and seventy sects; thus he knew what was to come. He then said:

“I am leaving among you that which, if you hold fast to it, you will never go astray: the Book of Allah.”

It is also reported that he described the saved sect as follows:

“They are those who adhere to what I and my Companions adhere to today.”

Why, then, did he not say: “Whoever adheres to the Quran, to what it indicates, to what is understood from it, or to its apparent meaning in matters of belief is astray. Guidance lies only in your referring to the criteria of your own reason and to what the speculative theologians among you introduce concerning this doctrine after the first three generations”? Its roots, however, had already emerged toward the end of the era of the Successors.

Furthermore, this doctrine—the denial of the divine attributes—was derived only from the pupils of the Jews, the polytheists, and the misguided Sabians. The first person recorded as having professed this doctrine within Islam—namely, that Allah, glorified and exalted is He, is not truly upon the Throne, that istawā (rose over) means istawlā (took control), and similar claims—was al-Jaʿd ibn Dirham. Al-Jahm ibn Safwān took it from him and propagated it, so the Jahmī doctrine came to be named after him.

It has been said that al-Jaʿd took his doctrine from Abān ibn Samʿān, that Abān took it from Tālūt, the son of Labīd ibn al-Aʿsam’s sister, and that Tālūt took it from Labīd ibn al-Aʿsam, the Jewish sorcerer who bewitched the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.