(9) Editions of the Book

The first edition was edited by Dr. ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Dukhayl Allāh—may Allah reward him well—and printed by Dār al-ʿĀṣimah in Riyadh in four volumes. It appeared in its first printing in 1408 AH and was originally a doctoral dissertation submitted to the College of Fundamentals of Religion at Imām Muḥammad ibn Saʿūd Islamic University under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Muḥammad Rashād Sālim.

It is a sound edition in which the respected editor expended great effort to establish the text, correct it, restore what had fallen out, introduce the work, and index its contents. He is also to be thanked for being the first to publish the extant portion of the book in full, though he may be reproached for seldom consulting the abridgment at points of difficulty.

People have benefited from this edition for more than thirty years. It was the copy before me while I worked, and I drew on it extensively—though I also differed with its editor on many occasions.

Despite its quality, the edition is not free of misreadings, omissions, and other flaws, especially in the indices. The largest omission occurs in (4/1258), midway through the tenth line, where eight lines dropped out before the words, “and there is no criterion for any one of you.” The missing passage is as follows:

“If you say that reason contradicts all transmitted texts, this would be the utmost form of disbelief, atheism, and godlessness. And if you say that the contradiction lies between reason and some transmitted texts but not others, you will be asked: Which portion of the transmitted material does reason contradict, what is its type and description, and in which field does it belong? If you respond, ‘Whatever conflicts with the plain dictates of reason,’ this is a circular, unrestricted definition whose result is that whenever reason contradicts what contradicts reason, reason must be preferred—and that is sheer delirium.”