Imām Aḥmad and the majority of the leading scholars who issued these general pronouncements did not, in fact, declare most of those who voiced those very words to be unbelievers.
He then said:
These statements and actions of his, and of other Imams as well, plainly show that they did not pronounce takfīr upon specific individuals from among the Jahmiyyah who used to say, “The Qur’an is created,” and, “Allah will not be seen in the Hereafter.” Yet there is a report from Aḥmad indicating that he did declare certain named persons to be unbelievers on that account. To claim that two conflicting views are transmitted from him on this issue needs scrutiny; rather, the matter must be taken with due detail.
Thus it is said: anyone he branded by name as an unbeliever was so judged because the evidence established that the conditions of takfīr were present in him and that the impediments were absent; and anyone he did not brand by name was spared because those conditions were lacking in his case—even while he maintained his general ruling of disbelief concerning the doctrine itself.1
He also said—may Allah have mercy on him:
Once this is understood, declaring a particular person among these uninformed people and their like to be an unbeliever—so that he is counted among the disbelievers—is not permissible unless the prophetic proof has first been established against him, making clear that he is opposing the messengers, even though the doctrine itself is undoubtedly disbelief. The same principle applies to the takfīr of every named individual.
Moreover, some of these innovations are more grievous than others, and some innovators possess a measure of faith that others do not. Therefore, no one has the right to pronounce any Muslim an unbeliever merely because he has erred or slipped; the proof must first be brought to him and the path made plain. Whosoever’s faith is established with certainty is not stripped of it on the basis of doubt; rather, it is removed only after the proof is set up and the confusion dispelled.2