possess the slightest reality of knowing Allah, nor any pure and genuine acquaintance with Him; they have not encountered it with eye or ear, nor do they hold even a trace of it.

So how can these people—veiled, deficient, belated, inferior (1), bewildered, reckless (2)—claim to be more knowledgeable about Allah, His names, and His attributes, or sounder in judgment concerning His essence and His signs, than the earliest forerunners among the Emigrants and the Helpers and those who followed them with excellence (3): the heirs of the prophets, the deputies of the messengers, the banners of guidance, the lamps in the darkness? It was through them that the Book was upheld, and by it they stood; through them the Book spoke, and with it they spoke. Allah endowed them with such knowledge and wisdom that they outshone all other followers of the prophets—let alone the nations that possess no scripture—encompassing realities of knowledge and its inner truths to such an extent that, were the wisdom of all others gathered beside theirs, anyone proposing a comparison would be ashamed!

How, then, could the best generations of this community be poorer in knowledge and wisdom—especially the knowledge of Allah and the rulings pertaining to His names and His signs—than these insignificant latecomers?

Or how could the fledglings of the philosophers, the disciples of India and Greece, and the heirs (4)