Judge Aḥmad ibn Abī Duʿād said, “Commander of the Faithful, the man wishes to speak.” The Caliph replied, “Then debate with him.” So the judge said to the shaykh, “Old man, what is your view regarding the Qur’an—is it created?” The shaykh answered, “You have not treated me fairly (1); the question is mine to put.” “Ask, then,” he said. The shaykh asked, “This doctrine you propound—did Allah’s Messenger ﷺ, together with Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, and ʿAlī, know it, or did they not?” “They did not know it,” he replied. The shaykh said, “So you have discovered something they did not?” Thereupon he felt ashamed and fell silent. The shaykh then said, “Excuse me—rather, they did know it.” He replied, “If so, why did they not summon the people to it as you have done? Could it not suffice you to be content with what sufficed them?” Ibn Abī Duʿād remained silent, and al-Wāthiq ordered that the shaykh be given a reward of about four hundred dinars.

Al-Muhtadī said: My father returned home, lay on his back (2), and kept repeating the shaykh’s words to himself: “Could it not suffice you to be content with what sufficed them?” He then released (3) the man, gave him four hundred dinars, and sent him back to his homeland. From that day on, Aḥmad ibn Abī Duʿād fell from his favor and no one was tested afterward. Al-Khaṭīb (4) al-Baghdādī related this in his History with a chain that contains some narrators unknown to me; he records it at greater length, and there is some objection to it.

Thalab recited, on the authority of Abū al-Ḥajjāj al-Aʿrābī, that he said about Ibn Abī Duʿād:

You have overturned the religion, O Ibn Abī Duʿād;
whoever obeys you wakes up an apostate.
You claimed that your Lord’s speech was created—
have you no hope of meeting your Lord?
The speech of Allah He sent down with His knowledge,
revealing it to the best of His servants.
Whoever spends the night at your gate seeking shelter
is like one stranded in the wasteland without provisions.
Indeed, O Ibn Abī Duʿād, you have produced a monstrosity
by saying, “I am a man of Iyād.”

Al-Khaṭīb (5) also said: Judge Abū al-Ṭayyib Ṭāhir ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Ṭabarī informed us, saying: al-Muʿaffā ibn Zakariyyā al-Jarīrī recited to us, on the authority of Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Ṣūlī, verses composed by someone lampooning Aḥmad ibn Abī Duʿād:

Had your opinion been allied to true guidance,
and your resolve endowed with success,
You would have found in jurisprudence ample occupation,
shielding you from saying, “The Book of Allah is created.”
What harm would have befallen you—when the foundations of the faith unite them all—
had you left the branches alone, were it not for ignorance and obstinacy?

These verses (6) have already been cited earlier.