before the Sharia.

The session concluded with an agreement that they would remove their iron collars (1), and that anyone who departed from the Qur’an and the Sunnah would have his neck struck (2). The emirs, dignitaries, and notables of the state who were present committed this statement to memory.

After this incident the Shaykh wrote a brief treatise on the Ahmadiyya—discussing their present condition and beginnings, the foundation of their path (3), their shaykh, and the elements of good and evil that exist within their way—setting the matter out plainly.

[A summary of the Shaykh’s ordeal over the Ḥamawiyya and what befell him in Egypt]

Al-Dhahabi, in the course of his biographical entry on the Shaykh (4), said: “When he authored The Hamawiyya Question on the divine attributes in 698 AH, factions rallied against him, and matters reached the point that they paraded it (5) on the tip of a lance at the instigation of the Hanafi judge, while proclaiming that no one was to seek legal opinions from him. Later, another group rose to defend him, and Allah granted safety.”