Abū al-Muẓaffar Yūsuf, the grandson of Ibn al-Jawzī, says in his book “Riyāḍ al-Afhām” on the merits of the Prophet’s Household:

Abū Ḥāmid states in his work “Sirr al-ʿĀlamayn wa-Kashf mā fī ʾl-Dārayn” that, concerning the ḥadīth, “Whoever regards me as his mawlā, ʿAlī is his mawlā (1),” ʿUmar said to ʿAlī: “Bravo, bravo! You have become the mawlā of every believing man and woman.”

Abū Ḥāmid adds: “This is a clear acknowledgement and approval; yet afterward passion—for leadership, the unfurling of banners, and the authority to command and forbid in the matter of the caliphate—overcame him. They therefore opposed him, cast the truth behind their backs, and sold it for a paltry price—how evil is that for which they barter!” He then strings together much more of this feeble discourse that the Imāmiyya allege, and I do not know what excuse he could have. The apparent conclusion is that he later retracted it and followed the truth, for the man is an ocean of learning—Allah knows best.

Unless, that is, someone forged the book—which is by no means unlikely—for it contains afflictions beyond cure. At the beginning of the work he writes that Muḥammad b. Tūmarth of the Maghrib read it with him in secret at the Niẓāmiyya and that he detected in him a longing for kingship.

I say: The same author composed “al-Tahāfut” to censure the philosophers and expose their flaws, yet he agreed with them at certain points, thinking those points true or consonant with the religion, even though he had no knowledge of the transmitted reports and no expertise in the Prophetic sunnah that overrules the intellect. He became enamored of constant study of the “Epistles of the Brethren of Purity”—a chronic disease, a ruinous mange, a lethal poison. Had Abū Ḥāmid not been among the most intelligent and the most sincere, he would have perished.

So beware—beware of these books, and flee with your religion from the ambiguities of the early thinkers, otherwise