or transition, nor without a state,” Ahmad objected, saying, “Say what the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, for he was more zealous for his Lord than you are.”

The affirmation of the term “motion” has also been attributed to him in an epistle, as in the creed written by Harb ibn Ismāʿīl.

However, the wording of this creed is not reliably established as Imam Ahmad’s. I have examined three obscure chains of transmission for it, containing unknown narrators. Its wording is that of Harb ibn Ismāʿīl, not Imam Ahmad. Nor was it mentioned by those devoted to collecting Imam Ahmad’s statements, such as Abū Bakr al-Khallāl in his Book of the Sunnah and other Iraqi scholars familiar with Ahmad’s writings. Neither was it transmitted by those known for conveying the Imam’s statements—particularly an epistle as lengthy as this one—even though many later scholars accepted it as authentic.