and the wider public, although that meaning is false in reality. Rather, he wished to give them an imagined representation that would benefit them. He could not acquaint them with the truth, for they would recoil from it and refuse to accept it.”

As for those heretical Bātinīs and their philosophers who advocate reinterpretation, they reinterpret everything the messengers taught concerning belief in Allah and the Last Day. They then reinterpret the expressions used, as is well known from the interpretations of the Bātinī Qarmatians.

Abū Hāmid, in al-Ihyā’, mentioned the position of these philosophers who advocate reinterpretation. He said that they had gone to excess in reinterpretation, while the Hanbalīs had been excessively rigid. He also attributed to Ahmad ibn Hanbal statements that Ahmad never made, for he did not know what Ahmad or the other early generations had said on this subject, nor what the Quran and hadith teach concerning it. He had heard views ascribed to the Hanbalīs which were held by some of them, as well as by some Mālikīs, Shāfiʿīs, and others, concerning letters, sound, and certain attributes.

Examples include their claims that the sounds heard from Quran reciters are eternal and beginningless; that the successive letters are each individually beginningless; and that He descends to the lowest heaven, leaving the Throne vacant of Him, so that some created things are above Him and others below Him—along with other objectionable claims.

There is no group without some members who make statements that are manifestly unsound. These are the statements remembered by those who are averse to them and used to vilify them, even though most members of those groups reject and repudiate such statements. This is the case with these objectionable views held by some followers of Ahmad, Mālik, and al-Shāfiʿī, for the vast majority of these groups