the highest description.” For the Creator and the created do not fall under a universal proposition whose individual instances are equal, nor are they alike in anything. Rather, it is known that every perfection established for a created being—which involves no deficiency whatsoever—belongs more fittingly to the Creator, and every deficiency that must be denied of a created being must all the more be denied of the Creator. Such “rational arguments” belong to the kind of comparisons set forth in the Quran, and to Allah belongs the highest description. We have discussed this at length elsewhere.

Since those who disbelieved in the revealed message held the views described above, some who disbelieved in part of it came to share certain aspects of those views.

Thus, the Jahmiyyah denied that Allah speaks, says anything, loves, or hates, and denied all His other attributes conveyed by the messengers. They thereby denied part of the very reality of the revealed message, which is Allah’s speech, and denied some of the attributes of Allah conveyed in that message.

The first to proclaim this within Islam—although it had existed among other nations before Islam—was al-Ja'd ibn Dirham, the teacher of al-Jahm ibn Safwān. He was reportedly from Harrān, whose people included leading philosophers. From them Abū Nasr al-Fārābī learned much of the philosophy he acquired, according to what 'Abd al-Latīf ibn Yūsuf al-Baghdādī related.

Khālid ibn 'Abd Allāh al-Qasrī then slaughtered al-Ja'd as a sacrifice at Wāsit, in the days of scholars among the Successors and other Muslim scholars. Among those still living from the Successors at that time were al-Hasan al-Basrī and others, who praised him for what he had done and expressed their gratitude. He said: “O people, offer your sacrifices; may Allah accept your sacrifices! For I am sacrificing al-Ja'd