among them who is fair-minded (1) and whose aim is the truth openly admitting, at the end of his life, to bewilderment and doubt, since among the disagreements he had examined and debated he found nothing that was pure truth. Many of them abandon all of it and return to the faith of ordinary people—the faith followed by old women and Bedouins.

Thus, when death was upon him, Abū al-Maālī said:

“I plunged into the vast ocean, forsook the people of Islam and their disciplines, and entered into that which they had forbidden me to enter. Now, unless my Lord comes to my aid through His mercy, woe betide Ibn al-Juwaynī! Here I am, dying upon my mother’s creed.”

Likewise, by the end of Abū Hāmid’s life, his final position was one of suspending judgment and bewilderment. This was after he had examined what he regarded as the methods of speculative thinkers—those of speculative theology and philosophy—and had followed the paths of worship, spiritual discipline, and asceticism that had become clear (2) to him. At the end of his life, he devoted himself to hadith, particularly al-Bukhārī and Muslim.

The same was true of al-Shahrastānī, although he was (3) among the most knowledgeable of these speculative theologians regarding doctrines and disagreements. He authored on the subject his well-known book, Nihāyat al-Iqdām fī Ilm al-Kalām (The Utmost Step in the Science of Speculative Theology), and said (4): “Indeed, (5) one whose counsel brings gain and whose obedience is incumbent advised me (6) to mention for him some of the difficult questions (7) concerning the fundamentals that have perplexed people of intellect (8). Perhaps he