have set yourself apart with a privilege that even the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was not granted.(1) This is only one illustration, and—praise be to Allah—scholars have continued to censure the innovators in every age.
- The methodology of Ahl al-Sunnah wa’l-Jamāʿah in refuting the people of innovation: their entire approach is founded upon the Quran and the Sunnah. It is a persuasive method: they present the objections raised by the innovators and then dismantle them, citing the Quran and the Sunnah to prove the obligation of adhering to the Prophetic practices and forbidding innovations and newly introduced matters.
They have produced an extensive literature on the subject. In the books of creed they refuted the Shiʿah, the Khārijites, the Jahmites, the Muʿtazilites, and the Ashʿarites for their innovative positions concerning the fundamentals of faith and doctrine. They also composed specialized treatises, such as Imām Aḥmad’s Al-Radd ʿalā al-Jahmiyyah (Refutation of the Jahmites). Other leading scholars followed suit, among them ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd al-Dārimī, as likewise appears in the writings of Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, his student Ibn al-Qayyim, and Shaykh