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my book. My aim was to repeat their false doctrine as far as possible, and
then to bring out its weak points.

The result was that there was nothing done on the part of the opponents
and no force in their argument. Had it not been for the mistaken help given by
honest but ignorant men, the heresy would have been too weak to reach its
present degree of success. Violent fanaticism provoked the supporters of the
truth to prolong the debate about the premise of their argument and to deny
all they assert. In particular they denied both their claim that “there is need of

„authoritative instruction‟ (ta’lim) and an instructor (mu`allim)”, and their claim


that “not every instructor is adequate, there must be an infallible instructor”.

Their demonstration of the need for instruction and an instructor was clearly
sound, while the retort of the critics was weak. A number of people were thus
deceived into thinking that this was due to the strength of the system of the
Ta`limiyah and to the weakness of that of their opponents. They did not