'Refutation of those holding heretical views'), better known as al-Sawad al-A'zam 'ala Madhhab al-Imam al-A'zam Abi Hanifa (Arabic: السواد الأعظم على مذهب الإمام الأعظم أبى حنيفة, The vast majority of people who follow the teaching of the greatest Imam Abu Hanifa), is a book written by al-Hakim al-Samarqandi, and is considered as the oldest theological work in accordance with the Maturidite school, after Kitab al-Tawhid (The Book of Monotheism) by Abu Mansur al-Maturidi.
Blunt in style and authoritarian in tone, al-Sawad al-A'zam was in effect a Hanafite catechism consisting of responses to a large number of doctrinal questions.
Like Tafsir al-Tabari, it was translated anonymously, indicating that its contents were not tied to any individual authorial view but rather represented the collective position of the Hanafite theologians of Transoxiana.
According to the introduction, the purpose of al-Sawad al-A'zam was to counter the growth of sectarianism in the Samanid realm by setting out clearly the consensus of the theologians of Central Asia regarding specific points of Hanafite doctrine.
As a result of the acceptance and influence of this statement of belief, the Turkic tribes north of Transoxiana were converted to Hanafism, including the Oghuz Turks, who would eventually become the great Seljuk rulers of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Anatolia during the 11th to 13th centuries.