and possess a firmer grasp of His signs and His very essence than the earliest forerunners among the Emigrants and the Helpers, and those who followed them with excellence—the heirs of the prophets and the deputies of the messengers, the banners of guidance and the lamps that pierce the night, those through whom the Book was upheld and by whom they themselves were upheld, through whom the Book spoke and by whose tongues they spoke. Allah endowed them with such knowledge and wisdom that they outshone all the other followers of the prophets—let alone the rest of the nations that possess no scripture—and they encompassed the realities of gnosis and the innermost cores of truth to such an extent that, were the wisdom of everyone else placed beside theirs, anyone attempting a comparison would be embarrassed.

How, then, could the best generations of this community be deemed deficient in knowledge and wisdom—especially the knowledge of Allah and the rulings contained in His signs and His names—when set against these juniors? Or how could the fledglings of the philosophers