on that basis with anyone who rejected it.” He said:

“He told me this directly, face to face, and said, ‘This is my position, and I subscribe to it.’”

If it is objected, “But Ibn Fūrak and his followers did not mention this,” the reply is that there are two reasons:

First, he composed this book and similar works in Baghdad toward the end of his life, when his understanding of the Sunnah had deepened. Perhaps he did not state as explicitly in some of his earlier books what he stated in this and similar works, though he did not deny in those earlier books what he affirmed here in his later writings. There is a distinction between not affirming something, affirming it, and affirming its absence.

In his account of al-Ash‘arī, Ibn Fūrak mentioned the works he had composed before that time, saying:

“Shaykh Abū al-Hasan ‘Alī ibn Ismā‘īl al-Ash‘arī turned away from the doctrines of the Mu‘tazilites to defend the doctrines of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamā‘ah through rational arguments, and wrote books on this subject. He was from Basra and a descendant of Abū Mūsā al-Ash‘arī. When Allah enabled him to abandon his former adherence to the innovations of