an Ashʿarī I would turn toward your qiblah—or words to that effect. But are you even a Muslim?
The situation is no different from a Qarmaṭī saying to Ahl al-Sunnah, “You hate me only because I am a Shi‘ite,” and being answered, “Had you truly been Shi‘ite we would have honored you—but are you a Muslim at all?” For those Shi‘ite statements that run counter to the Sunnah opened the door through which the Bāṭinite Qarmaṭīs entered, just as the statements of the speculative theologians—Mu‘tazilites and the Ashʿarīs who sided with them—that contradict the Sunnah opened the door through which these Jahmite atheists entered.
The atheistic discourse of certain Shi‘ites and kalām-theologians marches side by side with the atheistic discourse of the philosophers. Hence ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. Mahdī used to say, “Beware of two groups: the Rāfiḍites and the Jahmites.” For that reason, these deniers enlist the support of anyone who agrees with them in rejecting Allah’s exaltedness above His creation, in negating the textual attributes, and in other matters that contradict the Book and the Sunnah—matters into which some of the Ashʿarī mutakallimūn and others have fallen—just as those other atheists seek reinforcement from the Shi‘a.
What empowered all of these factions in their campaign of negation was the inadequacy of many who lay claim to the Sunnah. Their shortcomings appear in various ways: sometimes they do not understand the meanings of the Qur’anic and Prophetic texts; sometimes they cannot distinguish authentic reports from weak ones; and sometimes they fail to rebut what contradicts and opposes those texts—arguments the opponents like to label “rational proofs.”
It is well known that sound knowledge is attained only when its premises are correct and any objections have been answered, so that the cause is present and the impediment removed. Imām Aḥmad—may Allah have mercy on him—said, “Knowing a ḥadīth and grasping its fiqh is dearer to me than merely memorizing it.” Yet many who affiliate themselves with the Sunnah and even write on its behalf neither know the ḥadīth nor understand its meaning; rather you find