For a Syrian hadith with a broken chain of transmission has been reported concerning them from 'Alī ibn Abī Tālib—may Allah be pleased with him—and traced back to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, as saying:

“Among them—meaning the people of Syria—are the abdāl, forty men. Whenever one man dies, Allah Most High replaces him with another.”

These titles, arranged in this hierarchy, are not found in the words of the early generations. Nor are they transmitted with this hierarchy and these meanings from the shaykhs generally accepted by the Muslim community. Rather, they are found in this form only in reports from certain intermediate shaykhs, who used them either when transmitting them from others or simply mentioning them.

In this and similar matters of religious knowledge, truth has become confused with falsehood among most people of later times. Thus, there is truth in it that calls for acceptance and falsehood that calls for rejection. Many people have consequently fallen into two opposite extremes: some have rejected it all because of the falsehood they found in it, while others have accepted it all because of the truth they found in it. The correct approach is simply to affirm the truth and reject the falsehood.

This fulfills what the Prophet, peace be upon him, foretold: that this community would follow the ways of those before it, just as one arrow’s feather matches another. For the people of the two Scriptures mixed truth with falsehood. This is the alteration and distortion that occurred in their religion; and thus religion is changed