and by His statement⦗1⦘: “ʿaṭāʾ ghayra majdhūdh (a gift without end)”⦗2⦘—that is, a bounty that will never be cut off. Whoever claims that it will come to an end⦗3⦘ has disbelieved⦗4⦘.
Jahm made this assertion on the basis of the principle he espoused, namely the impossibility of an infinite succession of temporal events, as has been set out in detail elsewhere⦗5⦘. This principle is the mainstay of the scholastic theologians⦗6⦘ who argue from it for the createdness of bodies and of anything that is never devoid of accidents⦗7⦘, making it their decisive proof for the world’s origination. Hence Jahm concluded that whatever bars the existence of an infinite series—by disallowing it⦗8⦘ in the future⦗9⦘ just as it disallows it in the past—necessarily entails⦗10⦘ that perpetual action is impossible for the Lord in the future just as it was impossible for Him in the past. Abū al-Hudhayl al-ʿAllāf ⦗2/A⦘, the senior authority of the Muʿtazilah, concurred with him on this foundational premise, but said: This only entails
(1) In the original manuscript, the word qāla (“he said”) appears above the line in small script, presumably transferred from the other manuscript mentioned earlier.
(2) Surah Hud, verse 108.
(3) Opposite this, the original manuscript’s margin reads “innahā taghnī faqad kafar” (“it suffices, for he has disbelieved”), with the letter kh placed above to indicate that it appears this way in another copy.
(4) In al-Bukhārī’s narration, there is an addition after “this said” — i.e. Khārija ibn Mus‘ab —: “Inform them that they are disbelievers and that their women are ṭawāliq (divorced women).”
(5) See Minhāj al-Sunnah an-Nabawiyyah by Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah, vol. 1, pp. 146–148, 310, edited by Dr. Muḥammad Rashād Sālim.
(6) In the original manuscript: “Hādī al-Arwāḥ allatī…”.
(7) The original reads lahā; above it, bihā is written with a correction mark.
(8) The original reads faman‘ahu; the corrector wrote yamna‘uhu above it with a correction mark, and the letter kh is also added to indicate that it appears so in another manuscript.
(9) Following it, the original reads al-māḍī, which is struck through.
(10) In the margin opposite it reads falzima, marked with a check mark and the letter kh to indicate that it appears thus in another manuscript.