shrink from stating them openly; the substance of these claims is nevertheless an inescapable consequence of their views. They rejected following others without independent inquiry, thereby declaring their fathers, mothers, spouses, and ordinary Muslims unbelievers. They made inquiry into speculative theology obligatory and claimed that religion could not do without it, thereby declaring the early generations unbelievers. They called affirmation assimilation, thus impugning the Quran and declaring the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, misguided.

You can scarcely find among them a man who is scrupulously pious, honors the Sharia, respects the Quran, or reveres hadith. They have been stripped of mindfulness of Allah, tenderness of heart, the blessing of worship, and the dignity of humble devotion. They have set the Messenger aside. Look at such a man: he neither seeks out the traditions transmitted from the Messenger nor pursues reports about him; he does not draw his foundations from his Sunnah, nor does he desire to follow his example. He assumes the rank of a scholar without knowing a single hadith. You see him mocking religion, devising comparisons to ridicule it, making sport of the people of the Sunnah, and excluding them altogether from the ranks of the learned. You can never probe their inner character without finding treachery, nor their creed without finding cause for suspicion. They have been clothed in the darkness of