of spite and self-indulgent gratification. For he cites the letter of Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī to the vizier, written to rectify the matter, in which he said (1):

“Furthermore, the Sultan—may Allah exalt his victory (2) and direct his lofty resolve toward championing the religion of Allah and suppressing the enemies of Allah—after his sound creed had become evident to everyone, ordered the preachers of his dominion to pronounce the curse upon whoever deserved to be cursed from among the people of innovation (3) on account of his innovation. The deviants thereupon despaired of their deviation from the truth and their departure from the path of rectitude, so they whispered into his ear something that would harm all of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah and bring a general calamity upon them—the Ḥanafīs, Mālikīs, and Shāfiʿīs who neither follow the Muʿtazilīs in negating the divine attributes nor tread the anthropomorphic path of the Mujassimah, in the east and the west—so that they might console themselves (4) by sharing with them in this injury for the pain they feel from the cursing and suppression in this victorious state.”

He recorded the remainder of the letter (5), clarifying that they are part of Ahl al-Sunnah and addressing the need to prevent their inclusion in the curse.

Abū al-Qāsim Ibn ʿAsākir (6) said: “The spread of the ordeal that Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī mentioned, and the rekindling (7) of the turmoil he sought to extinguish in his letter, stemmed from the previous vilification of the party of Abū (8) al-Hasan al-Ashʿarī during the reign of Sultan Ṭughril Beg and the vizierate of Abū Naṣr Manṣūr ibn Muḥammad al-Kundarī, while the Sultan…"