in the heart.” This was introduced only by Ibn Karrām, and it was his sole distinctive teaching. Everything else he said had already been said before him. Thus, neither al-Ash‘arī nor the other writers who recorded people’s doctrines attributed any distinctive teaching to him except this one. They attributed his other views to people who preceded him, without mentioning him. Ibn Karrām had not yet emerged in the time of Ahmad ibn Hanbal and the other imams. Hence, they reported a consensus against this view, as did Abū ‘Abd Allāh Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Abū Thawr, and others.

Before him, the Murji’ah held that faith consists of verbal profession and assent in the heart, while Jahm held that it consists of assent in the heart. When Ibn Karrām said that it consists merely of verbal profession, the Murji’ah’s positions became three. Ahmad, however, was more knowledgeable about people’s doctrines than others and knew the Jahmiyyah’s position on faith. Abū Thawr, by contrast, did not know it; he knew only the Murji’ah among the jurists. This is why a consensus was reported against the positions of the Jahmiyyah and the Karrāmiyyah.

Abū Thawr said in his refutation of the Murji’ah, as transmitted by Abū al-Qāsim al-Tabarī al-Lālakā’ī and others, on the authority of Idrīs ibn ‘Abd al-Karīm, who said:

A man from Khurasan asked Abū Thawr about faith: what is it, and does it increase and decrease? Does it consist of profession, profession and action, or assent and action?

Abū Thawr answered him as follows:

“You asked—may Allah have mercy on you and pardon us and you—what faith is, whether it increases and decreases, and whether it consists of profession, profession and action, or assent and action. I shall therefore tell you the positions of the various groups and their disagreements.