and Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak, al-Awzāʿī, al-Layth ibn Saʿd, and Ishāq ibn Rāhawayh on the fundamentals of the Sunnah, through which their beliefs may be known. In their biographies, he highlighted their rank and standing in Islam. He also stated:

“He confined his quotations to them, rather than others, because they are the authorities whose example is followed and whose schools are consulted in the East and the West. They fulfil the qualifications for exemplary religious leadership more completely than others and possess more fully its requisite means and capabilities: excellent memory, insight, discernment, and knowledge of the Book, the Sunnah, consensus, chains of transmission, narrators and their circumstances, the varieties of Arabic and their contexts of usage, history, what abrogates and what is abrogated, transmitted and rational knowledge, and what is sound and what is flawed. They also surpass others in truthfulness, steadfastness, and manifest trustworthiness and religious devotion.”

He said:

“If any one of them fell short in one of these respects, his chronological proximity to the Companions and those who followed them in righteousness compensated for that shortcoming. In this respect, these men were distinguished from others. Other imams, though they held the position of religious leadership, nevertheless fell short of some of its qualifications, which I have indicated in general terms, since this is not the place to explain them in detail.”

He said:

“There is a third reason that we must explain. We say: quoting these authorities establishes a binding argument against anyone who professes adherence to the school of an imam whose creed he opposes. For one of the two must inevitably judge the other to be misguided, accuse him of innovation, or declare him an unbeliever. Thus, professing adherence to his school—while disagreeing with him