the community that the Muʿtazilite doctrine was corrupt and hearts grew averse to them, you began to display a rebuttal of them in certain places while, in truth, you are either close to them or in full agreement with them. They styled themselves the People of Monotheism because they believe that tawḥīd is the denial of the divine attributes; and you concurred with them in calling yourselves the People of Monotheism and made the negation of some attributes part of monotheism. They also named the unsound dialectical arguments they had invented—whether in their rulings or in their proofs—“the fundamentals of the religion,” and you joined them in that. (1)
The censure of the salaf and the imams for this kalām is well known; indeed, anyone who knows the religion of Islam and what Allah sent His Prophet with—peace and the most excellent blessings be upon him—realizes how much it contradicts the Books of Allah, His prophets, and His messengers. Elsewhere we have elaborated on the invalidity of these foundations (2) and have clarified that the indication (3) of the Quran and the Sunnah, which they term the indication of revelation, is not mere reportage as you and they suppose. You reduced what revelation indicates to a report whose probative force depends on affirming the truthfulness of the reporter, (4) and then you made that affirmation—the verification of the Messenger—contingent upon these foundations that you and they have called the rational principles, (5) among which they placed the negation (6)