the notoriety he craves, even if that means maligning the Sunnah and its people. What is astonishing is that he parades himself as a Sufi, whereas the true Sufis hold the opposite view; their path is one of self-effacement, not self-promotion. One of their early masters even said, “Be the tail, not the head!” Yet, in addition to this charade, he espouses the creed of the later speculative theologians, carries a Muʿtazilite bent, denies the divine attributes, and in the marginalia he has smeared on Ibn al-Jawzī’s Dafʿ Shubah al-Tashbīh hurls accusations at the Imams who affirmed those attributes and at their followers—and I count myself among them, praise be to Allah.

He fabricates every sort of lie against them; were I to enumerate them all, it would fill an entire volume. By way of illustration, he writes on page ⦗114⦘ of his annotations:

“Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Khuzaymah finally repented of composing his book Kitāb al-Tawḥīd (monotheism), as related by al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Bayhaqī in al-Asmāʾ wa-l-Ṣifāt ⦗267⦘.”

This is a twofold falsehood: Ibn Khuzaymah never felt any remorse, and al-Bayhaqī never attributed such a claim to him. How could it be imagined that al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Khuzaymah would regret authoring a work on tawḥīd, which is pure faith itself? And how could al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Bayhaqī be thought to transmit such a story? Glory be to You, O Allah—this is a monstrous slander from a wicked fabricator.

Dear reader, should you consult the cited page of al-Asmāʾ wa-l-Ṣifāt, you will find no trace of the alleged repentance. What you will find instead is Ibn Khuzaymah’s admission that he was not versed in kalām (dialectical theology), in a report narrated by al-Bayhaqī—if indeed it is sound, for I do not know Abū al-Faḍl al-Baṭāyīnī, and al-Samʿānī mentions no such attribution. Allah knows best. Even so, I affirm that the admission ascribed to Ibn Khuzaymah—were it proven authentic—would not detract from his stature, as