The first is that “the actions of Allah’s servants are created.” This was explicitly affirmed by the imams—Ahmad and others—and by all the imams of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamā‘ah who opposed the Qadariyya. The Muslim community has unanimously agreed that people’s actions are brought into being.

The second principle concerns the question of “reciting the Quran, reading it, and uttering it”: should this be described as created or uncreated? Imam Ahmad explicitly rejected both statements, as did all the earlier and later imams of the Sunnah. His rejection of the “negationist Lafziyya,” however, was more frequent, more widely known, and more forceful, for two reasons.

The first is that their position leads to further denial of Allah’s attributes and further negation; the tendency toward negation is always worse than the tendency toward affirmation. The messengers brought detailed affirmation of Allah’s attributes and negation in general terms. They described Him as possessing knowledge, mercy, power, wisdom, speech, highness, and other attributes. As for negation:

“There is nothing like Him.”

“And there is none comparable to Him.”

By contrast, those who depart from the true substance of the messengers’ teachings—Sabians, philosophers, polytheists, and others, including those among the prophets’ followers who adopted Jahmī doctrines—follow the method of “detailed negation”: He is not this, He is not that. Their affirmation, however, remains general. Hence the saying: “The denier of Allah’s attributes is blind, while the one who likens Him to His creation is dim-sighted.” Thus, despite their misguidance, those who liken Allah to His creation are better than those who deny His attributes.

The second reason is that Ahmad was specifically tried by the Jahmiyya who denied Allah’s attributes, for they were his opponents,