has been entirely dark. Ahl al-Sunnah know their faults and merits(1) better than anyone else, and they continually discover further things about them beyond what they had already known(2), just as Allah Most High said of the Jews:

“You will continually discover treachery among them, except for a few of them.”

(Surah al-Mā’idah: 13).

If I were to relate even some of what I have learned about them through direct experience and reports from trustworthy sources, as well as what I have seen in their books, it would require a substantial volume.

They are the very height of ignorance and lack of reason. They hate things when hating them brings them no benefit, and they engage in acts that bring them no benefit even if one supposes them to be in the right. These include tearing the wool from a ewe as though they had a score to settle with it—as though they were plucking Aisha herself—and cutting open a ram’s belly(3) as though they were cutting open Umar’s belly. Has any Muslim faction other than theirs ever done such a thing to its enemy?!

If such conduct were religiously sanctioned, Abū Jahl and his like would have been more fitting targets(4). Likewise, they dislike the word “ten” because they hate the ten men.

Allah has used the word “ten” in more than one place in the Quran, as in His words:

“By the dawn and the ten nights.”

(Surah al-Fajr: 1, 2),

and His words:

“And We completed them with ten more.”

(Surah al-A‘rāf: 142),

and:

“Those are ten complete days.”

(Surah al-Baqarah: 196).