they bring the dead to life with the Book of Allah, and by the light of Allah they give sight to those who were blind. How many a victim of Satan have they revived, and how many a lost wanderer have they guided! How excellent is their impact upon the people, and how regrettable is the people’s impact upon them. They repel from the Book of Allah the distortions of the extremists, the fabrications of the falsifiers, and the interpretations of the ignorant—those who have hoisted the banners of innovation and unleashed the reins of turmoil. Such people disagree about the Book, oppose the Book, and agree only on abandoning the Book. They speak about Allah, concerning Allah, and regarding the Book of Allah without knowledge; they traffic in ambiguous discourse and beguile the uninformed by casting deceptive semblances before them. So we seek refuge in Allah from the tribulations of those who lead astray.” End of quote.

Among the early imams who propagated the pristine Salafi creed and fought the corrupt and stagnant desires was Imam Harb ibn Ismaʿil al-Kirmani, the companion and disciple of Imam Ahmad. He authored this great creed, embedding within it the points upon which the predecessors of the ummah had unanimous agreement and to which the leading scholars assented regarding the fundamentals of religion.

Imam Harb al-Kirmani incorporated this creed into his book Masaʾil al-Imam Ahmad wa Ishaq ibn Rahwayh, under the heading “Chapter: The Statement of the Madhhab,” in which he set out the doctrine of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamaʿah, drawn from the imams of Islam such as Imam Ahmad, Ishaq ibn Rahwayh, ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Zubayr al-Humaydi, Saʿid ibn Mansur, and others among the scholars of Iraq, the Hijaz, and Syria.

This chapter thus stands as a narration of the consensus of the early generations concerning what a person is required to believe