, citing the Muslim scholars who transmitted their doctrine, and at other times relating their actual words on this subject, as we did in our response to the request for a fatwa.

When we sought to explain the doctrine of the early generations, we presented two methods:

First, we cited as many of their statements as were available, identifying the scholars who transmitted them through accepted chains of transmission.

Second, we identified those who transmitted the doctrine of the early generations from all the various Muslim groups: the four schools of jurisprudence, the scholars of hadith, the Sufis, and the speculative theologians, such as al-Ashʿarī and others. Thus, the doctrine of the early generations was transmitted unanimously by these groups and through mass transmission. We did not establish it merely by claiming that we were right and our opponents were wrong, as the proponents of religious innovation do.

Furthermore, the term “tajsīm” (corporealism) does not occur in the statements of any of the early generations, whether in denial or affirmation. How, then, can it be permissible to say that the doctrine of the early generations consists in denying or affirming corporealism, when neither this term nor its meaning has been reported from them?

Likewise, the term “divine oneness,” in the sense of denying any of the attributes, does not occur in the statements of any of the early generations. Nor does the term “transcendence,” in the sense of denying any of the divine attributes known from scriptural reports, occur in the statements of any of the early generations.