Jarir ibn ‘Abd al-Hamid (d. 188 AH)—may Allah have mercy on him—said: "The speech of the Jahmiyyah is honey at its beginning but poison at its end. They are only attempting to say: There is no God in the heaven." [Narrated by Ibn Abi Hatim, as in Bayan Talbis al-Jahmiyyah (1/200)].
They did not state this explicitly due to the strength and influence of the imams of the Sunnah during their time. Thus, they resorted to denying the logical implications of High-Exaltation (‘uluww), such as the limit (al-hadd) and distinction (al-baynunah), and to denying the rest of the attributes—such as [the Divine] Vision, Speech, Hearing, and Sight—to avoid being exposed before both the commoners and the elite for their denial of Allah’s High-Exaltation, which is an affirmation Allah the Exalted has naturally embedded in human nature (fatar al-nas ‘ala ithbatihi).
When the influence of the people of innovation grew stronger, their later proponents explicitly stated what their predecessors had not. They denied Allah’s High-Exaltation over His creation, authored works to that effect, and openly proclaimed the negation of ‘uluww. Indeed, the matter escalated for some of them to the point of declaring as disbelievers (takfir) those who affirm the High-Exaltation of Allah, Mighty and Majestic, over His creation, labeling them with the most repulsive descriptions.
Ibn Taymiyyah—may Allah have mercy on him—said: "That which the [early] Jahmiyyah were attempting to achieve has been explicitly stated by their later followers. The prevalence of the Sunnah and the abundance of imams during the era of the former prevented them from declaring it openly. But when time passed, the Sunnah became obscure, and the imams passed away, the negating Jahmiyyah explicitly declared what their predecessors had attempted but were unable to manifest." [Ijtima‘ al-Juyush al-Islamiyyah (p. 71)].
I say: The matter for them was not limited merely to explicitly denying the High-Exaltation of Allah the Exalted over His creation; rather, it extended to declaring anyone who believes in it to be a disbeliever, and refusing to accept the conversion to Islam of any Jew who affirms Allah’s High-Exaltation, on the grounds that he is a corporealist (mujassim) disbeliever!
