mutual estrangement, owing to the breakdown of order. Consequently, anyone among the proponents of affirmation who wished to highlight al-Ash'arī’s merits would bring out this book, as related by the hadith scholar Abū al-Qāsim ibn 'Asākir. He said:

“I heard Shaykh Abū Bakr Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Ismā'īl al-Būshanjī, the jurist and ascetic, relate from one of his shaykhs that Imam Abū 'Uthmān Ismā'īl ibn 'Abd al-Rahmān ibn Ahmad al-Sābūnī al-Naysābūrī said: ‘He would never go out to his teaching session without having in his hand