(din) belongs further, that we on Fridays and on festival days pray behind every person, pious and profane—so are the conditions for congregational prayers, as it is handed down from Abd Allah ibn Umar that he prayed behind al-Hajjaj. To our Religion belongs the wiping (mash) of the inner boots (khuffs) upon a journey and at home, in contradiction to the deniers of this.¹ We uphold the prayer for peace for the Imams of the Muslims, submission to their office, and maintain the error of those who hold it right to rise against them whenever there may be apparent in them a falling away from right. We are against armed rebellion against them and civil war.

We believe in the appearance of anti-Christ (ad-Dajjal) according to the tradition handed down from the Prophet; in the punishment of the grave, and in Munkar and Nakir and in their questions to the buried in their graves. We hold the tradition of the journey to heaven (mi'raj, Qur. 17) of Muhammad as true, and declare many of the visions in sleep to be true, and we say that there is an explanation for them. We uphold the alms for the dead of the Muslims and prayer for them, and believe that God will help them therewith. We hold as true that there are enchanters in the world, and that enchantment is and exists. We hold as a religious duty the prayer which is held over the dead of those who have prayed toward Mecca, whether they have been believers or godless; we uphold also their right of testation. We acknowledge that Paradise and Hell are created, and that whoever dies or is killed, dies or is killed at his appointed time (ajal); that the articles of sustenance (rizq) from God, with which He sustains His creatures, are permitted (halal) and forbidden (haram); ² that Satan makes evil suggestions to men, and puts

them in doubt, and causes them to be possessed, contrary to that which the Mu'tazilites and the Jahmites maintain, as God said, (Qur. 2, 276); "Those who take usury will [at the Resurrection] stand there like one whom Satan causes to be possessed by madness," and (Qur. 114, 4 ff.); "I take my refuge in God, from the evil suggestion, from the stealthy one who makes suggestions in the hearts of men, by means of men and Jinn." We affirm that God may distinguish the pious by signs which He manifests through them. Our teaching concerning the little children of the polytheists (mushriqs) is this, that God will kindle a fire in the other world for them, and will say, "Run in there;"—as the tradition says.¹ We believe that God knows what men do and what they will to do, what happens and how that which does not happen, if it should happen, would happen. We believe in the obedience of the Imams and in their counsel of the Muslims. We consider right the separation from every inciter to innovation (bid'a) and the turning aside from the People of wandering desires (ahl al-ahwa).—Translated from the Arabic text in Spitta'a Zur Geschichte al-As'ari's, pp. 133, ff.