al-Hārith retracted that position. Reports concerning several others likewise indicate that they retracted it. It has also been reported that al-Sibghī and al-Thaqafī were called upon to repent, and that they did so.

Groups among the followers of Ahmad, Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, Abū Hanīfah, and others agreed with al-Ashʿarī on these principles. Some subsequently recognized the error and abandoned it, while others remained confused about it, just as many Muslims have been confused about other matters. Allah forgives those who strive to discern what is correct from the Quran and Sunnah, using their intellect and whatever ability they possess, even if they err in some of these matters.

The point is that none of those associated with the Sunnah—even those affected by some religious innovation—claimed that sound reason contradicts what the Quran and Sunnah indicate. Rather, the Muslim community regarded everyone who made such a claim as an adherent of misleading innovations. Still less could anyone claim that the rational grounds by which the Messenger’s truthfulness is known contradict what the Quran and Sunnah indicate. Such a statement opens the door to heresy and deviation for its proponent, drawing him away from consistently maintaining his position and into the utmost ignorance, misguidance, disbelief, and deviation. If he does not pursue his position consistently, however, it reveals contradictions and unsoundness that neither the people of monotheism, truth, and faith nor any other group of people would endorse.

This was how al-Ashʿarī was described by all those associated with the people of the Sunnah and the community who supported and loved him, as in the letter Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī wrote to one of the rulers following the events in Khurāsān involving the cursing of adherents of religious innovation, when some