and we bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger, whom He sent to all creation and commanded to call all people, “so that he may warn whoever is alive, and the Word may be fulfilled against the disbelievers.”

[The Greatest Obligation upon a Person]

To proceed: the greatest obligation upon a person is to know the creed of the religion and what Allah has required of His servants: understanding His oneness and His attributes, affirming His Messengers upon the basis of proof and certainty, seeking the means to attain this knowledge, and establishing it through evidences and decisive proofs.

Among the greatest authoritative statements, the clearest proofs, and the soundest rational evidences are:

The manifest Book of Allah, which is the truth.

Then the sayings of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, and of his righteous, God-fearing Companions.

Then that upon which the righteous early generations were united.

Then holding fast to all of these and remaining firm upon them until the Day of Recompense.

Then avoiding religious innovations and listening to them—those introduced by the misguiders.

[What the Early Generations Were Upon]

These, then, are the inherited and followed counsels, the preserved and transmitted reports, the well-trodden paths of truth, the manifest and well-known evidences, and the compelling, divinely supported proofs upon which the Companions and the Successors acted, as did those after them among both the distinguished and the common Muslims. They regarded them as proof in what lay between themselves and Allah, Lord of the worlds.