some of them. Yet many people are not fully acquainted with the many statements of the early generations and the leading scholars on this subject, or with their meanings. These statements have been collected in separate works, such as the compilation by Shaykh Abū ‘Abd al-Rahmān al-Sulamī.

Another example is the extensive compilation by Shaykh Abū Ismā‘īl ‘Abd Allāh ibn Muhammad al-Ansārī, known as Shaykh al-Islām, which he entitled Dhamm al-Kalām wa-Ahlihi (The Condemnation of Speculative Theology and Its Practitioners). There is also an abundance of such material in works on transmitted reports and the Sunnah.

[Al-Ghazālī’s Discussion in the Ihyā’ of the Condemnation of Speculative Theology]

Among those who mentioned the agreement of the early generations on this matter was al-Ghazālī, in his greatest work, which he entitled Ihyā’ ‘Ulūm al-Dīn (The Revival of the Religious Sciences). He said:

“If you ask: ‘Is the discipline of dialectic and speculative theology blameworthy, like the science of the stars, or is it permissible or recommended?’—know that people have adopted extreme and excessive positions on this question.

Some say that it is an innovation and forbidden, and that it is better for a servant to meet Allah with every sin—except associating partners with Him—than to meet Him having engaged in speculative theology.

Others say that it is an obligatory duty, whether communal or individual, and that it is the noblest of deeds and the highest means of drawing near to Allah,