In any case, they are the most knowledgeable people in the community about the Messenger’s hadith, his life, his purposes, and his circumstances.

By the people of hadith, we do not mean those who confine themselves to hearing, writing down, or transmitting it. Rather, we mean all those best qualified in memorizing it, knowing it, understanding it outwardly and inwardly, and following it inwardly and outwardly. The same applies to the people of the Quran.

The least of their qualities is their love for the Quran and hadith, their study of both and their meanings, and their practice of what they know both require. Thus, their jurists know the Messenger better than other jurists; their Sufis follow the Messenger more closely than other Sufis; their rulers are better qualified than others to govern according to the Prophet’s example; and their ordinary people are more faithful in their allegiance to the Messenger than others.

It is well known that those who exalt philosophy and speculative theology and believe in their teachings are further removed than these people from knowing hadith and following it. This is an observable fact. Indeed, if you examine their circumstances, you will find them among the most ignorant people concerning the sayings of the Messenger—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—his circumstances, and the inward and outward aspects of his affairs. You will even find many ordinary people more knowledgeable about these matters than they are. You will find that they do not distinguish between what the Messenger said and what he did not say. They may not even distinguish between a mass-transmitted hadith from him and a fabricated hadith falsely attributed to him.

In seeking agreement with him, they rely only on whatever accords with their own views, whether fabricated or not. They therefore turn away from hadiths which those intimately acquainted with the Messenger know with certain, self-evident knowledge to be his words, in favour of hadiths which those same people know with certain, self-evident knowledge to have been falsely attributed to him, while they