Summary of The Doubt & Its Response

The Doubt

It is claimed that Ahmad ibn Hanbal interpreted the attribute of majīʾ (coming) mentioned in the Qur’an. They relied on a report narrated through Hanbal ibn Ishaq, in which the verse:

وَجَاءَ رَبُّكَ
“And your Lord comes.” (al Fajr: 22)

was explained as “His reward comes.” They also quoted a report attributed through Ibn al Jawzi from Abu Yaʿla that the verse:

هَلْ يَنظُرُونَ إِلَّا أَن يَأْتِيَهُمُ اللَّهُ
“Are they waiting except that Allah comes to them.” (al Baqarah: 210)

was explained as His power and His command.

From this, they argued that interpretation is established from Imam Ahmad, and that this does not contradict what is well known from him, since rare statements can differ without contradiction, and both approaches are acceptable.

The Refutation

The response is that this attribution is not taken as a settled position of Imam Ahmad. Rather, if the report is accepted, it occurred in the context of debate with the Jahmiyyah, where he answered them using their own premise.

As clarified by Ibn Taymiyyah, Imam Ahmad used this expression as a counter argument, not as a belief he held. He aimed to invalidate their reasoning by showing inconsistency, not to affirm interpretation.

Furthermore, this isolated report conflicts with what is mass transmitted and firmly established from him.

Numerous narrations from his companions, including Hanbal himself, affirm that he rejected interpretation entirely, became angered when questioned about how the attributes occur, and insisted that they are affirmed as they came, without explanation and without altering their meaning.

This establishes that his known methodology was to affirm the attributes without interpretation.

The report in question is singular, transmitted only by Hanbal, and opposed by the consistent and widespread narrations from his students. For this reason, scholars such as Ibn al Qayyim clarified that such solitary reports are not relied upon when they contradict what is well known from the imam.

As a result, the claim that Imam Ahmad held interpretation in this matter is not upheld. Rather, the report is either contextual, misunderstood, or an error in transmission, and it does not represent his established position.

Full Response

The Doubt About Imam Ahmad’s Ta’wil (Interpretation)

The two authors claimed that Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241 AH) interpreted the attribute of Allah Most High coming.

They said, on page 237: it is mentioned in al Bidayah wa al Nihayah by the hafiz Ibn Kathir (d. 774 AH) as follows: al Bayhaqi (d. 458 AH) narrated from al Hakim (d. 405 AH), from ʿAmr ibn al Sammak, from Hanbal ibn Ishaq, that Ahmad ibn Hanbal interpreted the saying of Allah Most High:

وَجَاءَ رَبُّكَ
“And your Lord comes.” (al Fajr 22)

He said it means: “His reward comes.” Then al Bayhaqi said: “This chain has no dust upon it.” End.

Then they said: Ibn al Jawzi (d. 597 AH) نقل from al Qadi Abu Yaʿla (d. 458 AH) from Imam Ahmad, regarding the saying of Allah Most High:

هَلْ يَنظُرُونَ إِلَّا أَن يَأْتِيَهُمُ اللَّهُ فِي ظُلَلٍ مِّنَ الْغَمَامِ
“Are they waiting for anything other than Allah coming to them in shadows of clouds.” (al Baqarah 210)

That he said: what is meant is His power and His command. End.

The Response To This Shubha

The reply is to say: This report that Hanbal narrated, if it is established, Imam Ahmad only said it on the assumption of its establishment, during his debate with the Jahmiyyah about the Qur’an.

Shaykh al Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728 AH), after mentioning the words of Ibn al Jawzi and what he transmitted from al Qadi Abu Yaʿla, said:

“I say: what the Qadi and others mentioned, that Hanbal transmitted it from Ahmad in the book of the Mihnah, that he said that in the debate with them on the day of the Mihnah, when they used as proof against him the saying: “Surah al Baqarah and Surah Al ʿImran come.”

They said: coming only occurs for a created being, so Ahmad replied to them with the saying of Allah Most High:

وَجَاءَ رَبُّكَ
“And your Lord comes.” (al Fajr 22)

Or:

أَوْ يَأْتِيَ رَبُّكَ
“Or your Lord comes.” (al Anʿam 158)

And he said: what is meant by the saying “Surah al Baqarah and Surah Al ʿImran come” is “their reward comes”, just as in His saying:

وَجَاءَ رَبُّكَ
“And your Lord comes.” (al Fajr 22)

Meaning: His command and His power.” (Majmuʿ al Fatawa, 16/405)

This shows that Imam Ahmad only said it by way of counter argument and by voiding the proof of the opponent, using the opponent’s own speech and what the opponent believed. This is from the category of descending to the opponent’s premise.

The Jahmiyyah used to interpret His coming and His arriving as the coming and arriving of His command, not that He comes by Himself, and this was not, in their view, evidence that what is described with coming and arriving is a created being. So he opposed them with this principle.

He said: likewise, Allah Most High described His speech, which is the Qur’an, with coming, in the hadith: “Surah al Baqarah and Surah Al ʿImran come”, so it is like His describing Himself with that, so it does not indicate that His speech is created. Rather, the coming of the Qur’an is carried on the coming of its reward, just as you carried His coming and His arriving on the coming of His command and His power.

So Imam Ahmad mentioned that in the form of opposing and binding the opponent to what the opponent accepts, in a parallel case to what they used against him, not that he believed it. Opposition does not require that the one opposing believes the correctness of what he used in opposition.

Second

This contradicts what is widely transmitted and well known from Imam Ahmad in this topic: the obligation of letting the attributes pass as they are, and forbidding exposure to them by interpretation or other than it. Rather, Hanbal himself transmitted from him leaving interpretation and forbidding it absolutely.

Hanbal ibn Ishaq said: I said to Abu ʿAbd Allah: “Does Allah Most High descend to the lowest heaven.” He said: “Yes.” I said: “Is His descending by His knowledge, or by what.” He said to me: “Be silent about this,” and he became extremely angry, and said: “What is it to you, and what is this. Let the hadith pass as it was narrated, without how.”

Hanbal said: I asked Abu ʿAbd Allah about the hadith that are narrated: “Allah, Glorified and Exalted, descends to the lowest heaven”, and that Allah is seen, and that Allah places His foot, and the like of these hadith.

So Abu ʿAbd Allah said: “We believe in them, and we affirm them, and we do not reject any of them, and we know that what the Messenger of Allah ﷺ brought is truth, when the chains are sound, and we do not argue with the saying of Allah, and He is not described with more than what He described Himself with, without limit and without end. There is nothing like Him, and He is the All Hearing, the All Seeing.”

لَيْسَ كَمِثْلِهِ شَيْءٌ وَهُوَ السَّمِيعُ البَصِيرُ
“There is nothing like Him, and He is the All Hearing, the All Seeing.” (al Shura 11)

Hanbal said in another place, from Ahmad: “There is nothing like Him in His essence, as He described Himself. Allah has made the description general, and He set for Himself a description, a description that nothing resembles.

His attributes are not limited, and they are not known except by what He described Himself with. He is All Hearing, All Seeing, without limit and without measurement, and those who describe cannot reach His description. We do not go beyond the Qur’an and the hadith.

We say as He said, and we describe Him with what He described Himself with, and we do not go beyond that. Those who describe cannot reach His description. We believe in the whole Qur’an, its clear and its unclear, and we do not remove an attribute from His attributes because of a slander that was made.

What He described Himself with, of speech, and descending, and His being alone with His servant on the Day of Resurrection, and His placing His covering over him, all of this indicates that Allah Most High is seen in the Hereafter.” (Its source has already been given.)

Al Qadi Abu Yaʿla said in Ibtal al Taʾwilat: Yusuf ibn Musa said: it was said to Abu ʿAbd Allah: “Allah descends to the lowest heaven, as He wills, without description.” He said: “Yes.” (Ibtal al Taʾwilat, 260/1.)

Ishaq ibn Mansur said: I said to Ahmad: “Our Lord, Mighty and Majestic, descends every night, until the last third of the night remains, to the lowest heaven. Do you not say these hadith.” Ahmad said: “Sound.”

Ahmad ibn al Husayn ibn Hassan said: it was said to Abu ʿAbd Allah: “Allah, Blessed and Exalted, descends to the lowest heaven every night.” He said: “Yes.” It was said to him: “And in Shaʿban, as the report came.” He said: “Yes.”

Al Qadi Abu Yaʿla said: Ahmad said in his letter to Musaddad: “Allah, Mighty and Majestic, descends every night to the lowest heaven, and the Throne is not empty of Him.”

Al Qadi commented: Ahmad stated clearly that the Throne is not empty of Him. This is our view as well regarding His saying:

وَجَاءَ رَبُّكَ وَالْمَلَكُ
“And your Lord comes, and the angels.” (al Fajr 22)

What is meant is the coming of His essence, not in the sense of moving from place to place. (Ibtal al Taʾwilat, 261/1.)

The saying of Imam Ahmad that He descends, and the Throne is not empty of Him, is apparent in that the descending is real, and it is the descending of Allah Most High, not the descending of His command, and not the descending of an angel. It is known that whoever does not believe that Allah is above the Throne does not believe in His descending, neither with emptiness, nor without emptiness.

This confirms that this report is singular, and it is only a mistake from Hanbal.

Ibn al Qayyim (d. 751 AH) said about Hanbal: he has many solitary reports that oppose what is well known from his madhhab, and if he is solitary in something that contradicts what is well known from him, then al Khallal (d. 311 AH) and his companion ʿAbd al ʿAziz (d. 363 AH) do not affirm that as a narrated position. (Mukhtasar al Sawaʿiq al Mursalah, 2/260.)

Shaykh al Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said: Hanbal transmitted this, and no one else transmitted this from those who transmitted his debate in the Mihnah, like ʿAbd Allah ibn Ahmad, Salih ibn Ahmad, al Marwadhi, and others. (Majmuʿ al Fatawa, 5/399)

Rather, Imam Ahmad did not mention it in his book al Radd ʿala al Jahmiyyah wa al Zanadiqah when he spoke about their use of the hadith as proof for the createdness of the Qur’an.

The Two Authors’ Comment and the Reply

The two authors commented on the words of Shaykh al Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, and they affirmed the establishment of the report: “As for what is well known from Imam Ahmad of not interpreting, then it does not contradict this report, and what is well known and widely transmitted from an imam could be one thing, and something else is established from him by way of rarity.

Especially when the two matters do not oppose one another and do not contradict, as is the case in what we are discussing. It is transmitted from the Salaf that they avoided interpretation and disliked speaking about it, and there are also words from them in interpreting some expressions, and both matters are fine.”

There is no doubt that this speech is rejected by careful scholarly and rational examination, because Imam Ahmad and the Salaf did not merely forbid interpretation of the attributes with a bare forbiddance.

Rather, it was a forbiddance coupled with sternness, and ruling it an innovation for the one who does it, and commanding that he be avoided and warning against him, and transmitting consensus that it is false, as some of their words about this were previously transmitted in the fourth chapter of the first section.

So how can it be consistent that Imam Ahmad and the Salaf fall into it.

Or how can it be consistent to say: this is not opposition and not contradiction, or that the matter is light.

Rather, the matter is serious. If it is not contradiction, then it is not known what contradiction is.

Kitāb al Ashāʿirah fī Mīzān Ahl al Sunnah by Fayṣal al Jāsim pg 584-590