Ayyāsh ibn al-Walīd al-Raqqām narrated this to me; ʿAbd al-Aʿlā narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr narrated to us, from Abū Salamah. ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ (may Allah be pleased with him) said, “I never knew that Quraysh even contemplated killing the Prophet ﷺ except on one occasion. On that day Abū Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) came, pulled him away, then raised his voice and recited, ‘Will you kill a man who says, “My Lord is Allah,” when he has brought you clear proofs from your Lord?’ (Ghāfir 40:28).

“He then proclaimed, ‘By Him in Whose hand is my soul, my Lord has sent me to you with slaughter!’ Abū Jahl retorted, ‘O Muḥammad, you have never been an ignorant man.’ The Prophet replied, ‘And you are among them.’

Al-Aʿmash also reported, on the authority of Abū Sufyān, from Anas (may Allah be pleased with him), that Abū Bakr stood up and cried, ‘Woe to you! Will you kill a man who says, “My Lord is Allah”?’ This has likewise been narrated from ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAmr and from Asmāʾ bint Abī Bakr (may Allah be pleased with her) on the authority of the Prophet ﷺ.

Abū ʿAbd Allah commented, “What is recited is the speech of the Lord who said to Moses, ‘Indeed, I am Allah; there is no deity but Me, so worship Me’ (Ṭā Hā 20:14). The only ones who differ are the Muʿtazilah, who claim that Allah’s act is created while human acts are uncreated. This contradicts the well-known understanding of the Muslims—except for a few Basrans who clung to the words of Sinsawayh, a Magian who claimed to have embraced Islam. Al-Ḥasan remarked, ‘Their foreignness ruined them.’”