for that very closeness. What is impermissible, however, is to dismiss everything the people of innovation say—wholesale and in detail—even the portions that are correct, and to retort, “But this was said by an innovator.” Such an attitude is mistaken, because a person is duty-bound to acknowledge the truth wherever it appears and pay no heed to who uttered it. Hence the maxim: “Men are known by the truth, not the truth by men.” If you recognize the truth only through particular men, you are nothing but a blind imitator; but if you recognize men by weighing their words against the truth, and acknowledge that when what they say is true they themselves are truthful, that is justice. The Shaykh—may Allah have mercy on him—therefore says that everyone must be given his due: even if he belongs to the people of innovation yet is nearer to the Sunnah, we grant him his due and declare, “This innovator is closer to the Sunnah than that innovator.”

Thus, when the Companions, the Successors, and the leading imams hold a particular view on the interpretation of a verse, and others come along and interpret it differently on account of a doctrine they have adopted—a doctrine that is not among the creeds of the Companions and the Successors who followed them with excellence—they become partners with the Muʿtazilah and other innovators in such an enterprise. In sum, whoever departs from the explanations of the Companions and the Successors to an interpretation that contradicts them has erred.