May God help me to thank you for writing what you wrote. May He show you the correct path and help you show it to others. May He make you and me able to carry the weight of knowledge and make us from among those who say the truth, live by it, preserve it and seek to deliver it to its people, preferring it above all else and suffering for its sake.

I have known you since we were young. I have studied your morals and your nature. I have assessed you and determined your worth. Your conviviality has increased my desire for your friendship, and the length of our companionship has increased my appreciation for you. Therefore, it is not surprising that I was unhappy when I sensed the anger in your recent letter concerning my articles about religion, or rather, the methodology I have used in these articles. However, I am claiming that your anger is not my fault; and that this claim is not a crime.

I know that you are the type of person who forgives mistakes and seeks to reform the person who has committed them. I also know that when you see something that is right, you comprehend it, promote and nurture it. I have heard you repeatedly quoting one of al-Shāfiʿī's sayings, may God be pleased with him, “I have never debated with anyone wishing him to be wrong. I have never spoken to anyone caring about whether God chooses to show the truth through his tongue or mine.” Therefore, I ask you to permit me to pen some lines as a reply and defence, and to explain to you a truth which I have learned through experience and trials, not by merely studying and looking into books.

I would like you to know that my defence is not the result of pride and a reluctance to acknowledge an error made. I may make mistakes while writing, just like a father might make a mistake while bringing up his son. I am not like the debaters of our time, whose faces turn red with rage when they are refuted and when the truth comes from their opponents rather than them.