and such specious reasoning, opinions, sects, and passions already existed in their time. They abandoned this method and turned away from it only because they feared the trials it could bring and dreaded its evil consequences. They were certain of their course and possessed clear insight into their religion, through the guidance Allah had graciously granted them and the light of knowing Him with which He had opened their hearts.

They saw that the knowledge and wisdom of the Book, together with the authoritative instruction and elucidation of the Sunnah, provided ample sufficiency, leaving them no need for anything else. Through these two, the proof had been established and all grounds for excuse removed.

But as time passed, people’s resolve to seek the truths contained in the knowledge of the Book and the Sunnah weakened, and their attention to them diminished. When heretics confronted them with their specious arguments, and pretentious disputants with their dialectics, they imagined that unless they repelled them through this mode of discourse and resisted them through this kind of disputation, they could neither hold their own nor prevail