“…Allah is upon the Throne, separate from His creation; His knowledge encompasses all things. No one parts company with this creed except a Jahmi who mixes Allah with His creation.”

232- I have not identified him, nor have I found a chain of transmission for the report attributed to him.

80- Aḥmad ibn Sinān, the ḥadith scholar of Wāsiṭ ( ?–259 AH).

258- Ibn Abī Ḥātim said in al-Radd ʿalā al-Jahmiyyah: “Aḥmad ibn Sinān al-Wāsiṭī narrated to us: It reached me from Ibn Abī Duʾād—the judge during the Inquisition—that he declared, ‘Three of the prophets are anthropomorphists: Jesus son of Mary, when he said, “You know what is within myself and I do not know what is within Yourself” (Q. 5:116); Moses, when he said, “My Lord, show Yourself to me that I may look at You” (Q. 7:143); and Muḥammad ﷺ when he said, “You will certainly see your Lord.”’ Aḥmad ibn Sinān commented, ‘This is sheer disbelief; otherwise, likeness by that reckoning would in fact be true.’ Exalted is Allah far above what the deniers say. We have already quoted the words of Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād: ‘Whoever likens Allah to His creation has disbelieved.’

Aḥmad ibn Sinān al-Qaṭṭān was a devout ḥadith master and one of the teachers of al-Bukhārī and Muslim. He did not transmit this statement about the heretic Ibn Abī Duʾād for nothing; it was Ibn Abī Duʾād who, on the day of Imām Aḥmad’s ordeal, stood before al-Muʿtaṣim saying, ‘Commander of the Faithful, this man is astray and leads others astray—execute him.’

Aḥmad ibn Sinān died in 258 AH at a little over eighty years of age.

232- I say: Even so, the chain to the judge Ibn Abī Duʾād for what has been ascribed to him is not sound, and Allah loves fairness. He says: “…and let not the hatred of a people lead you to act unjustly. Be just…” (Q. 5:8). Although al-Wāsiṭī is trustworthy, he related it only as an unattached report (balāgh) and did not name the person from whom he heard it, so we cannot tell whether that person was reliable or not.

233- So it reads in the manuscripts, and this is one of the opinions given for his date of death; the correct date is what we have established above, as Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar affirms in al-Tahdhīb.

81- The godly Imām, Muḥammad ibn Aslam al-Ṭūsī ( ?–242 AH).

259- al-Ḥākim relates in his biography: Yāḥyā al-ʿAnbarī narrated to us, Aḥmad ibn Salamah narrated to us, Muḥammad ibn Aslam said: ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṭāhir said to me, “I have been informed that you…”