other evidence, the statements of those early scholars. The imams in question included al-Bukhārī, the imam and compiler of the Sahīh; Abū Bakr al-Marwazī, the imam and companion of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal; many others in his time; and Abū Bakr al-Khallāl and others like him.

These imams and others used the evidence that people’s actions and attributes are created to refute the claim that a servant’s action, or those of his attributes that relate to Allah’s attributes, are uncreated. Al-Bukhārī narrated from Abū Qudāmah, from Yahyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qattān, who said: “I have always heard our companions say: People’s actions are created.” Al-Marwazī, the companion of Imam Ahmad, and al-Khallāl narrated the previously mentioned statements in which the imams explicitly affirmed that human speech and actions are created. Imam Ahmad’s explicit statements on this will follow, Allah willing. The purpose here is to draw attention to the underlying issue from which the divisions within the Muslim community on this subject arose: the “question of utterance.”

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The “question of the utterance of the Quran” has caused confusion among people possessed of knowledge, virtue, religious commitment, and sound intellect. It has led to disputes and estrangement among the adherents of hadith and the Sunnah, to the point that Ibn Qutaybah said, in words to this effect: “The adherents of hadith have not differed over any of