Indeed, it is established in the two Sahih collections (1) that this verse was revealed concerning those who fought on the day of Badr: Hamza, the uncle of the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—Ali, his cousin, and Ubayda ibn al-Hārith, also his cousin (2), and the polytheists who faced them in single combat: Utba, Shayba, and al-Walīd ibn Utba (3).

I have carefully studied the works on disagreement in which people’s doctrines are presented, whether merely as reports—such as Abū al-Hasan al-Asharī’s Kitāb al-Maqālāt (Book of Doctrines), al-Shahrastānī’s al-Milal wa al-Nihal (Religions and Sects), and the work of Abū Isā al-Warrāq—or with advocacy of certain positions, as in all the other works composed by speculative theologians of their various ranks. I found that most of the disagreement contained in them is of the blameworthy kind. As for the truth with which Allah sent His Messenger, which He revealed in His Book, and which the salaf of the ummah followed, it is not to be found in these works across the full range of disputed questions. Rather, one of these authors will mention several views on a question, yet they will not mention the view brought by the Book and the Sunnah. This is not because they know it but refrain from mentioning it; rather, they do not know it.

For this reason, the salaf and the leading scholars would condemn such speculative theology. For this reason, one finds the discerning