He further said: The Companions spoke with one voice, without the slightest divergence, and they are the very people we have been commanded to take from. By God’s grace they never differed over the rulings of monotheism or the fundamentals of the religion—the divine names and attributes—though they did disagree about subsidiary matters. Had any dispute arisen among them in this regard, it would have reached us just as every other disagreement has reached us. Thus the authenticity of this creed was firmly established among both their scholars and their laymen, and they passed it on to the Successors who followed them with excellence. The well-known scholars then confirmed it and relayed it generation after generation, for they considered disagreement about the foundations to be disbelief. And to God belongs all favor.

I therefore declare—and by God I declare—that when innovations were introduced into the rulings of monotheism and the discourse on the divine names and attributes, departing from the path of the early Companions and Successors, people who had no expertise in the knowledge of transmitted reports plunged into the subject and failed to grasp their words concerning