a reinforcement of what the people of the Sunnah and the community had always upheld, and a defense of the teachings of earlier imams: Abū Hanīfah and Sufyān al-Thawrī among the scholars of Kufa; al-Awzā'ī and others among the scholars of Syria; Mālik and al-Shāfi'ī among the scholars of the two holy cities; those who followed their path in the Hijaz and other regions; Ahmad ibn Hanbal and other hadith scholars; al-Layth ibn Sa'd and others; and Muhammad ibn Ismā'īl al-Bukhārī and Muslim ibn al-Hajjāj al-Naysābūrī, the two leading authorities among scholars of transmitted reports. Such has been the practice of the imams of this community who rose to prominence and became leading scholarly authorities among the people of the Sunnah, in earlier and later times.”

Further on, he said:

“When religious innovators became numerous in this community, abandoned the apparent meaning of the Quran and Sunnah, and denied the attributes reported of Allah Most High—such as life, power, knowledge, will, hearing, sight, and speech—and rejected what these texts indicated concerning the Ascension, punishment in the grave, the Balance, Paradise and Hell being already created, believers emerging from the fires of Hell, the Cistern and intercession granted to our Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and that the four caliphs