We reply: Every era has its own men; you are, so to speak, the Sufyān al-Thawrī and the Ibn ʿUyaynah of our time. Speak, then, as they spoke, and we shall be satisfied with you—yet it is only reasonable that we ask on what evidence you have spoken.
Anyone who advances a claim or adopts a doctrine maintains that the truth lies in what he has claimed and in what he has adopted—except for the hesitant doubter. The doubter admits his own error, for he knows the truth must be in one of the two positions between which he wavers, and that he upholds neither.
The sincere seeker of insight and guidance, however, is tormented by both factions. They impose conditions, subject him to trials, treat harshly anyone who disagrees with them, pronounce him an unbeliever, and even declare unbeliever anyone who doubts their verdict.
It often happens that an elderly shaykh arrives in a city and sits to relate ḥadīth. He may be heedless of proper etiquette and possess little critical discernment beyond his advanced years and the fact that he once heard Ibn ʿUyaynah, Abū Muʿāwiyah, Yazīd b. Hārūn, and their peers. Before opening a single book they confront him with their doctrinal test. Woe to him if he stammers, hesitates, coughs, or clears his throat before giving them the reply they demand. Fear of their disparagement and rejection drives him to seek their approval; he then speaks without knowledge and utters words without understanding, distancing himself from God in the very gathering through which he had hoped to draw nearer to Him. If he happens to disagree with them, he forces himself to display what pleases them so that they will record his narrations.
Should they meet a young seeker of guidance or a middle-aged student, they question him as well. If he says, “I am searching for the truth of this matter, inquiring about it, and nothing has yet been firmly established for me,” he is merely being honest and presenting a valid excuse—God knows his sincerity, and they know that his only duty when he is ignorant is to ask and investigate so that he might learn. Yet they call him a liar, harm him, and say, “This man is corrupt; shun him and do not sit with him.”
Tell me: if the conviction they hold on this question were truly a fundamental of tawḥīd that people are forbidden to ignore, and if they had heard it directly from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), would matters really have reached this extreme? How so, when—were they asked, “On what basis have you said this?”—they could not appeal to a single reliable ḥadīth they transmit, nor to the statement of a recognized imam whose example one might rightly follow, nor to an analogy consistently applied. It is nothing but an opinion they have formed—an opinion that may be wrong—and a conjecture they have entertained. The most ignorant of people is the one who turns his conjecture into a religion for Allah.