the Foremost Imams, as a Binding Argument against the People of Innovation and Idle Speculation. In it, he mentioned the twelve imams followed in matters of knowledge, namely al-Shāfi‘ī, Mālik, Sufyān al-Thawrī, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Bukhārī, Sufyān ibn ‘Uyaynah, ‘Abd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak, al-Awzā‘ī, and al-Layth ibn