Al-Rad 'ala al-Jahmiya - Ahmad Ibn Hanbal - (41)

So this is the Book of Allah, O Commander of the Faithful. Can it possibly say to Moses, “I am your created Lord,” so that Moses would have been worshipping a creature and would have gone to Pharaoh carrying the message of a creature, O Commander of the Faithful?

He said: They fell silent, then turned to one another in discussion that I could not make out.

Abu ʿAbd Allah continued: Those people reject and deny all of this. I have never seen anyone chase after speculative speech and relish it without being driven into something momentous. They have uttered words and cited proofs my heart lacks the strength and my tongue the nerve to repeat. In the end their discourse reduces to sheer negation: they deny the Beatific Vision and all the transmitted reports. I never imagined matters to be so until I heard their claims with my own ears.

Abu ʿAbd Allah said: That day someone said to me, “Allah was, and there was no Quran.” I replied, “Was Allah, and there was no knowledge?” He was struck dumb; had he claimed instead that Allah was without knowledge, he would have disbelieved in Allah.

Abu ʿAbd Allah added: I also said to him—meaning the barber’s son—“Woe to you! Does He not know until He comes into being, so that His knowledge and yours would be one and the same? You have disbelieved in Allah, the Knower of the secret and the yet more hidden, the Knower of the unseen and the seen, the All-Knowing of every hidden thing. Woe to you! Would His knowledge be like your knowledge? Do you know the treachery of the eyes and what the breasts conceal?”

Abu ʿAbd Allah said: Is this not exactly what he is asserting?

Abu ʿAbd Allah said: This is outright disbelief in Allah. I never thought the people had reached this state.

That day Barguth kept saying, “The body is such-and-such…”—words I could not comprehend. So I said, “I do not know nor understand any of this; all I know is that He is the One, the Eternal Refuge, without likeness or equal, and He is as He has described Himself.” At that, he would fall silent before me.

فهذا كتاب الله يا أمير المؤمنين، فيجوز أن يقول لموسى: أنا ربك مخلوق، وموسى كان يعبد مخلوقًا، ومضى إلى فرعون برسالة مخلوق يا أمير المؤمنين؟ قال: فأمسكوا، وأداروا بينهم كلامًا لم أفهمه. قال أبو عبد الله: والقوم يدفعون هذا وينكرونه، ما رأيت أحدًا طلب الكلام واشتهاه إلا أخرجه إلى أمر عظيم، لقد تكلموا بكلام، واحتجوا بشيء ما يقوى قلبي ولا ينطق لساني أن أحكيه، والقوم يرجعون إلى التعطيل في أقاويلهم، وينكرون الرؤية والآثار كلها، ما ظننت أنه هكذا حتى سمعت مقالاتهم. قال أبو عبد الله: قيل لي يومئذ: كان الله ولا قرآن: فقلت له: كان الله ولا علم؟ فأمسك، ولو زعم غير ذلك أن الله كان ولا علم؛ لكفر بالله. قال أبو عبد الله: وقلت له - يعني: لابن الحجام-: يا ويلك، لا يعلم حتى يكون فعلمه وعلمك واحد، كفرت بالله عالم السر وأخفى، عالم الغيب والشهادة، علام الغيوب، ويلك، يكون علمه مثل علمك، تعلم خائنة الأعين وما تخفي الصدور. قال أبو عبد الله: فهذه أليست مقالته؟ قال أبو عبد الله: وهذا هو الكفر بالله، ما ظننت أن القوم هكذا. لقد جعل برغوث يقول يومئذ: الجسم كذا وكلام لا أفهمه؛ فقلت: لا أعرف ولا أدري ما هذا، إلا أنني أعلم أنه أحد صمد، لا شبه له ولا عدل، وهو كما وصف نفسه؛ فيسكت عني.