that Abū ʿAbd Allāh has forbidden saying, ‘My utterance of the Quran is uncreated.’”
Abū Tālib went out, met a group of hadith scholars, and told them that Abū ʿAbd Allāh had forbidden him to say, “My utterance of the Quran is uncreated.”
Despite this, each of the “two groups”—those who say, “Our utterance of the Quran is uncreated,” and those who say, “Our utterance and recitation are created”—claims allegiance to Abū ʿAbd Allāh, attributes its own position to him, and maintains that he held its view. This is because he is an imam accepted by all, and because Ahmad affirms whatever truth each group holds and rejects whatever falsehood each group condemns in the other.
Thus Muhammad ibn Dāwūd al-Missīsī—one of the hadith scholars and one of Abū Dāwūd’s teachers—and a number of his contemporaries, such as Abū Hātim al-Rāzī and others, would say, “Our utterance of the Quran is uncreated.” A group followed them in this, including Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Hāmid, Abū Nasr al-Sijzī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mandah, Shaykh al-Islam Abū Ismāʿīl al-Ansārī, Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Hamdānī, Abū al-Faraj al-Maqdisī, and others. They say, “Our utterances of the Quran are uncreated,” and report this from Ahmad, claiming that he subsequently adopted this position, as Abū Nasr mentioned in his book al-Ibānah (The Clarification).
These, however, are weak reports with unknown chains of transmission. They cannot stand against what has been mass-transmitted from him through his closest companions, his household, and trustworthy scholars—especially since it is known that, during his lifetime, he declared Abū Tālib mistaken in what he reported from him, until Ahmad made him retract it, and became intensely angry with him.