“The crux of the matter” is that Allah grants His servant wisdom and faith, giving him the intellect and religious commitment to understand and follow the faith. Then the light of the Book and the Sunnah suffices him without need of anything else. Yet many people have affiliated themselves with particular groups of theologians, thinking well of them to the exclusion of others and imagining that they have established truths in this field that no one else has established. Even if every sign were brought to such a person, he would not follow it until something from their statements was presented to him. Yet, despite this, they oppose their own predecessors rather than follow them.

If they embraced the guidance they find in their predecessors’ statements, one could hope that, with sincerity in seeking the truth, they would increase in guidance. Whoever accepts the truth only from a particular group, but then fails to adhere to the truth that this group has brought, bears some resemblance to the Jews of whom Allah said:

“And when it is said to them, ‘Believe in what Allah has revealed,’ they say, ‘We believe in what was revealed to us,’ and they disbelieve in what came after it, although it is the truth confirming what they have. Say, ‘Why, then, did you kill the prophets of Allah before, if you were believers?’”

For the Jews said, “We believe only in what was revealed to us.” Allah, exalted is He, said to them:

“Why, then, did you kill the prophets of Allah before, if you were believers?”

That is, if you believed in what was revealed to you. He, glorified and exalted is He, is saying: You follow neither what your own prophets brought you nor what the other prophets brought you; rather, you follow only your desires. Such is the condition of someone who accepts the truth neither from his own group nor from any other, while remaining partisan toward his group without any proof or clear evidence from Allah.

Likewise, Abū al-Ma‘ālī al-Juwaynī said in his book al-Risāla al-Nizāmiyya (The Nizāmiyya Epistle):

“Scholars have taken different approaches to these apparent meanings. Some favored interpreting them beyond their apparent meanings and adopted this approach to the verses of