So I went early to Abū ‘Alī al-Thaqafī and told him what had happened. He said, ‘Whoever denies that it has always existed has thereby adopted the belief that Allah’s speech originated in time.’ “This issue” spread throughout the city, and Mansūr al-Tūsī went with a group to Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn Ishāq and informed him of it. Mansūr went so far as to say, ‘Did I not tell the shaykh that these men hold the doctrine of the Kullābiyyah? This is their doctrine!’ Abū Bakr gathered his companions and said, ‘Have I not repeatedly forbidden you to engage in speculative theology?’ He said nothing more to them that day.”

He then mentioned that Abū Bakr subsequently came out to his companions, that he wrote a refutation of them, and that they contradicted him and accused him of holding Jahm’s view that the Quran originated in time, while he classed them as Kullābīs.

Al-Hākim said:

I heard Abū Sa‘īd ‘Abd al-Rahmān ibn Ahmad al-Muqri’ say: I heard Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn Ishāq say:

“What I hold is that the Quran is Allah’s speech, His revelation, and what He has sent down, uncreated. Whoever says of the Quran, any part of it, or His revelation and what He has sent down that it is created; or says that Allah does not speak after what He spoke in pre-eternity; or says that Allah’s actions are created; or says that the Quran originated in time; or says that any of Allah’s attributes—His attributes of essence—or any of Allah’s names is created: such a person, in my judgment, is a Jahmī who must be called upon to repent. If he repents, well and good; otherwise, I would strike off his head, and he would be cast onto one of the rubbish heaps. This is my position and that of the scholars devoted to the transmitted reports whom I have met in the East and the West.

“Whoever attributes anything contrary to this to me is a liar and a slanderer. Anyone who examines my scholarly writings will clearly see that the Kullābiyyah—may Allah curse them—are lying when they attribute to me views contrary to my foundational position and religious convictions. People in the East and the West know that no one has ever written