, and it is also reported that he told them that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, had taught him this. They thus came to think highly of that man.

It is also related that they had a day they called the Day of Distinction, on which he supposedly distinguished between the people of Paradise and the people of the Fire. Anyone they knew to be one of their allies they counted among the people of Paradise and spared his life; anyone they knew to be one of their enemies they counted among the people of the Fire and deemed it lawful to kill.

He deemed it lawful to shed the blood of many thousands of Mālikīs in the Maghreb who adhered to the Book and the Sunnah, following the school of Mālik and the people of Medina. They studied the Quran, hadith—including the two Sahīh collections, al-Muwatta’, and other works—and jurisprudence according to the school of the people of Medina. Yet he claimed that they likened Allah to His creation and attributed a body to Him, although they did not hold such views. Nor is any follower of Mālik known to have openly professed that Allah resembles His creation or has a body.

On the strength of this interpretation and similar ones, he also deemed it lawful to seize their property and commit other forbidden acts. This resembled the violations against Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamā‘ah that the Jahmiyyah, who denied the divine attributes—including the philosophers, the Mu‘tazilah, and all other deniers of the attributes—deemed lawful when they subjected people to an inquisition during “the caliphate of al-Ma’mūn.” They openly proclaimed that the Quran was created and that Allah would not be seen in the Hereafter. They denied that Allah has knowledge, power, speech, will, or any other attributes subsisting in His essence.

Anyone who agreed with them in this denial of the attributes had his life and property protected by them. They appointed him to public offices, granted him a stipend from the public treasury, accepted his testimony, and ransomed him from