= Seif al-Dīn, the scholastic theologian (al-usuli al-mutakallim), one of the Imams of the Ashʿaris and author of numerous treatises in the Ashʿari school, died in 631 AH. See: Tabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya by al-Subkī, vol. 8, pp. 306–307; Shadharāt al-Dhahab by Ibn al-ʿImād, vol. 5, pp. 144–145; al-ʿAlām by al-Zarkalī, vol. 5, p. 153. (1) See al-Amīdī’s Taʿaqqub li-Ḥudūd al-Nās lil-ʿIlm in his Kitāb Abkār al-Afkār – manuscript at the Egyptian National Library (No. 1603), ʿIlm al-Kalām, part I, fols. 1–16. The first part has been edited by Dr. Aḥmad al-Mahdī Muḥammad al-Mahdī for his doctoral dissertation; I have only consulted the section pertinent to this study from the post-critical edition. (2) al-Qāḍī, one of the Ashʿari Imams, maintained that the definition (al-ḥadd) consists in the propositional statement (qawl) of the definiens, grounded in the reality (ḥaqīqah) of the defined and its attribute (ṣifah). He argued that, were the definition identical with reality, then every application of ḥadd would coincide with every application of ḥaqīqah—a consequence at odds with God, who may be called ḥaqīqah (Reality) but never ḥadd (Definition). al-Amīdī refutes this in Abkār al-Afkār (folio 17 of part I), contending that the definition is not the reality itself but something external that indicates it. (3) In both the manuscript and the published edition: “aw annahu” (or that). (4) In the autograph manuscript S reads “wa-qāla” (and he said); the printed edition’s reading, however, is the one that best suits the context. In Abkār al-Afkār, part I (folio 2), al-Amīdī writes: “... The most plausible definition is to say: knowledge (‘ilm) is the formation of a mental representation of a meaning in the soul, excluding any possibility in the soul that it might be otherwise; by ‘mental representation of a meaning’ we mean its distinction in the soul from everything else. The term ‘knowledge’ encompasses affirmation, negation, the simple and the composite, but excludes beliefs and conjectures ...” The editor of part I of Abkār al-Afkār, in the study section (p. 133), notes that after discussing the definitions of Imam al-Haramayn, al-Ghazālī, and al-Rāzī, al-Amīdī states: “And the most fitting way to define it is to say: knowledge is an attribute by which ...”