In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.

May Allah safeguard us and you through piety and grant us and you success in following right guidance. To proceed: You—may Allah set your affairs aright—asked me to elucidate for you a matter of the Sunnah, so that your soul might remain steadfast in holding to it and so that, by means of it, you could fend off the dubious claims and the deviations spawned by the innovations of those who have gone astray. I have therefore laid out for you a clear, luminous path, sparing neither myself nor you any sincere counsel. I began it with praise of Allah, the One who grants sound judgment and success.

All praise is due to Allah—He is the most entitled to be remembered and the most worthy to be thanked. I praise Him: the One, the Self-Sufficient, who has neither spouse nor offspring. Transcendent is He above all likeness; He has no counterpart or equal. He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing, the All-Knowing, the All-Aware, the Inaccessible, the Most High.