Al-Dhahabi produced abridgments of several significant works on doctrine, among them al-Baʿth wa-l-Nushūr (Resurrection and Revival) and al-Qadar (Divine Decree) by al-Bayhaqi (d. 458 AH); al-Fārūq fī al-Ṣifāt (The Criterion on the Divine Attributes) by Shaykh al-Islam al-Ansari (d. 481 AH); and Minhāj al-Iʿtidāl fī Naqd Kalām Ahl al-Rafḍ wa-l-Iʿtizāl (The Balanced Path in Refuting the Arguments of the Shiʿites and the Muʿtazilites) by his companion and teacher Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728 AH).

Al-Dhahabi also left behind a number of original contributions in this field, including al-Kabāʾir wa-Bayān al-Maḥārim (Major Sins and the Clarification of Prohibitions), al-Arbaʿīn fī Ṣifāt Rabb al-ʿĀlamīn (Forty Ḥadiths on the Attributes of the Lord of the Worlds), al-ʿArsh (The Throne), and the treatise Masʾalat al-Waʿīd (The Question of Threat), among others. Perhaps the best known of these is his celebrated work al-ʿUlū lil-ʿAlī al-Ghaffār (The Transcendence of the Most-High, All-Forgiving), the largest and most widely circulated of his creedal writings. (1)

Al-Dhahabi examined matters of creed according to the methodology of the early generations among the people of hadith, so the chief material of these books—and the proofs he employed—were the noble Prophetic hadiths.

His opponents criticized him for composing some of these works and for espousing such doctrines. Shaykh Muḥammad Zāhid al-Kawtharī said about al-ʿUlū: “Had he not authored it, it would have been better for his religion and his reputation, for it contains many faults. It is well known that al-Dhahabi was Shafiʿi in the branches of law yet Hanbali in creed.” (2)

Al-Dhahabi never became famous as a jurist or a scholar of jurisprudence, even though he studied the discipline with the leading figures of his time, such as Shaykh Kamāl al-Din Ibn al-Zamlakānī, Burhān al-Din al-Fazārī, Kamāl al-Din Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba, and others. (3) Moreover, he also composed