So look at the copy that is in your possession; another copy of it had already been brought to me. I said, “Take this copy—it is (1) my creed. Whoever objects (2) to any part of it should write down what he objects to, together with his evidence, so that I may record my reply.” They took the creed and left. They later returned with a sheet on which nothing of any objection to my words appeared; instead, they had composed a statement of their own demands. The envoy reported that they wrote one sheet, then another (3), tore them up, and finally produced this one, which reads as follows (4):

(5) “What is required of him to believe is that he must deny for Allah any direction or spatial confinement; that he must not say that the speech of Allah is letter and sound subsisting in Him, but rather a meaning inherent in His Essence; that—glorified be He—He is not to be pointed at with the fingers in any physical gesture; and that he (6) must refrain from bringing up the hadiths and verses concerning the Divine attributes in the presence of the common folk, and from writing about them to other lands or including them in fatwas related to them.”

When he showed me the sheet (7), I wrote my answer on it forthwith, even though the envoy was urging haste:

“As for the statement, ‘What is required of him to believe is that he must deny direction for Allah and spatial confinement,’ my words contain no affirmation of this (8) expression, for to employ such language…"