the predecessors—who were the most knowledgeable of the ummah concerning Allah and His attributes—ignorant, as though they were pious but simple-minded folk who had never plunged into the realities of knowing Allah nor discerned the subtleties of divine science, while imagining that the later generations are the eminent scholars who seized the prize, attained the goal, and carried off spoils that eluded the earliest forerunners.
So how can anyone with the slightest modicum (1) of reason and faith suppose that these bewildered people—whose confusion in the field of knowledge of Allah is rampant, whose vision of Him is blocked by a thick veil, and whose own spokesman, having reached the furthest limit of their quest, declares that their end is doubt and perplexity—how can anyone deem them superior, when one of them says (2):

By my life, I have roamed through every institute of learning,
And let my gaze wander among all those landmarks;
Yet I found nothing save a puzzled hand pressed to a chin,
Or a man striking his teeth in regret.

And another has said (4):