al-Islām said, “A chapter in al-Fārūq”—meaning his own work—“explains the question of the limit of distinctness, making it unnecessary to repeat it here.”

Shaykh al-Islām also said in his book Dhamm al-kalām wa-ahlih (Censure of Speculative Theology and Its Adherents), in the course of