I replied: “What I have set out is nothing but the creed of all the righteous early generations; it is not peculiar to Imām Ahmad.”

I also said: “I have allowed anyone who disagrees with any part of it three years. If he produces even a single statement from the first three generations that contradicts what I have stated, I will retract that point. For my part, I undertake to produce reports from the first three generations agreeing with what I have stated, as transmitted by all the groups: the Hanafīs, Mālikīs, Shāfiʿīs, Hanbalīs, Ashʿarīs, scholars of hadith, and others.”

Then the disputant asked to discuss (the question of letters and sound. I said: “The claim attributed to Ahmad and his followers—that the voices of those reciting the Quran and the ink in its written copies are eternal and without beginning—is a fabricated lie. Neither Ahmad nor any Muslim scholar said this.”

I brought out a booklet containing what Abū Bakr al-Khallāl reported from Imām Ahmad in “The Book of the Sunnah,” together with what Ahmad’s companion Abū Bakr al-Marwudhī had collected from his statements and those of the leading scholars of his time: whoever says, “My utterance of the Quran is created,” is a Jahmī, while whoever says, “It is uncreated,” is an innovator in religion.

I said: “What, then, of someone who says, ‘My utterance is without beginning’? What of someone who says, ‘My voice is eternal’?”

The disputant said: “Some of the Hashwiyyah and those who liken Allah to creation have claimed affiliation with Ahmad,” and made similar remarks.

I replied: “Those who liken Allah to creation and attribute a body to Him are more numerous among people outside Imām Ahmad’s following than among his followers. All these various groups of Kurds are Shāfiʿīs, yet among them there is a degree of likening Allah to creation and attributing a body to Him not found in any other group. Among the people of Jīlān are both Shāfiʿīs and Hanbalīs. As for those who are exclusively Hanbalī, these views are not found among them to the extent that they are among others. And the Karrāmiyyah, who attribute a body to Allah, are all Hanafīs.”