to flog him so that the authority of the caliphate would not be undermined time and again. When they flogged him, public condemnation arose against them, and they feared unrest, so they released him.

Ahmad ibn Abī Du’ād had assembled against him people from every faction who denied the divine attributes and held that the Quran was created. Among those he assembled was Abū ‘Īsā Muhammad ibn ‘Īsā Burghūth, a leading figure of the Najjāriyyah, the followers of Husayn al-Najjār. The imams of the Sunnah—such as Ibn al-Mubārak, Ahmad, Ishāq, al-Bukhārī, and others—called all these people Jahmiyyah.

Many later scholars, including followers of Ahmad and others, came to suppose that his opponents were the Mu‘tazilites. They also suppose that Bishr ibn Ghiyāth al-Marīsī—although he had died before Ahmad’s ordeal—Ibn Abī Du’ād, and others like them were Mu‘tazilites. This was not so. Rather, the Mu‘tazilites were only one group among all those who held that the Quran was created.

The Jahmiyyah, followers of Jahm; the Najjāriyyah, followers of Husayn al-Najjār; the Dirāriyyah, followers of Dirār ibn ‘Amr; and the Mu‘tazilites all held that the Quran was created. A detailed discussion of this belongs elsewhere.

The point here is that Jahm became known for two kinds of religious innovation. The first was: