—many individuals who were not actually Ashʿaris; indeed, some of them were famous for contradicting and opposing that school. Among those he listed (1) was Shaykh Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī.
He said:
“Those who do not understand (2) imagined that he differed with al-Ashʿarī, because in his book (3) on uṣūl al-fiqh he wrote: ‘The Ashʿarīs say that the imperative (amr) has no specific verbal form.’ This, however, is not because he rejected al-Ashʿarī’s creed; he only expressed it thus because he disagreed with him on this single issue—one in which Abū al-Ḥasan (4) stood alone.
He also said (5): ‘We have already cited in this very book (6) his (7) legal opinion concerning those who oppose the Ashʿarīs and deem them innovators (8), and that is the most conclusive (9) proof that he was himself one of them.’
He further reproduced that fatwa (10) in full; its text reads:
‘What is the judgment of the venerable masters (11), the jurist-imams—may Allah grant them success and be pleased with them—concerning a group of people who have gathered to curse the Ashʿarī faction (12) and declare them unbelievers? What is incumbent upon them in this regard…’