Likewise—and this is an exact parallel—is their affirmation regarding the Noble Qur’an that it is uncreated. This particular wording was also unknown to the Companions; they would simply say of it, “It is the speech of Allah,” and make no further addition. Stopping at that point would have been sufficient had not Jahm and his Muʿtazilite followers declared that it was created. Once those people uttered falsehood, however, the people of truth were obliged to voice the truth—even if that required expressions and terms that had not previously been current.

Imam Aḥmad, may Allah have mercy on him, alluded to this reality when he was asked about the Wāqifah, who refuse to say that the Qur’an is either created or uncreated: “Is a man entitled simply to say, ‘Allah’s speech,’ and then remain silent?” He replied, “And why should he remain silent? Had the people not fallen into what they have fallen into, silence would have sufficed; but now that they have spoken as they have, why should others not speak as well?!” 1

I say: The point is that the author—may Allah have mercy on him—accepted the term bāʾin because one eminent imam after another employed it without objection, yet he rejected the other term, bi-dhātihi, because it does not appear in their statements, save among a few later scholars. He dismissed it out of zeal to safeguard the path of the Salaf, even though its meaning in and of itself is sound and affirms nothing unsanctioned.

For that very reason I would have preferred that he, may Allah forgive him, not hesitate to deny the attribution of quʿūd (sitting) to Allah or of His seating Muḥammad ﷺ upon His Throne, since no binding prophetic text establishes it, the Sunnah offers no corroboration for either its wording or its meaning, and the imams never voiced such language. Some of his earlier remarks about this report point precisely in that direction, yet when he noticed that many ḥadith scholars had endorsed it, he did not dare to state his rejection outright—oscillating now this way, now that. Allah the Exalted forgive us and him.

What is truly astonishing is that Imam Ibn al-Qayyim, may Allah have mercy on him, should rely on this report: he quoted Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā’s discussion of it together with the names of several who upheld it, and then Ibn al-Qayyim said:

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1. Abū Dāwūd heard this directly from Imam Aḥmad; see his Masāʾil, pp. 263–264.