And the Truthful and Trustworthy—he who never speaks from his own desire—testified that they are the very best of all generations. (1) Their Lord, exalted be He, likewise bore witness that they are the finest community ever brought forth. (2)

Their scholars and their disciples are the ones who filled the earth with knowledge: every scholar of Islam is either their direct student or a student of their students, and so on without end. The four Imams whose learning has spread east and west are themselves students of those students. The choicest learning they possess is that which reaches back to the Companions; the finest juristic reasoning stems from them; and the soundest Qurʾanic exegesis is that which is taken from them.

As for their discourse on the knowledge of Allah—His names and attributes, His actions, His decree and predestination—it occupies the loftiest rank. Whoever studies it, and knows what the prophets proclaimed, will realize (3) that their words are drawn from, and faithfully translate, that prophetic teaching. Every beneficial science in this ummah is extracted from their statements and derived through them.

Their pupils, and the pupils of those pupils, have likewise spread their compilations and legal verdicts across the world. Mālik’s rulings have been collected into several volumes, and the same is true for Abū Ḥanīfah. The writings of al-Shāfiʿī approach one hundred works, while Imam Aḥmad’s fatwas and authored books number almost one hundred volumes; of these, about twenty volumes of his legal opinions are in our possession. The greater part of his writings—indeed, all of them—draws upon the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, the Companions, and the Successors.