became a patchwork of corrupted reason and disbelief in the revealed texts. In their denial they relied on what they took to be clear rational proofs—when in fact they were mere specious doubts—and with respect to revelation they twisted the words from their proper contexts.

Because their entire edifice rested on these two blasphemous premises, the inevitable result was to brand the earliest generations as ignorant and simple-minded, to imagine them as illiterate folk no different from well-meaning commoners, untutored in the realities of knowing Allah and oblivious to the subtleties of divine knowledge—while claiming that the distinguished later theologians alone had seized the laurels in all these matters.