Then he—may Allah have mercy on him—set down his succinct reply, one that suited the envoy’s hurry for a swift answer (1).

He then expanded that reply from a number of angles, and the exposition thus produced became the very book we now hold in our hands (2).

[Its Title]
We encounter here a phenomenon that often appears in the writings of Shaykh al-Islam—may Allah have mercy on him—namely, that a single work may be known by more than one title, and that the Shaykh himself sometimes applies multiple names to one of his books. This presents two possibilities:

First: The Shaykh—may Allah have mercy on him—may have given more than one title to a single composition because of the variety of subjects he treats and the different methods he employs when engaging others. Hence, when he refers to a certain point during discussion that pertains to one of his works, he may cite the book under the title that foregrounds the point at hand. This is what we find in his remarks about the book Naqd al-Taʾsīs, where he said (3): “...Bayān Talbīs al-Jahmiyya fī Taʾsīs Bidaʿihim al-Kalāmiyya, and it is also called Takhlīṣ at-Talbīs min Kitāb at-Taʾsīs.”

Second: His students, having noticed this breadth in his naming of his books and epistles, may have themselves supplied multiple titles; many of those who have studied the works of Shaykh al-Islam—may Allah have mercy on him—incline to this explanation (4).

The book before us likewise bears more than one title. In the original manuscript (5)