By Allah, it truly pleases and delights me to see you sincere in this declaration in which you repudiate the figurative reinterpretation (taʾwīl) to which your teacher al-Kawtharī had committed himself—a course that led him to depart from the Salafi path completely. Indeed, it drove him to impugn the creed of the Salaf and to twist their words whenever they clashed with his own school in the verses and ḥadiths dealing with the divine attributes. And why would he refrain from reinterpreting their words when he had already reinterpreted the words of Allah and His Messenger ﷺ?

I do not find it unlikely that this candor of yours—your break with al-Kawtharī’s taʾwīl—stems from your association with the Najdi scholars, who today are among the most knowledgeable people regarding this Salafi creed.

Yet something of great—and even greater—importance still remains: that your belief in the creed of the Salaf be genuine, stripped not only of taʾwīl but of tafwīḍ as well. I am convinced you are still far from such belief. Had you truly embraced it, you would have hastened to answer the seven questions mentioned earlier—most of which center on the Salafi creed. In that case, your rejection of taʾwīl would be of real value; as it stands, it is not, for you have not accepted its necessary counterpart: affirming His attributes in reality, in a manner befitting His Majesty.

Thus your statement, “I hold to their creed concerning the Names and Attributes,” is either of the sort, “they say with their tongues what is not in their hearts” (Q 48:11), or like the hypocrite’s reply when he is asked in the grave about the Prophet ﷺ: “I do not know; I only used to say what the people said.” You merely heard the monotheist scholars of Najd denounce taʾwīl, so you echoed their words without understanding what it entails—namely, true faith in the divine attributes.