encouraging them to engage in debate and mutual consultation so that they might arrive at what is right in this world and the Hereafter. He says about those whose religion He approves: “their affairs are decided by mutual consultation among themselves” (Q 42:38). In the same spirit He commanded them to dispute—and, when necessary, to fight—those who swerve from the straight path, saying, by way of command and prohibition to His Prophet and the believers so as to clarify what pleases Him from them and from him: “and argue with them in the best manner” (Q 16:125), and “do not argue with the People of the Book except in the way that is best, except for those among them who commit injustice” (Q 29:46).

Thus the leaders of Islam, complying with the order of the All-Knowing Sovereign (1), would debate the followers of misleading passions until they brought them back to the balanced creed, just as Ibn ʿAbbās debated the renegade Kharijites, whereupon many of them returned to the faith they had abandoned. Likewise, many of the earliest Salaf engaged in disputations with various categories of bygone innovators and with anyone whose heart harboured doubts that opposed certainty, until Allah guided whom He willed of humankind; the truth became public and manifest (3), and the innovations the innovators had introduced were erased and disappeared.

They also debated legal rulings and questions of the lawful and unlawful with sound proofs and compelling arguments, so that hardly a single gathering (4) passed without the correct position becoming evident and those present returning to it. For the one who argued cited authentic evidence, and the disputant (5) knew that returning to the truth is better than persisting in falsehood—just as al-Ṣiddīq (Abū Bakr) debated those who challenged him over fighting the zakāt-withholders until they accepted his view,