and among the worst of these in his view are the Jahmiyyah, who say that Allah is not above the Throne, that Allah did not speak the Quran in its entirety, and that He will not be seen as reported in the Sunnah. They also deny other such attributes.

Yet many of his later followers deny these matters just as the offshoots of the Jahmiyyah deny them. They regard this denial as the Sunnah, and the opposing position—which is the position of Mālik and the other imams of the Sunnah—as innovation. At the same time, they adopt Mālik’s judgment concerning the people of innovation. Thus, these people have altered the religion and come to attack the people of the Sunnah.

Second: Al-Shāfiʿī was among the most emphatic in condemning the people of speculative theology and the proponents of change, forbidding these practices and considering them innovations that depart from the Sunnah. Yet many of his followers reversed matters, treating the speculative theology that al-Shāfiʿī condemned as the Sunnah and the foundations of religion, which must be believed and whose adherents must be supported. They treated what the Quran and Sunnah entail—which al-Shāfiʿī praised—as innovation whose adherents deserve punishment.

Third: Imam Ahmad’s insistence on following the Sunnah, his knowledge of it and adherence to it, his prohibition and condemnation of innovations and their adherents, and his punishment of their adherents are well known. Yet some of his followers have come to regard much of what he explicitly identified as blameworthy innovation as part of the Sunnah, believing that those who oppose it are the ones deserving blame. Examples include his statements on the question of the Quran in several places, among them his declaring as an innovator anyone who