Then you go on (1) to claim: “Muhammad was not taken up to Allah, for Allah is not above the heavens.” Thus you repudiate what the early generations unanimously affirmed and uphold what they disputed—matters that none of them ever voiced. By reducing the miʿrāj to a dream, the Muʿtazilites are actually closer to the Salaf and the Sunnah (2) than you are, for you allege that he saw Him with his very eyes on the night of the ascent, while simultaneously declaring (3) that there is no Lord above the heavens to whom one may ascend. In this negation you (4) and the Muʿtazilites are partners (5); your only distinction lies in asserting that he saw Him with his eyes—something not reliably established from any of the Salaf—whereas they distinguish themselves by saying the ascent occurred in a dream, a view reported from a number of the early scholars, albeit through weak chains of transmission. Yet you then present yourselves to the Muslims as opponents of the Muʿtazilites on the issues of the Vision and the Qur’an, aligning yourselves with Ahl al-Sunnah in openly declaring that Allah will be seen in the Hereafter and that the Qur’an is the uncreated Speech of Allah. The doctrine that Allah will not be seen in the Hereafter and that the Qur’an is created (6) is one of the ancient innovations spread by the Jahmiyyah among the Muʿtazilites and others in the age of the Imams, to the point that they put Imam Ahmad and others to trial over it (7); yet you (8) have agreed with the Muʿtazilites on