They said:

“What you have mentioned is countered by the case of the call to prayer and the call announcing its commencement. These were performed five times each day during the Prophet’s lifetime—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—yet disagreement arose over how they were performed. The same applies to reciting the basmala (the invocation of Allah’s name) aloud and to the qunūt supplication in the dawn prayer. The Farewell Pilgrimage was among the greatest events of his life, yet accounts of it differ.”

They cited similar matters that had occasioned uncertainty and dispute among some people, presenting them as counterarguments to what has already been established. Their purpose was to allow for the possibility that some matters of religion were not transmitted, but were instead concealed to serve personal desires and ulterior motives.

As for scholarly judgment and disagreement, differences among scholars concerning the manner of performing acts of worship—and indeed other religious matters—have become a source of doubt for many followers of their own desires, including the Rāfida and others. They said:

“Allah’s religion is one, and the truth cannot lie on two opposing sides:

‘Had it been from anyone other than Allah, they would have found in it much contradiction.’

This division and disagreement therefore prove that the truth is absent from the teachings of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿa.”

They refer to them by various labels: sometimes ‘the majority,’ sometimes ‘the Hashwiyya,’ and sometimes ‘the common people.’ Having treated this disagreement as precluding the truth from being found in the teachings of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿa, the followers of their own desires each came to adopt one of Satan’s paths.