In the first days of the latter half of the aforementioned month (1) the two envoys came to me with a document that had been drafted for them by the judges’ designated arbitrator (2), Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali ibn Makhluf al-Maliki (3). The paper was lengthy; I asked them for a copy, but they refused. When I examined it, I found it had been fabricated against me except for a single statement (4): that Allah is truly above the Throne and that His speech consists of letter and sound subsisting in His Essence, without modality and without likening Him to creation (5).
I said: [This is neither in my words nor] (6) in anything written in my own hand. He addressed me in an extended discourse recorded elsewhere. Regretting that document, they composed this replacement.
So I declared, “I will not appear before someone who judges my case by the law of pagan ignorance, by something other than what Allah has revealed, and who would treat me in a manner the Jews and the Christians themselves would deem unlawful.”
(1) The text between the angle brackets represents an addition in manuscripts S and T; in the original it is blank.
(2) In the right margin of S appears “al-Qāḍī Ibn Mukhlīf al-Maliki.” He is ‘Alī ibn Mukhlīf ibn Nāḥiḍ ibn Muslim al-Nuwairī (Abū al-Ḥasan), of the Maliki school, born in 634 AH and died in 718 AH. See: al-Wafī bi’l-Wafayāt by al-Ṣafadī, vol. 20, p. 189; al-Bidāya wa’l-Nihāya by Ibn Kathīr, vol. 14, p. 78; al-Durar al-Kāmina by Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, vol. 31, p. 203; Shadharāt al-Dhahab by Ibn al-ʿImād, vol. 6, p. 49.
(3) In manuscript S the passage between the angle brackets is originally blank for about half a line. In T the text is continuous, but the blank is indicated by the letter t. The reading I have supplied appears to fit the context.
(4) In S the text between the angle brackets is originally blank for about half a line; in T it is marked by the letter z. The version I have supplied seems appropriate. See Majmu‘ al-Fatawa, 2:217.
(5) In S the passage between the angle brackets is originally blank for about half a line, whereas in T it extends to about one line and is marked by the letter z. The reading I have supplied appears to suit the context. See Majmu‘ al-Fatawa, 2:217.
(6) In S the material between the angle brackets is originally blank for approximately half a line. In T the text is continuous, with the blank indicated by the letter z. The version I have supplied seems to suit the context.