the conclusion. The same kind of error that has befallen Qur’anic exegesis has likewise occurred in the interpretation of hadith. Those who slip in both their proofs and their conclusions include sectarian groups that have adopted doctrines contradicting the truth held by the balanced community—those who never concur upon misguidance, namely the early generations of this ummah and its leading imams. Such groups approached the Qur’an and construed it according to their own opinions: at times they cite verses in support of their position when the verses offer no such support, and at other times they reinterpret passages that run counter to their views by wrenching the words from their proper contexts. Among these are the factions of the Khārijites, Rāfiḍites, Jahmites, Muʿtazilites, Qadarites, Murjiʾites, and others besides them.

Take the Muʿtazilites, for example. They are among the most loquacious and argumentative of people, and they have produced commentaries grounded in the principles of their school—such as the exegesis of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Kaysān al-Aṣamm, the teacher of Ibrāhīm ibn Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUlayyah who debated al-Shāfiʿī; the work of Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī; the Grand Commentary by Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn Aḥmad al-Hamadānī; the commentary of ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā al-Rummānī; and al-Kashshāf by Abū al-Qāsim al-Zamakhsharī. All of these writers, and others like them, embraced Muʿtazilite doctrine.

The Muʿtazilites distill their creed into five foundational principles that they themselves name: monotheism, justice, the intermediate position, the execution of the threatened punishment, and commanding right and forbidding wrong.

Their notion of monotheism, however, is identical to that of the Jahmites, the gist of which is to deny the divine attributes and more besides. They assert that God will not be seen, that the Qur’an is created, and that He