“Allah truly spoke the Quran” is an unbeliever. Whoever says, “Allah is above the heavens,” is an unbeliever. Whoever believes in divine decree and predestination and says that Allah guides whom He wills and leads astray whom He wills, that Allah turns the hearts of His servants, and that Allah is the Creator of all things is, in their view, an unbeliever. They also regard anyone who believes in the reality of Allah’s names and attributes, which He has made known in His Book and through His Messenger, as an unbeliever.

This is the doctrine their leaders teach them, such as the Banū al-ʿŪd, who are the religious leaders of the people of this mountain. They were the ones who ordered them to fight the Muslims and issued religious rulings endorsing these matters. A number of their books, written by Ibn al-ʿŪd and others, have come into Muslim hands. They contain these things and worse. They themselves admitted to us that they were the ones who had taught and commanded these people. Yet despite this, they engage in dissimulation and hypocrisy, and seek favor by giving money to anyone willing to accept it from them.

Such has been the customary practice of these mountain people. They were only able to remain in their mountain because of the hypocrisy they displayed and the bribes they paid to those who came against them. Their stronghold is exceedingly difficult to reach. Those familiar with such terrain stated that they had never seen anything like it. Thus their wrongdoing multiplied: they killed so many people and seized so much wealth that Allah alone knows its extent.