Some of these statements he quoted from the book by Abū ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-Barr entitled The Merit of Knowledge and Its Practitioners, and Their Duties in Transmitting and Bearing It. Abū ‘Umar was among the most knowledgeable scholars of transmitted reports and of how to distinguish sound reports from unsound ones.

[Al-Ghazālī’s discussion in the Ihyā’ of a branch of speculative theology, and Ibn Taymiyyah’s commentary on it]

Among these is the statement that Abū Hāmid also quoted from Ahmad:

“Scholars of speculative theology are heretics.”

He said:

“Mālik said: ‘Consider this: if someone more skilled in argument than he comes along, is he to abandon his religion every day for a new one?’”

He said:

“He means that the disputants’ statements counter one another.”

He also said:

“Mālik said: ‘The testimony of people of deviant inclinations and religious innovation is inadmissible.’ Some of his companions explained his statement as meaning that by ‘people of deviant inclinations’ he meant practitioners of speculative theology, whatever school they followed.”

I say: The man whom Abū Hāmid left unnamed here is Muhammad ibn Khuwayz Mindād