Nothing more clearly demonstrates the harm that figurative reinterpretation inflicts upon those enamoured of it than the slogan that has spread among them and that their tongues repeat whenever the discussion of the Divine attributes arises—whether to affirm them as they are or to force them into symbolic meanings. The slogan is:

“The way of the salaf (early generations) is safer, while the way of the khalaf (later generations) is more learned and more judicious.”

A well-read young man today whose religious schooling has not been tainted by scholastic theology might refuse to believe that any of the khalaf would say such a thing—and he would be right, given how grave and appalling it is. Yet, sadly, this notion is exactly what students of the Sacred Law encounter. Here is but one example from the works they study with their teachers: al-Bājūrī, in his marginal commentary ⦗55⦘ on the author of al-Jawharah’s line—

“Any text that seems to imply anthropomorphism:
interpret it, or consign its meaning, seeking thereby His transcendence”—

writes:

“The method of the later scholars is more learned and more judicious, because it provides further clarification and refutation of opponents; it is therefore the stronger view, and for that reason the author put it first. The method of the early scholars is safer, for it avoids assigning a meaning that may not be what the Exalted One intended.”

Al-Kawtharī—well known for his fierce hostility toward the people of the Sunnah and Hadith—revolves around this same alleged distinction in all of his annotations; and in his gloss on al-Sayf al-Ṣaqīl he states it explicitly ⦗132⦘.

When a person reflects on this claim, he finds it the height of ignorance—indeed, the height of misguidance. Ibn Taymiyyah says in al-ʿAqīdah al-Ḥamawiyyah:

“How can these latecomers—especially since the term khalaf here refers to a group of dialectical theologians whose confusion in matters of religion has increased and whose veil from the knowledge of Allah has grown thick—possibly be preferred? The one who reached the furthest limit of their endeavour has told us the outcome of their quest when he said:

By my life, I have roamed every seat of learning
and let my gaze travel over all those landmarks;
yet I found only a bewildered soul, hand pressed to chin,
or one biting his fingers in rueful regret.”