Ahl al-Sunnah—there are some who have made false statements, the falsity of those statements does not invalidate the doctrine of Ahl al-Sunnah wal-Jamā'ah. Rather, whoever makes such a false statement is refuted, and the Sunnah is defended with proofs (1).

The Rāfidite, however, set about finding fault (2) with every group on grounds that he imagined would discredit it in both foundational and subsidiary matters, supposing his own group to be immune from criticism (3).

All discerning (4) Muslims have agreed that among [any one of] (5) the sects of the people of the qiblah, none is more ignorant, misguided, mendacious, or given to innovation, closer to every evil, or farther from every good than his own group. Accordingly, when al-Ash'arī composed his book on “Doctrines,” he began with their doctrine and concluded with that of the adherents of the Sunnah and hadith. He stated that he professed and adhered to all the views (6) he had mentioned of the adherents of the Sunnah [and hadith] (7) (8).

This Rāfidite—and his ilk among the Jahmite negators of the divine attributes—calls those who affirm the attributes assimilationists, just as they call anyone who affirms the caliphate of the three [caliphs] (9) a Nāṣibī (10), based on their belief. For when they came to believe (11) that loyalty to Alī could exist only through disavowal of