[The root of the error committed by those who prefer the method of the later theologians to that of the early generations]:

These innovators who give priority to the later school over the way of the salaf went astray because they imagined that the salaf’s method was nothing more than affirming the words of the Quran and the hadith without understanding them—much like the unlettered folk about whom Allah said, “And among them are ordinary people who know nothing of the Scripture except wishful notions” (al-Baqara 2:78). They also supposed that the later theologians’ method lay in extracting the meanings of the texts by turning them away from their true import through layers of metaphor and rare linguistic usages.