Among Allah’s established ways is that, whenever He wills to make His religion manifest, He raises up someone to oppose it (1); through His words He vindicates the truth, hurling it against falsehood so that it crushes it—whereupon falsehood vanishes.

What the party of Satan attempted was not merely to contravene the law of Muhammad ﷺ; rather, it was an assault on the religion of all the messengers—Abraham, Moses, Jesus the Messiah, and Muhammad, the Seal of the prophets, peace be upon them all.

They had labored to ensure that no statement or writing from the party of Allah and His Messenger should appear, and they were alarmed at the publication (2) of al-Ikhnāʾiyya. Yet Allah, exalted is He, used them so that they publicized many times more than that, and far greater. He compelled them to search [ق 131] and examine it. Their purpose was to expose its defects and extract proofs against it, but they found in it only that which was proof against themselves. Their ignorance, falsehood, and impotence became evident, and news of this spread (3) throughout the land—something that none but Allah could bring about. They could not uncover against us any fault in the Sacred Law or the faith; the most (4) they could say was that the decree of some created being had been violated. Yet any creature—whoever he may be—when he opposes the command of Allah and His Messenger, is not to be heeded; indeed (5), it is impermissible, by consensus of the Muslims, to obey him in disobeying Allah and His Messenger.

As for the claim, “He is spreading innovations,” its falsity is obvious to anyone with insight, who knows that the reality is the very opposite. For the one who propagates innovation does so either owing to his lack of knowledge