and the Sunnah and transmitted reports, for relatively little time had elapsed. The light of the prophetic reports still shone clearly, and their proof was compelling, even though, for some people, their light had become mingled with the darkness of other things.

As for later writers, many of them presented their predecessors’ formulations in isolation. Some later authors on “speculative theology,” for example, mentioned only innovated principles and turned away from the Book and the Sunnah. They either treated these two as secondary, affirmed them only in general terms, or eventually drifted into a form of heresy. The earlier speculative theologians were better than their later counterparts.

Likewise, some authors on “opinion” mentioned only the views of the imam they followed and his associates, turning away from the Book and the Sunnah and judging their teachings by their imam’s opinions. This was the case with many followers of Abū Hanīfah, Mālik, al-Shāfi‘ī, Ahmad, and others.

Similarly, some authors on “Sufism” and “asceticism” took reports about later ascetics as their foundation and turned away from the path of the Companions and the Successors. This was done by Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, the author of The Epistle; Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn Ishāq al-Kalābādhī; Ibn Khamīs al-Mawsilī in Virtues of the Righteous; and Abū ‘Abd al-Rahmān al-Sulamī in History of the Sufis. However, Abū ‘Abd al-Rahmān also compiled Biographies of the Early Generations, concerning Allah’s friends and the righteous, and biographies of righteous people from the early generations, just as he compiled biographies of righteous people from later generations. The same applies to others like them in their accounts of the people of