When the year (1) 705 AH arrived, an order came from Egypt that he be questioned about his creed. The judges and scholars were therefore convened for him in the council of the deputy-governor of Damascus, al-Afram.
He said, “I was asked previously about the Sunni creed (2), and I answered it in a small treatise some years ago.” He had the booklet fetched from his house; it was brought and read aloud.
They disputed with him over two or three passages, and the session grew lengthy. They adjourned and met twice more to finish the reading and to examine him thoroughly. In the end they concurred that this was a sound Salafi creed, though some of them admitted as much only grudgingly.
Meanwhile, certain Egyptians had been working against the Shaykh and had cooperated with Emir Rukn al-Din al-Shashankir (3)—who had just assumed the sultanate—so he was summoned to Egypt by express courier.
The day after his arrival, the judges and jurists assembled in the Cairo Citadel. Ibn ʿAdlān (4) rose to oppose him and lodged a charge against him before the Maliki judge Ibn Makhluf (5), claiming that
(1) In manuscripts Q and F, as well as in al-Durra, the wording is “fi sanah” (in the year).
(2) In Q, F, K and al-Durra the text reads “kuntu qad …” (I had already …); manuscripts F and K also have “muʿtaqad ahl al-sunnah” (the creed of Ahl al-Sunnah).
(3) Baybars ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Mansuri, titled Rukn al-Din, was one of the Mamluk amirs. He seized the sultanate after al-Malik al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalawun was deposed in 708 AH, but reigned for less than a year; al-Malik al-Nasir later captured him and had him strangled with a bow-string in 709 AH. See: Aʿyan al-ʿAsr, 2/71-75; Mawrid al-Latafa fiman Waliya al-Sultana wal-Khilafa, 2/59-63.
(4) Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn ʿUthman al-Kinani al-Misri al-Shafiʿi was a jurist close to al-Jashankir. He produced a (still-manuscript) commentary on al-Muzani’s Mukhtasar. He died in 749 AH at about ninety years of age. See: Aʿyan al-ʿAsr, 4/297-299; al-Durar al-Kamina, 3/333-334.
(5) Manuscript K reads “Ibn Makhluf the judge.” This refers to ʿAli ibn Makhluf ibn Nahid al-Nuwayri al-Maliki, who served as qadi and was faulted for scant learning and rash verdicts (d. 718 AH). See: Rafʿ al-Isr, 2/405-406; Aʿyan al-ʿAsr, 3/543-545. Shaykh al-Islam said of him: “He has little knowledge and religion” (Majmuʿ al-Fatawa, 3/235).