Moreover, dialectical theologians sometimes defend the positions of the early generations and sometimes those of the dialectical theologians, as several of them do, including Abū al-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī, Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī, al-Rāzī, and others. Yet whichever doctrine they defend on a given occasion is, by implication, the one to be relied upon. Thus, they do not remain steadfast upon a single religious position, and doubts overwhelm them. This is Allah’s customary way with those who turn away from the Quran and Sunnah.

At other times, they regard their later brethren as more adept and knowledgeable than the early generations, saying:

“The way of the early generations is safer, but the way of these later scholars is more knowledgeable and wiser.”

They thus credit their brethren with superiority in knowledge, exposition, rigorous inquiry, and understanding, while attributing to the early generations deficiency and shortcomings in these matters, or error and ignorance. The most they will do for the early generations is offer excuses for their shortcomings and neglect.

There is no doubt that this is a form of Rāfidī rejectionism. Although it does not amount to declaring the early generations unbelievers—as some of the Rāfidīs and Khārijites do—or declaring them morally corrupt—as some of the Muʿtazilīs, Zaydīs, and others do—it does amount to declaring them ignorant, mistaken, and misguided, and attributing sins and acts of disobedience to them. Even if this falls short of imputing moral corruption, it still amounts to claiming that the people of generations deemed inferior by the revealed Law are more knowledgeable and virtuous than those of the generations deemed superior.

For anyone who reflects upon the Quran and Sunnah and upon the consensus of all the groups belonging to Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah, it is necessarily known that the best generation of this community—in deeds, words, beliefs, and every other virtue—is the first generation, then