In the words of Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych: In his epistle, Ibn al-Qāriḥ sanctimoniously flaunts his own learning and orthodoxy by impugning a number of poets and scholars for being zindīqs, or heretics.

He thereby insinuates a challenge to the religious beliefs of al-Maʿarrī, who expressed in his poetry ideas considered heretical by many.

Al-Maʿarrī takes up this challenge in his response, Risālat al-Ghufrān, by presenting a tour de force of his own extraordinary learning, and further by offering an imaginary and derisive depiction of Ibn al-Qāriḥ in the Islamic afterworld.

There, Ibn al-Qāriḥ is repeatedly taken by surprise at the mercy of the Almighty, as he discovers in the heavenly garden poets and men of letters that he himself had condemned as unbelievers.

He fails but continues to find ways to evade hell until he manages to get a pardon from the Islamic prophet Muhammad.