—the seven, according to his claim, that he borrowed from al-Kawtharī—together with the commentator’s other ḥadīth-related blunders, of which I had already listed several kinds. Yet he turns around and censures me, lodging complaints with some of his senior colleagues, with officials over there, and with others, over matters which—even if his criticism were sound—can hardly be mentioned in the same breath with those, whether in sheer number or in seriousness!

So what was the reply of this bigoted, unfair man to the seven questions? The discerning reader will be amazed when I say: he gave no answer whatsoever. He remained silent with the silence of the Companions of the Cave. He did not declare that he sided with the author of “the tangible, widely recognised leadership,” nor did he state that he still clung to his Kawtharite stance. After this, who can possibly deny that this is blatant hypocrisy, or claim that he is no longer a Kawtharite—as some of his fellow pupils of al-Kawtharī called him, as I cited (p. 46 of the Introduction)—a description he himself acknowledged and did not repudiate in his Kalimāt, but rather confirmed, saying there (p. 38): “For about twenty-five years they have known that I am a disciple of al-Kawtharī; what sense does it make to say that I have only now become his disciple?”

I say: this is one of his endless lies. Which of the scholars I referred to ever said that you have only now become his disciple? The truth is simply that you have been exposed, to people who did not previously know you, by means of the notes you blackened with quotations from your shaykh al-Kawtharī and by your excessive praise of him despite his fierce hostility to ḥadīth and its people. Your rabid campaigns—vilifying us for the slightest slip you imagine, especially in that unfair report of yours where you debase one person and elevate another, though both share the same mistake—have driven us to respond to you, to lift the veil from your identity, and to set out the traits that you yourself summarised in your Kalimāt (p. 10); and I had been circumspect in