and whose patrons repudiate it; and whatever has been hidden from you should no longer remain so (1): the Qur’an proclaims it explicitly (2) in the kuttāb schools, and it is chanted aloud from the miḥrābs. The ḥadīth of the Chosen One—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—is recited in the great mosques and listened to in the public gatherings; journeys are undertaken for it, and it is followed across the open plains. The jurists, beneath their skull-caps (3), speak of it plainly in their assemblies, whereas kalām whispered in secrecy is smuggled into the corners. It has already (4) draped its adherents in humiliation (5) and wrapped them (6) in its injustice: they are pelted with disdainful glances (7) and expelled by the ḥuffāẓ; their own children revile them, and their close friends disown them (8)(9). Muslims curse them, and even among Muslims they hurl curses at one another.

Thereafter, during the caliphate of al-Qāʾim, in the Seljuk dominion of Ṭughril Beg and his kinsmen, the innovators were likewise cursed from the pulpits. Abū al-Qāsim Ibn ʿAsākir relates that his vizier (10) was a Muʿtazilī Rāfiḍī, and that he included the Ashʿarīs among them with the intent