Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh al-Baṣrī, known as Ibn Shabīb, was a noted theologian who lived in the first half of the third/ninth century in Basra. He is traditionally included amongst the Muʿtazilīs, although on certain questions he did not share their position. Some heresiographers describe him as a Murjiʾī or a Qadarī Murjiʾī (supporter of the doctrines of free will and of irjāʾ, suspension of judgement about the actions of Muslims). His lost book on God’s oneness (tawḥīd) was an important source for Kitāb al-tawḥīd by Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944–5), the eponym of th…