the divine attributes, predestination, and other foundational matters of religion—is not found in his book, even though he exhaustively presented all that he knew of the discourse of the speculative theologians.

As for knowledge of what the Messenger brought, drawn from the Book, the Sunnah, and the reports of the Companions, that is another field of knowledge—one unknown to any of these speculative theologians who dispute the foundations of religion. This is why the early generations of the Muslim community and its leading scholars unanimously censured the practitioners of speculative theology: their discourse inevitably entails affirming falsehood and denying truth (1), as well as contradicting the Book (2) and the Sunnah. They therefore censured it because of the lies, errors, and misguidance it contains. The early generations did not censure anyone whose words were true, [for whatever is true] (3) is precisely what the Messenger brought, (and this is not censured by the early generations who know what the Messenger brought) (4).

Nevertheless, one may benefit from their discourse (5) by seeing how they refute one another and expose the unsoundness of the position under attack. Indeed, the discourse of all those who disagree contains some element of falsehood (6), and each faction seeks to demonstrate the invalidity (7) of the other faction’s position (8). A person is thus left with numerous proofs demonstrating the unsoundness of the position of every one of the conflicting factions discussed in the book.

This was one respect in which al-Asharī was praised, for he laid bare the Mutazilīs’ disgraceful errors and contradictions