and the mongrel offspring of the Jews, the Christians, and the philosophers arrive, setting out for the ummah the sound creed that every morally accountable person—or at least every distinguished believer—is obliged to adopt.

If, in truth, the doctrine propounded by these pretentious speculative theologians were the creed that must be held, and if, to ascertain it, people were referred to nothing but their bare intellects—so that, following the dictates of their rational syllogisms, they would dismiss whatever the Qur’an and Sunnah state, explicitly or implicitly—then leaving mankind without any Book or Sunnah would, on that assumption, have been more rightly guided and more beneficial for them. In fact, the very existence of the Book and the Sunnah would, under such a premise, constitute sheer harm at the very root of the religion.