encompasses them all; not one of them is a leading Muslim authority in knowledge and religion.

The doctrine itself was invented only by hypocritical heretics whose aim was to corrupt (1) the religion of Islam. I have examined many books by writers on sectarian doctrines in which they report the doctrines of various groups, and I have examined the views of those people (2); I found great discrepancies in them.

Many who transmit such reports do not intend to lie. However, ascertaining the true nature of people’s views without quoting their actual words and everything else by which their intent may be known can be difficult for some people and impossible for others.

Furthermore, most books by speculative theologians and chroniclers of sectarian doctrines report, concerning the foundational doctrines of religions and sects, more views than can readily be described. Yet they do not report the very teachings with which Allah sent His Messenger, or what his Companions and their Followers said regarding the same principle about which they recount the views of others. This is [not] (3) because they deliberately chose to omit them, but because they neither knew nor had even heard them, owing to their limited familiarity with the texts transmitted from the Messenger, his Companions, and the Followers.

Al-Asharī’s book al-Maqālāt is the most comprehensive and extensive of these works. It contains accounts and precise formulations of views not found in the others. He reported the doctrine of the adherents of the Sunnah and hadith according to his understanding of what he believed their position to be, and he stated that he affirmed everything he had reported from them. After him, some of his followers—such as Ibn Fūrak (4)—were dissatisfied with what he had reported from them and consequently detracted