they shared the beliefs of many Ashʿarī theologians. These were the beliefs of Abū al-Qāsim himself, which he received from Abū Bakr ibn Fūrak and Abū Ishāq al-Isfarāyīnī.

These beliefs largely accord with the principles of the early generations and Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah, but fall short of them: they involve abandoning some of what those predecessors upheld and adding other things contrary to their teachings.

What is authentically established from the foremost masters agrees with the teachings of the early generations. This is what ought to have been presented.

For the authentic, explicit statements preserved from the foremost masters—such as al-Fudayl ibn ʿIyād, Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī, Yūsuf ibn Asbāt, Hudhayfah al-Marʿashī, and Maʿrūf al-Karkhī, down to al-Junayd ibn Muhammad, Sahl ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Tustarī, and others like them—make clear what the masters actually taught.

Several authors have compiled the statements of the masters, either in their exact wording or according to their own understanding. Thus Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn Ishāq al-Kalābādhī wrote the book An Introduction to the Doctrines of