They held against him his belief in irja’ (postponement of...

They held against him his belief in irja’ (postponement of judgement about whether the grave sinner was a believer or an unbeliever), not the doctrine of al-manzilah bayna 'l-manzilatayn (the state of the sinner as intermediate between that of a believer and an unbeliever), which was their doctrine concerning the grave sinner.[^2] However, the principle point of difference between him and the Mu‘tazilah as a whole was his belief in predestination, and their belief in free will, since among the later Mu‘tazilah there were some who believed in irja’ and some who believed in the impermanence of Paradise and Hell.

However all of them agreed on the doctrine of free will and refuted predestination. For this reason ash-Shahristani counts him among those who 'emerged from the Mu‘tazilah in the days of Nasr ibn Sayyar and made his innovation from the Mu‘tazili position on pre- destination clear.'[^3] One of the views of Jahm, which influenced Hisham ibn al- Hakam, was his statement about Allah, praise be to Him: 'He is a body unlike [other] bodies', as will be shown.

One of Jahm ibn Safwan's doctrines, as al-Ash‘ari relates, was that he believed that 'Allah is a body,' and went on to say that 'the meaning of "body" is "existent".[^4] He says the same about Hisham.

From this, he goes on to relate that he believed that 'God's knowledge is incipient: He did not know then He knew' [^5]and that he had taken this also from Jahm.[^6] ash-Shahristani compares 'Jahm and Hisham's assertion that knowledge (‘ulum) is not in a location [with respect to Allah, praise be to Him, because since they spoke of the incipience of His knowledge they made Him a locus for His knowledge, and this contradicts His eternity, which was their doctrine] with the Ash‘ariyyah's assertion that speech (taklim) is not in a location.'[^7] It is mentioned that the famous Mu‘tazili theologian Abu 'l- Husayn, Muhammad ibn ‘Ali ibn at-Tayyib, al-Basri, al-Hanafi (d.

436/1044) adopted Hisham's view regarding God's knowledge.