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A Summary of the Concepts of Ahl al-Sunnah

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Transmitted Matters of Faith (al-Sam'iyyat)

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In the realm of creed, the scholastic theologians use the term *al-sam'iyyat* (transmitted matters)

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to refer to what is established purely through auditory transmission,

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meaning revelation and scripture,

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regarding things in which human reason has no independent role—

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namely, the unseen matters of faith,

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such as Paradise and Hellfire,

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the Balance and the Traverse (al-Sirat),

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the punishment of the grave,

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and so forth.

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One might assume that by this assertion they agree with Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jama'ah;

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however, this assumption is spoiled

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by their introduction of a specific caveat,

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which they make a prerequisite for every single issue among these transmitted matters,

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namely their statement:

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"provided that reason does not deem it impossible."

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They do this to reaffirm that the ultimate arbiter in matters of creed, according to them, is human reason,

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and that reason sits in judgment over the revealed texts,

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rather than the text itself being the self-sufficient authority on the matter.

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For this reason, when they classified the attributes of Allah Almighty under rational matters (al-'aqliyyat)—

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which, in their view, are things that reason can independently comprehend—

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and subsequently subjected the texts affirming Allah Almighty's attributes to their deficient intellects,

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rejecting whatever conflicted with their own opinions,

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they rejected the text if it was a hadith,

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even if it was rigorously authentic,

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on the pretext that it was an isolated (*ahad*) hadith;

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and if it was a Qur'anic verse, they either allegorized it (*awwalu*) or relegated its meaning entirely (*fawwadu*).