Maqalat al-Islamiyin wa Ikhtilaf al-Musallin - Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari

This book is a historical survey and record of all the intellectual sects and trends witnessed in the Islamic world from the death of the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, may Allah's Peace and Blessing be upon him, until the beginning of the Third Century AH. It is a collection of articles about Islamic sects' ideologies. It originally consisted of three books: “Al-Maqaalaat”, “Daqeeq al-Kalaam”, and “Al-Asma’ was-Sifaat”. Al-Ashari combined these three books in one book, which included all their different opinions.

In the First Section, he tackled Jaleel al-Kalaam (concerning Divinity and the Divine attributes, etc.) and the doctrines of the different sects with regard to it: the Shiites, the Kharijites, the Murjiah, the Mu’tazila, the scholars of Hadith and Ahlu as-Sunnah. Each sect includes many groups, although he had started the book by dividing Muslims into ten categories: Shiites, Kharijites, Murji’ites, Mu’tazila, Jahmiyyah, Al-Diraria, Husayniyyah, al-Bakriyyah, the masses, Ashaab al-Hadith, al-Kullabiyyah the followers of Abdullah Ibn Kullab al-Qattan. He cited their different opinions in “Jaleel al-Kalam”.

Two-thirds of the Second Section deals with issues related to Daqiq al-Kalaam (Accurate speech: which is related to the science of nature and issues related to the occurrence of the world and its antiquity and the meaning of causation) and the opinions of the various sects about them, especially the Mutazilah. In the last third, he tackled some of what he had discussed in the first section of Jaleel al-Kalaam.