innovation: Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Abū ‘Abd Allāh al-Bukhārī, compiler of the Sahīh, and Abū Bakr al-Marwadhī, the closest of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s associates. On this matter, al-Marwadhī obtained responses from the Muslim scholars of that time in Baghdad, Basra, Kufa, the two Holy Sanctuaries, Syria, Khurasan, and elsewhere. These included ‘Abd al-Wahhāb al-Warrāq, Abū Bakr al-Athram, Muhammad ibn Bashshār Bundār, Abū al-Husayn ‘Alī ibn Muslim al-Tūsī, Ya‘qūb al-Dawraqī, Muhammad ibn Sahl ibn ‘Askar, the hadith master Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Mukharrimī, Muhammad ibn Ishāq al-Sāghānī, al-‘Abbās ibn Muhammad al-Dūrī, ‘Alī ibn Dāwūd al-Qantarī, Muthannā ibn Jāmi‘ al-Anbārī, Ishāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Habīb ibn al-Shahīd, Muhammad ibn Yahyā al-Azdī, al-Hasan ibn ‘Abd al-‘Azīz al-Jarawī, ‘Abd al-Karīm ibn al-Haytham al-‘Āqūlī, Abū Mūsā ibn Abī ‘Alqamah al-Nafrūnī and other scholars of Medina, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Rahmān al-Muqri’, Abū al-Walīd ibn Abī al-Jārūd, Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Qāsim ibn Abī Murrah and other scholars of Mecca, Ahmad ibn Sinān al-Wāsitī, ‘Alī ibn Harb al-Mawsilī, and as many other imams of Ahl al-Sunnah and scholars of hadith as Allah Most High willed, from among Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s associates and others.
They condemned anyone who regarded a person’s utterance of the Quran, his voice when reciting it, or any other human attributes connected with the Quran as uncreated. They called for such a person to be punished by shunning and other means. Abū Bakr al-Khallāl compiled some of their statements on this matter in his Book of the Sunnah.