that (1) a keen-edged sword (2) was unsheathed to uproot them; they were made to taste humiliation and abasement, and their traces were completely erased. The breasts (3) of the people of innovation constricted at having to bear these scourges, and their patience ran out in the face of such pain. They were (4) driven to curse themselves aloud before the assembled witnesses, and, though the earth is vast, it became too narrow for them as they found themselves alone, plunging into the abyss of their ordeal (5). Their souls then enticed them to hatch a plot: they imagined that by some cloak of deception or a dose (6) of fraud they could turn their hardship into ease. Accordingly, they hurried to the lofty court of the Sultan (7) with tale-bearing, attributing to al-Ashʿarī disgraceful doctrines and recounting statements of which not a single letter exists in his books. In none (8) of the theological works—by supporters or opponents—compiled from earliest times down to our own have we found any mention or description of such views; rather, the whole affair is mere fabrication (9) and patent slander (10) without a shred of proof.

They found no fault with al-Ashʿarī except that he affirmed that destiny (qadar)—its good and its evil, its benefit and its harm—belongs to Allah, and that he upheld the majestic attributes of Allah: His power, knowledge, will, life, and everlastingness.