and the Hanafīs and others. Some maintained that they were adherents of innovation and should therefore be cursed, while others maintained that they were not adherents of innovation and should not be cursed.

Ibn Fūrak underwent an ordeal in Isfahan and debated Ibn al-Haysam in the presence of this Sultan Mahmūd. The sultan loved Islam and the Sunnah, sought victory through Islam, and was well versed in it. He fought the polytheists of India and conquered India. It is reported that he killed ten thousand heretics. Among the accounts related by Maymūn al-Nasafī al-Hanafī in