their impulses, while their eagerness to persist in that belief grows stronger. Yet this persistence results from the partisanship stirred up by disputation.”

I say:

The harm he mentioned is of two kinds. The first concerns knowledge: drawing attention to specious arguments for falsehood that weaken belief in the truth and lead to falsehood.

The second concerns intention: stirring up desires, zealotry and partisanship that prompt people to persist even in falsehood, lest Satan prevail.

He said:

“As for its benefit, one might suppose that it serves to uncover realities and know them as they truly are. Far from it! Speculative theology cannot fulfil this noble aim. If you hear this from a hadith scholar or a Hashwī, you may think that people are enemies of what they do not know.

“So hear this from someone who thoroughly studied speculative theology and then came to detest it after gaining genuine experience of it and delving into it to the highest level attained by its practitioners. He went beyond that to explore other sciences in depth and became certain that this route to knowledge of reality is closed.”

He said: “By my life, speculative theology is not without some disclosure and elucidation