To catalogue everything they said on this point would require far more space than this fatwa and many times its length; anyone who seriously looks into the matter and pursues the evidence will see this for himself.

[The Methodology of the Salaf: Safer, More Knowledgeable, and More Judicious]

It is likewise impermissible to claim that those who came later are more learned than the early generations, as some simple-minded people say—people who have never appreciated the rank of the salaf and who, in reality, have not known Allah, His Messenger, or the believers with the depth of knowledge they have been commanded to attain—when they repeat the maxim, “The way of the salaf is safer, whereas the way of the khalaf is more knowledgeable.”