as for the religion about which Allah has declared, “Or do they have partners who have laid down for them a religion that Allah has not authorized?” (Qur’an 42:21), that fabricated creed also comes with its own so-called fundamentals and subsidiary rulings.

Once one realizes that the label “principles of religion,” as employed by those who bandy the term about, is vague and equivocal—owing to the variety of linguistic and technical usages—it becomes plain that the principles of the religion in the sight of Allah, His Messenger, and the believers are only those that have been transmitted from the Messenger himself.

Whoever invents a religion for which Allah has given no leave must know that the foundational premises that entail such a religion cannot possibly have been conveyed by the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. The religion is false, and whatever necessarily follows from falsehood is itself false, just as whatever necessarily follows from truth is true.

This distinction also clarifies what the early generations and the leading Imams intended when they denounced speculative theology and its proponents: their censure is directed at those who rely on unsound proofs or who use proofs to support unsound doctrines. But whoever speaks the truth that Allah has sanctioned—both as ruling and as evidence—is numbered among the people of knowledge and faith. Allah speaks the truth and guides to the straight path.

Addressing people in the technical terms and language familiar to them is not blameworthy when there is a need for it and the meanings are sound—just as one may address non-Arabs such as Romans, Persians, or Turks in their own tongues and according to their conventions. When a genuine need exists, this is not only permissible but commendable.

The Imams objected to such usage only when no necessity called for it. For that reason the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, once said to Umm Khālid bint Khālid ibn Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ—who was a small child born in Abyssinia because her father had migrated there—“O Umm Khālid, this is sanā,” and sanā in the Abyssinian tongue means “beautiful,” because she