either supposition, his statement is not accepted. It is more apparent that he met with al-Tūsī and others like him only when al-Tūsī was serving as astrologer to the pagan Mongols; his heretical unbelief at that time is well known.

How can someone who disparages men such as (1) Abū Bakr, Umar, Uthmān, and others among the earliest and foremost of the Emigrants and Helpers; attacks scholars such as Mālik, al-Shāfiī, Abū Hanīfa, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and their followers; and reproaches them for errors made by some of them, such as permitting chess and singing—how can it befit him to invoke in support of his doctrine the statements of people such as these, who “do not believe in Allah or the Last Day, do not regard as unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful, and do not follow the religion of truth (2) from among those who were given the Scripture, until they pay the jizya in submission while humbled” (3), (* and who deem lawful (4) things unanimously agreed to be unlawful, such as sexual immorality and wine ) (5), even in a month such as Ramadan; who neglected prayer and followed their desires; ( and who breached the safeguards of the revealed laws, treated the sanctities of the religion with contempt, [and followed a path other than that of the believers] (6)? They are as it has been said of them:

The Faith laments the misery ... Brought by a philosophical sect;
They attend no prayer ... Except for the sake of dissimulation.
To them the Sacred Law is nothing ... But civic governance,
And over it they prefer ... Philosophical paths. *) (7)