with Imam Ahmad—may Allah have mercy on him—and others like him, upholding his approach, as al-Ash‘arī states in his books.
As Abū Ishāq al-Shīrāzī said:
“The Ash‘arīs gained acceptance among people only through their affiliation with the Hanbalīs.”
The early Hanbalī imams, such as Abū Bakr ‘Abd al-‘Azīz, Abū al-Hasan al-Tamīmī, and others like them, cited his statements in their books. Indeed, his standing among their earlier scholars was like that of Ibn ‘Aqīl among their later scholars. Ibn ‘Aqīl, however, had particular expertise in jurisprudence and its principles, whereas al-Ash‘arī was closer to Ahmad’s principles and followed them more faithfully. For the closer a person is in time to the early generations, the better acquainted he is with rational and transmitted knowledge.
I would explain this to the Hanbalīs, making clear that although al-Ash‘arī had been a pupil of the Mu‘tazilah and then repented, he had studied under al-Jubbā’ī, inclined toward the approach of Ibn Kullāb, and learned the foundations of hadith from Zakariyyā al-Sājī in Basra. Then, when he came to Baghdad, he learned other matters from the Hanbalīs there. This was his final position, as he and his followers mentioned in their books. Likewise, Ibn ‘Aqīl had been a pupil of the two Mu‘tazilīs, Ibn al-Walīd and Ibn al-Tabbān, but then repented of that. His repentance in the presence of al-Sharīf Abū Ja‘far is well known.
Just as some of Ahmad’s followers hate and disparage Ibn ‘Aqīl, those who disparage al-Ash‘arī are not confined to Ahmad’s followers; rather, there are such people in every group. When I presented al-Ash‘arī’s statements and the Hanbalīs saw them, they said:
“This is better than