if Allah wills.”

When one of them is told, “There is no doubt about this,” he replies, “Yes, there is no doubt about it. But if Allah wills to change it, He will change it.” Thus, by saying “if Allah wills,” they mean that it may change in the future, even though there is no doubt about it at present. It is as though, for them, a reality can be affirmed without this qualification only if it does not change. This resembles what those others say about faith: that faith is what Allah knows will not change, so that the person possessing it dies upon it.

That view, however, was advanced by people of learning and religion through independent reasoning and reflection. Those who qualify everything in this way, by contrast, learned this practice from some followers of their shaykh. The shaykh to whom they affiliate themselves, known as Abū ‘Amr ‘Uthmān ibn Marzūq, did not endorse this kind of qualification. Rather, he followed the practice of his predecessors in this matter. Some of his companions introduced it after him.

Their shaykh was affiliated with Imam Ahmad and was a follower of ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, the son of Shaykh Abū al-Faraj al-Maqdisī. Abū al-Faraj was a student of Judge Abū Ya‘lā. Although all these men were affiliated with Imam Ahmad, they agreed with Ibn Kullāb on the foundational principle for which Ahmad censured the Kullābiyyah and on account of which he ordered that al-Hārith al-Muhāsibī be shunned. A group of followers of Mālik, al-Shāfi‘ī and Abū Hanīfa likewise agreed with Ibn Kullāb on this principle, including Abū al-Ma‘ālī al-Juwaynī, Abū al-Walīd al-Bājī, Abū Mansūr al-Māturīdī and others.

Their views on various questions concerning the divine attributes and related matters—such as the question of the Quran: does He, glorified be He, speak by His will and power, or is the Quran inseparably inherent in His essence?—together with their position on the qualification “if Allah wills,” are founded upon that principle.