Ḥashwiyya (also ahl al-ḥashw) is a pejorative label used by Muʿtazilī kalām theologians and other rationalists to malign ḥadīth folk (aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth), Ḥanbalīs, and other traditionalists. The most common etymon posited is the Arabic ḥashw (to stuff), one accusation against the Ḥashwiyya being that they stuffed unreliable ḥadīth reports into their argumentation (Van Ess, Der Eine, 953).

The earliest Muʿtazilī heresiography, Kitāb uṣūl al-niḥal (“Book of the roots of divisions”), usually attributed to Jaʿfar b. Ḥarb (d. 236/850–1), identifies the Ḥashwiyya a…