Uthman al-Darimi (may Allah have mercy upon him) stated in al-Naqd (pp. 310–312): "Those of these masters who disliked engaging [in such theological disputes]—if your report from them is authentic—did so only because none engaged in them except a small, debased faction in secret conversations among themselves, while the common folk remained holding fast to the primary Sunnahs and the original way.

Thus, those people disliked engaging in it since it was not being discussed publicly. They were correct in refraining from engaging in it as long as it was not proclaimed. However, when they [the Jahmiyyah] proclaimed it through the power of the sovereign, and summoned the common people to it with swords and whips, and claimed that the speech of Allah is created, those scholars who had passed and the jurists who remained denounced that. They deemed them liars, declared them disbelievers, warned the people against their affair, and explained their [true] intent behind it. Consequently, this was—on the part of the Jahmiyyah—an engagement in what they had been forbidden from; and—on the part of our companions—a denunciation of manifest disbelief, a defense (munafahah) of Allah so that He would not be reviled and His attributes would not be negated (tu‘attala), and a protection of the weak among the people so that they would not go astray through this trial (mihnah) without knowing its counter-arguments—those proofs that refute their claim and invalidate their arguments.

Indeed, ‘Ali ibn Khashram wrote to me that he heard ‘Isa ibn Yunus say: 'Do not sit with the Jahmiyyah, and clarify their affair to the people so that they may recognize them and thus be wary of them.'

And Ibn al-Mubarak said: 'That I should relate the speech of the Jews and the Christians is more beloved to me than relating the speech of the Jahmiyyah.'

So when the Jahmiyyah engaged in some of it and publicized it, and claimed that the speech of Allah is created, Ibn al-Mubarak denounced that and asserted that it is uncreated, and that whoever says: 'I...