His hearing, His sight, His speech, His face, and His hand; that the Quran is the Speech of Allah, uncreated; that the Exalted truly exists and that it is possible to behold Him; that His will is invariably carried out in whatever He wills (1); together with the other well-known doctrinal questions (2) that run contrary to the method (3) of the Muʿtazila and the Jahmiyya (4).

He then presented the complete discussion of the issues imputed to him—a lengthy treatment unsuited to this place. Our purpose here is merely to point out the reason they pronounced their curses, as transmitted by his own greatly respected followers.

As for Baghdad, no one there was ever cursed from the pulpits. On the contrary, the Ashʿarīs counted themselves among Imam Ahmad and the rest of Ahl al-Sunnah (5), just as al-Ashʿarī states in his book al-Ibānah (6). This is the very source on which the ḥāfiẓ Abu al-Qāsim Ibn ʿAsākir relied when describing al-Ashʿarī’s creed. He said (7)—after citing what various scholars had related concerning al-Ashʿarī’s refutation of the people of innovation, his championing of the sunnah, and the like (8)(9): “If Abu al-Hasan—may Allah have mercy on him—was, as has been reported (10) about him, of fine