and His Messenger by safeguarding what they had squandered of Allah’s religion and by repairing the damage they caused through negating the divine attributes.

You are likewise confronting those jurists whose knowledge never truly reached the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and who have remained frozen (1) in the rut of mere imitation of the imams. You have supported Allah and His Messenger by tracing knowledge back to its foundations in the Book and the Sunnah, taking the imams’ statements as a source of familiarity (2) with them, not as objects of blind following.

You also stand against the novelties introduced by various mendicant orders—such as the Aḥmadiyya and the Ḥarīriyya—who flaunt the emblem of whistling and clapping, socialize freely with women and children, and turn away from Allah’s religion in favor of fabricated tales about their shaykhs. They rely (3) on those shaykhs and imitate them in both the right (4) and wrong of their movements, all while neglecting the faith Allah sent down from heaven.

By Allah’s grace you strive against this group as well, just as you did against the previous ones: you have preserved of Allah’s religion what they squandered, understood what they ignored, straightened what they had bent, and restored what they had corrupted.

And you are likewise standing opposite ⦗108⦘ the ceremonial formalism of the Sufis and the jurists, and the innovations they have introduced