Al-Hākim related:

I heard Abū Muhammad al-Anmātī, the righteous servant of Allah, say:

“When that conflict intensified, so that no ten people could gather in the town without quarrelling over it, and most ordinary people began exchanging blows over it, Abū ʿAmr al-Hīrī travelled to Rayy, where the martyred emir was then staying, to secure letters to his deputy. One letter was addressed to Abū Bakr ibn Ishāq, instructing him to banish from the town the four men who had opposed Abū Bakr.”

He then mentioned that they convened a session for them.

Shaykh al-Islām Abū Ismāʿīl ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muhammad al-Ansārī said in The Creed of Ahl al-Sunnah and the Matters upon Which the People of Truth in the Muslim Community Have Reached Consensus:

Chapter: Concerning the Quran

“Know that Allah speaks and utters words, and praises Himself for speaking, for He censured the idols and the calf for their inability to speak. He speaks whenever He wills, with no one to prevent or compel Him. The Quran is His speech; He Himself spoke it.”

Ibn ʿAqīl interpreted Shaykh al-Islām’s words in much the same way that al-Qādī interpreted Ahmad’s words.

Shaykh al-Islām also said in his book The Merits of Imām Ahmad ibn Hanbal, in the chapter outlining his approach to the fundamentals of religion, after mentioning Ahmad’s statements concerning the Quran and the sequence of innovations that arose concerning it: first, they said that it was created, and the great ordeal ensued; then the controversy of the Lafziyyah over the utterance of the Quran arose through Husayn al-Karābīsī and others. He went on to say:

“Then a group arose and said: ‘He does not speak after having spoken, for that would make