affirming Allah’s oneness and detachment. I have previously written in “The Principles” about the deviations in the paths of those devoted to speculative theology and rational inquiry, and those devoted to spiritual aspiration and practice, when these are not accompanied by following the Messenger. Likewise, I explained in “a lengthy treatise” that the foundation of knowledge, guidance, and religion is faith in Allah and His Messenger, and maintaining that faith throughout all one’s words and states.

The people of Medina were closer to the right path in word and deed than either group, for they did not deviate as the two groups among the Kufans and Basrans did in their inclinations, transmitted reports, opinions, speculative theology, and devotional listening. Although some of them displayed a degree of deviation, they were nevertheless closer to the right path.

As for the people of Syria, most were engaged in jihad and devoted to acts of the heart, closer to the religiously prescribed spiritual state than the Basran Sufis of that time. Thus, one finds that books on “speculative theology and Sufism” originally emerged from Basra.

The leading Muʿtazilī theologians were Basrans, such as Abū al-Hudhayl al-ʿAllāf, Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī, his son Abū Hāshim, Abū ʿAbd Allāh . . . (1), and Abū al-Husayn,