As for safeguarding the beliefs of ordinary people, the response is as follows:

First, what is safeguarded must be precisely what the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, is established to have conveyed to his community. If, however, what is being safeguarded includes both what agrees with the Messenger’s teachings and what contradicts them, distinguishing between the two before safeguarding it takes precedence over defending what contradicts his teachings. For believers’ need to know what the Messenger said and conveyed to them—so that they may affirm its truth, reject its opposite, and believe what it entails—comes before their need to defend it and refute those who oppose it. Thus, if a speculative theologian who claims to defend the sunnah has himself rejected much of what the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, conveyed and has believed its opposite, then, wherever he contradicts the Messenger’s teachings, he is an innovator who upholds and speaks falsehood. Likewise, wherever he agrees with the Messenger’s teachings, he follows the sunnah, is correct, and speaks the truth.

The discourse of every speculative theologian condemned by the early generations contains contradictions of the sunnah and rejection of some of what the Messenger conveyed. These include the Jahmiyyah, the Mushabbihah, the Khawārij, the Rāfidah, the Qadariyyah, and the Murji’ah.

It must also be said that the sunnah must be safeguarded through truth, honesty, and justice, not through lies or injustice. If someone counters falsehood with falsehood and opposes innovation with innovation, this is among the things condemned by the early generations and the imams.