Ahmad was the imam of Ahl al-Sunnah during the ordeal, and what he endured over the question of the Quran became widely known. He supported the position that (1) the Quran is Allah’s speech, uncreated, with many arguments well known from him, yet he never mentioned this hadith or cited it as evidence. How could he have possessed this hadith without citing it?! This hadith was known only through this shaykh. Someone who read to him had slipped it into a booklet and then read it to him along with other material, so the deception passed unnoticed by those who lacked knowledge.

The same applies to the hadith concerning ‘Āshūrā’. What is authentically established concerning its merit is fasting on that day, that this expiates a year’s sins, and that Allah saved Moses from drowning on that day. We have discussed this at length elsewhere and explained that all practices observed on it—apart from fasting—are reprehensible innovations, which none of the imams recommended (2). These include applying kohl, applying dye, cooking grains, eating meat from the sacrificial animal, spending more generously, and other such practices. These originated in innovations introduced by the killers of al-Husayn and others like them (3).

Still more reprehensible and more grievous is what the Rāfidah do: they turn it into an occasion of mourning at which the account of the killing is read and poems of lamentation are recited. They make themselves suffer thirst, slap their cheeks on that day (4), tear their garments at the neckline, and raise the cries of the pre-Islamic age of ignorance.