and the Nestorians, followers of Nestorius (3), put forward yet another interpretation; after them the Melkites—so called because they followed the creed of the emperor—offered something different again, whereupon the religion waned, sliding out of their grasp as effortlessly as a hair drawn from dough.

If you were to examine their interpretations, by Allah you would find them cut from the same cloth as the hermeneutics of the Jahmiyyah, the Rāfiḍah, and the Muʿtazilah; you would see that they all drink from a single lamp. Were it not for fear of undue length, we would have cited for you (2) those very glosses so that it might be clear that they and the distorters within this ummah are—

Two infants nursing the same mother’s milk,
Pledging in the pitch-black night never to part (3).

Indeed, were you to read their exegesis of the Torah—its narratives, commands, and prohibitions—you would conclude that the people of false interpretation in this community have merely borrowed their methods from them, and you would marvel at the likeness of their hearts, one hoof-print falling exactly upon another, one notion matching the next. “The affairs of the Children of Israel remained upright until the muwalladūn, the sons of women captured from other nations (4), became numerous among them; they coined their own opinions and turned the weapon of interpretation against the texts of the Torah, so they strayed and led others astray.” (5)