“Yes.”
The shaykh said, “Tell me: when Allah declared, ‘Today I have perfected your religion for you and completed My favor upon you’ (Qur’an 5:3), was He truthful in perfecting the religion, or are you truthful in claiming it is deficient until your doctrine is professed?”
Ibn Abī Duʾād fell silent. The shaykh urged, “Answer,” but he remained speechless.
The shaykh turned to the caliph and said, “Commander of the Faithful, that is the second point.”
He then asked, “Aḥmad, regarding this doctrine of yours—did the Messenger of Allah ﷺ know it or not?”
He replied, “He knew it.”
The shaykh continued, “Did he summon the people to it?”
Ibn Abī Duʾād was silent once more. The shaykh said, “Commander of the Faithful, that makes three.”
Then he added, “Aḥmad, you claim it was permissible for the Messenger of Allah to know this doctrine and yet keep silent about it, never obliging his community to uphold it?”
He answered, “Yes.”
“And it was likewise permissible for Abū Bakr and ʿUmar?”
He said, “Yes.”
The shaykh turned away and said, “Commander of the Faithful, I told you he was unequal to debate. If we are not allowed to remain silent about this matter, then may Allah deny ease to anyone for whom what sufficed them does not suffice.”
Al-Wāthiq ordered, “Very well—remove the shaykh’s shackles.”
When they were cut off, the shaykh reached for the chains to take them, but the ironsmith tried to hold on to them.
Al-Wāthiq asked, “Why are you taking them?”
He replied, “I intend to have them placed in my shroud so that tomorrow I may litigate against this wrongdoer with them.”
He wept, al-Wāthiq wept, and we all wept. The caliph then asked him to pardon him. The shaykh said, “I granted you full pardon from the very first day, in honor of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, for you are of his household.”
Al-Wāthiq said, “Stay with us; we shall benefit from you and you from us.”
He answered, “Your sending me back to my home will benefit you more. I shall return to my family and children and restrain their supplications against you, for I left them engaged in that.”
The caliph asked, “Will you accept a gift from us?”
He replied, “It is not lawful for me; I have no need of it.”
Al-Muhtadī concluded, “Thus I abandoned that doctrine, and I believe my father did so as well from that time forward.”