my adversary on several grounds known to all Muslims.”

Then I said, “As for what was in my handwriting, I stand by it. As for the records, there are several grounds that discredit the witnesses named in them and preclude acceptance of their testimony by the consensus of the Muslims. Moreover, Muslims, both the elite and the common people, in Syria and elsewhere, know the opposite of what they testified to.

“Trustworthy people heard this judge, Sharaf al-Dīn Ibn al-Maqdisī, say, ‘I follow so-and-so’s creed.’ Indeed, three days before his death, I visited him, it seems, with a group of people, and he said in their presence, ‘I shall die following your creed, so-and-so. I do not follow the creed of these people’—meaning the adversaries. Likewise, Judge Shihāb al-Dīn al-Khawlī has said more than once, behind your back, ‘I follow his creed.’ Regarding Judge Imām al-Dīn, there is testimony involving trustworthy witnesses that he said, ‘Nothing objectionable has appeared in his statements, and anyone who speaks against him I shall punish.’”

During our discussion, he said to me, “Some of the judges have said that they removed you from the teaching chair.”

I replied, “This is among the most blatant lies, as everyone knows. I have never been removed from the teaching chair. No one has ever asked me to repent of anything or to retract anything. I also said: You have received the record bearing the signatures of the shaykhs of Syria and the leading figures of Islam, and the document containing the statements of the judges who are my adversaries, such as Jamāl al-Dīn al-Mālikī and Jalāl al-Dīn al-Hanafī, including what they stated in it that contradicts