concerning them, accounts of the caliphs’ persistent efforts against them, the pressure brought to bear upon them by the general body of Ahl al-Sunnah, and the Muslims’ consensus on excluding them from the faith.

Isolation weighed heavily upon them, their humiliation dragged on, and they could devise no expedient other than to profess disagreement with their predecessors and refute them. They gave their discourse a coloring more readily intelligible and more effective among ordinary people than their predecessors’ foundational teachings, seeking thereby to gain acceptance and escape the disgrace of public opprobrium. Thus they produced deceptive contrivances whose outward appearance differed from what they concealed within. A discerning observer who examines their roots sees the pith of philosophy clothed in the bark of the Sunnah, and the tenets of the Jahmiyyah adorned with the titles of wisdom.

They refute the Jews’ statement:

“Allah’s Hand is shackled.” [al-Mā’idah 64]

Yet they deny both the shackles and the Hand, and thus fare worse than the Jews. For Allah, glorified is He, affirmed the attribute and denied the defect, whereas the Jews