the divine attributes. This, then, is their misguidance in understanding the scholars’ position on the attributes; and a similar misguidance appears in two other respects—namely, in the kalām they adopted and in the texts transmitted from the Messenger. In all three fundamentals they distorted the doctrine of the imams just as they tampered with the very texts of the Book and the Sunnah.

Eleventh: The reason that compelled those scholars to collect these hadiths and arrange them under relevant headings was the innovation of the Jahmiyyah, who denied the import of those reports, stripped the Lord of His attributes—an approach that inescapably nullifies His very essence—and belied His Messenger, the earliest forerunners, and those who followed them with excellence, together with the books they had authored on the subject. The Jahmiyyah devised novel chapters by which they rejected what Allah had revealed to His Messenger and contradicted both the plain dictates of sound reason and the authentic transmitted evidence. Yet Allah, Exalted be He, has made it obligatory to convey what He sent His messengers with and has commanded that knowledge be made clear—sometimes by oral instruction, at other times by writing. Now, when the innovators have consigned their heresy to written works, then unless the knowledge that Allah sent with His Messenger is likewise written down, that heresy will not be exposed, full clarification and conveyance will not be achieved, and many people will remain ignorant of the knowledge and faith that Allah revealed—knowledge and faith that stand in opposition to the distorted claims of the heretics. Hence compiling what the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—mentioned and reported from his Lord is more important than compiling anything else.

Twelfth: Abu al-Maʿali and his ilk compose works of kalām whose foundations they received from the Muʿtazila and the philosophers, arranging them into chapters for which Allah has sent down no authority