on rational arguments they supposed to be clear proofs, although they were merely specious doubts; and, as for revelation, they distorted its words from their proper meanings.

Since their position rested on these two false premises founded on disbelief, the result was to regard the earliest forerunners as ignorant and foolish. They believed them to have been unlettered people, comparable to righteous common folk, who had neither delved deeply into the realities of knowing Allah nor grasped the subtleties of knowledge concerning the Divine. They believed that the distinguished scholars of the later generations had surpassed them in all these matters.

Yet anyone who reflects on this claim will find it utterly ignorant—indeed, utterly misguided. How could these later scholars—especially when “the later generations” here refers to a particular group of speculative theologians whose confusion in religious matters was great, and whose veils separating them from knowledge of Allah were thick? One who had examined the furthest reaches of their endeavors described where their course had led them, saying:

By my life, I have toured every haunt,
And cast my gaze among those landmarks;
I saw only men resting a bewildered hand upon their chin,
Or striking their teeth in remorse.

They themselves acknowledged their condition through verses they quoted or composed in the books they wrote, such as these words of one of their leading figures:

The furthest advance of reason ends in fetters,
And most of mankind’s striving goes astray.
Our souls are estranged from our bodies,
And all our worldly gain is suffering and ruin.
We gained nothing from a lifetime of inquiry
But a collection of “it was said” and “they said.”