nor do they know their evidence or the grounds from which they derived their views. Rather, in the matters in which they follow others unquestioningly, they are themselves mere imitators. They fault the majority for their disagreements, yet the disagreements they report from those whom they imitate—and those they do not report from them—are almost beyond counting] (1).

Fourth:

It may be said: There is no doubt that what the jurists transmit from the likes of Abū Hanīfah, Mālik, al-Shāfiī, Ahmad, and others is more reliable than what the Rāfidah transmit from [the likes of] (2) the two al-Askarīs, Muhammad ibn Ali al-Jawād, and others like them. Nor is there any doubt that the former knew the religion of the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—better than the latter. Whoever abandons the reports of the more truthful transmitters from the more learned authorities in favor of the reports of the more mendacious transmitters from inferior authorities is impaired in his religion, his reason, or both (3).

It has therefore become clear that what he related about the Imāmiyyah in order to claim superiority for them contains (4) nothing unique to them, except the doctrine of the imams’ infallibility [in which they are joined only by those who are worse than they are (5)] (6). Everything else, whether true or false, is also upheld by others [among Ahl al-Sunnah who affirm the caliphate of the three] (7). As for the Imāmiyyah’s distinctive doctrine (8) of the imams’ infallibility, it is utterly corrupt and far removed from both reason and religion; indeed, it is more corrupt than the belief held by many