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ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl ibn al-Shaykh ibn ʿUmayrah al-Asadī. He narrated from Khālid ibn Khudāsh, Dāwūd ibn ʿAmr, Muṣʿab ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Zubayrī, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, and Maḥraz ibn ʿAwn. I heard from him in Wāsiṭ and in Rayy; Abū Zurʿah also wrote from him, and the two of us transmitted on his authority. My father was asked about him and said, “Trustworthy.”

236 – ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad related this in al-Sunnah ⦗29⦘ from his father in similar wording. Al-Bayhaqī reproduced it in al-Asmāʾ ⦗266⦗ with a sound chain and added:

“I say: his son ʿAbd Allāh preserved his father’s qualifying phrase—‘he means thereby the Qur’an.’ Others who cited Aḥmad on this issue overlooked that restriction and thus attributed to him what he disavowed, as we have just explained.”

I say: Al-Bayhaqī’s comment that “others overlooked…” warrants scrutiny. In fact, Imām Aḥmad frequently spoke without qualification, and those who transmitted this unqualified wording include his own son ʿAbd Allāh—as will appear later in the book—and Abū Dāwūd, as I shall soon show; can either of them be deemed “heedless”? The reality is that Aḥmad generally spoke in absolute terms, and many preserved that from him. On one occasion he added a qualification to clarify the point and forestall the mistaken notion that our articulation of the Qur’an is not one of our deeds. That misconception clashes with the settled position of Ahl al-Sunnah that human actions—including speech—are created, a matter Imām al-Bukhārī, may Allah have mercy on him, expounded in his work Khalq Afʿāl al-ʿIbād with decisive proofs from Qur’an, Sunnah, and the statements of the early generations. With this qualification Imām Aḥmad made clear that he did not mean the reciter’s articulation, which is created, but rather the very speech of Allah. In this he agrees with his student al-Bukhārī, who distinguished between the recitation (tilāwah) and the recited text (matlū), as al-Bayhaqī and others reported. Al-Bayhaqī further noted, “Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj, may Allah have mercy on him, concurred with al-Bukhārī in making this distinction.”

The present author—may Allah show him mercy—has explained this point well and clarified why Imām Aḥmad and those who followed him ordinarily avoided stating the above distinction. To Allah belongs the outcome of affairs. See also Imām al-Juwaynī’s remarks in his treatise on al-Istiwaʾ ⦗184⦘; they are significant.

237 – This is a portion of a hadith reported by Abū Dāwūd and others with an authentic chain from Jābir; I have documented it in al-Ṣaḥīḥah, no. 1947.

238 – This is part of the hadith of Muʿāwiyah ibn al-Ḥakam al-Sulamī. Another segment appeared at the beginning of this book, where I cited the relevant sources.

239 – ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad mentioned this in al-Sunnah ⦗28–29⦘ from his father in separate form. Abū Dāwūd stated in his Masāʾil ⦗271⦘:

“Yaʿqūb ibn Ibrāhīm al-Dawraqī narrated to us that Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥanbal said to him: ‘The proponents of the doctrine of “utterance” (lafẓiyyah) merely revolve around Jahm’s discourse; they claim that Gabriel brought a created thing’—that is, Gabriel, a created being, brought it to Muḥammad ﷺ.”