whose accounts are included in Imam Ahmad’s Kitāb al-Zuhd (The Book of Asceticism) and other works—did not follow the Kullābī-Ashʿarī school. Had they done so, Abū ‘Abd al-Rahmān would not have cursed the Kullābīs.

Shaykh al-Islām al-Ansārī said: “I heard Ahmad ibn Hamzah and Abū ‘Alī al-Haddād say: ‘We found Abū al-‘Abbās Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Nahāwandī denouncing the practitioners of speculative theology and Ashʿarī thought.’ They described the force of his denunciation of Abū al-Fawāris al-Qirmīsīnī, and his son’s shunning of him over a single expression.”

Shaykh al-Islām said: “I heard Ahmad ibn Hamzah say: ‘When the estrangement between al-Nahāwandī and Abū al-Fawāris intensified, they asked Abū ‘Abd Allāh al-Dīnawarī, who replied: “I have met a thousand shaykhs who held the same position as al-Nahāwandī.”’”