as recognized by hadith scholars, and fabricated, falsely attributed hadith. Their books bear the clearest witness to this, for they contain astonishing things. You will find that most of these speculative theologians and Sufis who depart from the way of the early generations acknowledge this, either at death or before it. The accounts of this are numerous and well known.

Take Abū al-Hasan al-Ash‘arī: he spent forty years in Mu‘tazilism, arguing in its defence. Then he renounced it, explicitly declared the Mu‘tazilites misguided, and refuted them at length.

Likewise, Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī, despite his extraordinary intelligence, devotion, knowledge of speculative theology and philosophy, and pursuit of asceticism, spiritual discipline, and Sufism, ultimately suspends judgment on these questions and remains bewildered. Towards the end, he refers people to the approach of those who practise spiritual unveiling—even if he subsequently returned to the approach of the hadith scholars and composed Iljām al-‘Awāmm ‘an ‘Ilm al-Kalām (Restraining the Common People from Speculative Theology).

Similarly, Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muhammad ibn ‘Umar al-Rāzī said in the book he composed on the categories of pleasure:

“I have reflected upon the methods of speculative theology and the approaches of philosophy, and I have not found them to heal the ailing or quench the thirsty. I have found the closest path to be the way of the Quran. For affirmation, I read:

‘The Most Merciful rose over the Throne.’

‘To Him ascends good speech, and righteous work raises it.’

And for negation, I read:

‘There is nothing like Him.’

‘And they do not encompass