, and their seasoned experience—for they warned against kalām(1), forbade it, denounced its followers and reproached them. He also realised that whoever seeks guidance apart from the Book and the Sunnah only grows more distant.(2) We therefore ask Allah the Mighty to guide us to the Straight Path, the path of those upon whom He has bestowed His favour, not of those who incur wrath nor of those who go astray. Āmīn.

This is the end of al-Ḥamawiyyah al-Kubrá. It comprises six(3) fascicles in the half-baladī format. The Shaykh—may Allah have mercy on him—composed it before the year 700 AH, when he was still under forty. Thereafter doors opened for him to refute the philosophers, the Jahmites and every faction of appetite and innovation, in a manner that defies description. He engaged in astonishing debates and subtle inquiries, in his books and beyond, with contemporaries and others, across every branch of knowledge—matters for which words are too narrow.

We have already quoted Ibn az-Zamlakānī as saying: “It is not known that he ever debated anyone and failed to overcome him.”(4)