a Qadarī imam behind whom I pray.’ He replied: ‘Whoever claims that his utterance is uncreated is like someone who claims that Allah’s sky is uncreated.’”’”

Al-Khallāl said: “Abū Bakr al-Marwazī informed me: Muhammad ibn Yahyā al-Azdī narrated to us: Musaddad narrated to me, saying: ‘I was with Yahyā al-Qattān when Yahyā ibn Ishāq ibn Tawbah al-‘Anbarī arrived. Yahyā said to him: “Tell this man”—meaning Musaddad—“what Hammād ibn Zayd said about it”—that is, the question under discussion. He said: “I asked Hammād ibn Zayd about someone who says that human speech is uncreated. He replied: ‘This is the speech of the disbelievers.’” Yahyā ibn Ishāq also said: “I asked Mu‘tamir ibn Sulaymān about someone who says that human speech is uncreated. He replied: ‘This is disbelief.’”’”

These reports and others like them were relied upon by those renowned for their adherence to the Sunnah, such as al-Marwadhī, al-Khallāl and others. Likewise, Imam Abū ‘Abd Allāh ibn Battah relies on these reports and similar ones in his book al-Ibānah al-Kabīr (The Greater Exposition).

I say: Hammād ibn Zayd was one of the eminent imams of the Sunnah, belonging to the same generation and holding a comparable standing as Mālik, al-Thawrī, al-Awzā‘ī, Hammād ibn Salamah and al-Layth ibn Sa‘d. Indeed, the scholars of the Sunnah considered him more firmly grounded in the Sunnah than al-Thawrī, although al-Thawrī surpassed him in knowledge and asceticism. Hadith scholars considered him more proficient in retaining hadith than Hammād ibn Salamah, although the latter was better known for asceticism and more active in calling people to the Sunnah. He was the leading imam of Basra at a time when Basra was the gathering place of Islamic learning. The scholars of the Ummah, the heirs of the prophets and the successors of the messengers, in that age