the publisher was making the necessary preparations to print it, when I came across it by Allah’s grace and bounty. I at once forwarded it to him, after revising it and preparing it for the second edition.

Because the composition of that treatise, at the time, was shaped by particular circumstances and specific considerations, wisdom required that its style differ from the purely academic tone that prevails in all my other works, noted for their calm investigation and solid argumentation. The treatise was, in fact, a reply to people who found our call to the Qur’an and the Sunnah—upon the way of the righteous predecessors and the path of the four Imams and those who followed them with excellence—distasteful. They were the first to write against us; had their response been a calm, scholarly one, I would have met it with something even finer. But, regrettably, it was nothing of the sort. It contained no real research, being instead replete with abuse, invective, and fabricated accusations unheard of before. Therefore, at that time we did not consider it wise to remain silent and let them circulate their pamphlets among the people without there being