The purpose here is to respond to this speaker’s statement: “Some hold that it is eternal in its sounds and letters; these are the Hashwiyyah.” If he means the position that the sounds themselves coexist in pre-eternity, then this is the position of the aforementioned Sālimiyyah and others among the practitioners of speculative theology and hadith.
As for his use of “Hashwiyyah,” this term has no established referent in revelation, language or general usage. It is reported, however, that the first person to use this expression was Amr ibn Ubayd, who said: “Abd Allah ibn Umar was a Hashwī.”
The origin of this usage is that any group adopting a position contrary to that of the majority and the common people labels their view “the view of the Hashwiyyah”—meaning those considered mere rabble, whom that group does not regard as qualified. Thus, the Muʿtazilah call anyone who affirms divine decree a Hashwī; the Jahmiyyah call those who affirm the divine attributes Hashwiyyah; and the Qarāmitah—such as the followers of al-Hākim—call anyone who regards prayer, zakat, fasting and pilgrimage as obligatory a Hashwī. Similarly, the Rāfidah call the position of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah “the view of the majority,” as do the philosophers. “The view of the majority” and “the view of the common people” are expressions of the same kind. If someone using this expression believes that the elite do not hold that view, but only the common people and the majority do, he attributes it to them and calls them Hashwiyyah.
A group is sometimes named after the man who originated its doctrine, as in the names Jahmiyyah, Ibādiyyah, Azāriqah, Kullābiyyah, Ashʿariyyah and Karrāmiyyah