“By what do we know our Lord?”

He replied: “By the fact that He is above His heavens, upon His Throne, distinct from His creation. We do not say, as the Jahmīs do, that He is here on earth.” Imam Ahmad and others said the same.

It is narrated through an authentic chain of transmission that Imam Sulaymān ibn Harb said: “I heard Hammād ibn Zayd mention these Jahmīs and say: ‘They are only trying to say that there is nothing in heaven.’”

In his book al-Radd ‘alā al-Jahmiyyah (The Refutation of the Jahmīs), Ibn Abī Hātim narrated that when the Jahmīs were mentioned in the presence of Sa‘īd ibn ‘Āmir al-Duba‘ī—the leading scholar of Basra in knowledge and religious devotion, and one of Imam Ahmad’s teachers—he said:

“What they say is worse than what the Jews and Christians say. The Jews, Christians, and adherents of other religions, together with the Muslims, have agreed that Allah is upon the Throne, whereas they say that He is not upon anything.”

Muhammad ibn Ishāq ibn Khuzaymah, the imam of imams, said:

“Anyone who does not affirm that Allah is above His heavens, upon His Throne, distinct from His creation, must be called upon to repent. If he repents, well and good; otherwise, he is to be beheaded and then cast onto a rubbish heap, so that neither Muslims nor non-Muslims under the covenant of protection are troubled by his stench.”

Al-Hākim related this from him through an authentic chain of transmission.

‘Abd Allāh, the son of Imam Ahmad, narrated through his chain of transmission that ‘Abbād ibn al-‘Awwām al-Wāsitī—the leading scholar of Wāsit, who belonged to the generation of al-Shāfi‘ī’s and Ahmad’s teachers—said:

“I spoke with Bishr al-Marīsī and his followers, and found that their arguments ultimately led to saying: ‘There is nothing in heaven.’”

It is also narrated that the renowned imam ‘Abd al-Rahmān ibn Mahdī said: “There is no one among the followers of