and whatever contradicts its position is, to it, unintelligible. We found that your factions, O Jahmiyyah, differ over what is rational: each faction among you claims that what it advocates is rational and whatever contradicts it is unintelligible. When we saw that we, you, and all the people of deviant inclinations differed over what is rational, and could find no clear definition of it applicable to everything, we concluded that the soundest and best-guided course was to refer all rational judgments to the command of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and to what his Companions widely recognized as rational. For revelation descended among them, so they knew its interpretation better than either we or you do. They were united upon the fundamentals of religion and did not divide over them, nor did innovations and deviant inclinations that stray from the path emerge among them.

Thus, to us, what is rational is whatever accords with their guidance, and what is unintelligible is whatever contradicts them. There is no way to know their guidance and their path except through these transmitted reports. Yet, by your own claim, you have cast them off and disavowed them. How, then, can you be guided?

Imam Ahmad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: “Praise be to Allah, who has placed in