Enforced cursing of the Rafida and the Ash'aris from the pulpits of Khurasan

The sources report that the cursing of the Rafida, and then of the Ash'aris, was imposed on the pulpits of Khurasan in the Seljuk period. ¹

The vizier Amid al-Mulk al-Kunduri petitioned the sultan Alp Arslan about cursing the Rafida from the pulpits of Khurasan, and he granted permission, adding the Ash'aris to the curse. The imams of Khurasan, among them Abu al-Qasim al-Qushayri and Imam al-Haramayn al-Juwayni, took this badly and left Khurasan. al-Juwayni stayed in Mecca for four years, and was called Imam al-Haramayn from then on. When the Nizamiyya state came, Nizam al-Mulk brought back those who had withdrawn and honoured them. ¹

Ibn al-Jawzi says that the cursing was proclaimed in Nishapur in 445 AH, in the reign of Tughril Beg. He says that al-Qushayri wrote a letter complaining on behalf of the people of the Sunna. He relates the sultan's reply: that the one cursed is the Ash'ari who holds the opinions brought before him, and if they do not hold them, nothing falls on them. ²

The two accounts differ over the reign (Alp Arslan in Ibn al-Imad, Tughril Beg in Ibn al-Jawzi), and the date in the data is approximate. It needs an additional source.