ibn Hanbal, Ishāq ibn Rāhawayh, Abū Yūsuf, Mālik ibn Anas, Abd al-Azīz ibn al-Mājishūn, and other scholars of the early generations. When Hafs al-Fard debated al-Shāfi‘ī on the question of the Quran—asserting that the Quran was created, whereupon al-Shāfi‘ī declared him an unbeliever—he had employed this method in his argument. Likewise, Abū Īsā Muhammad ibn Īsā Burghūth was among those who used this method when debating Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal on the question of the Quran.

In his refutation of the Jahmiyyah, Imam Ahmad mentioned, among the things for which he censured them, their assertion that Allah neither speaks nor moves.

As for Abd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak, he had to contend with these people in his own land, and his opposition to them was extensive. Likewise, al-Mājishūn refuted them. The early generations spoke at length in refutation of these people. Others said to them:

“This principle, through which you claim to establish the existence of the Maker, and without which you maintain that He cannot be known as the Creator of created things, is the very opposite of what you claim. Rather, this principle is incompatible with the Lord being the Creator of the world. Upholding it makes it impossible either to affirm that the world came into being or to refute the philosophers. Thus, the speculative theologians who devised it and claimed that through it they defended Islam and refuted its enemies, such as the philosophers, neither defended Islam nor vanquished its enemy. Rather, what they devised corrupted the reality of Islam for those who followed them, corrupting both their reason and their religion