They themselves have borne witness against their own enterprise, either repeating these words or composing them anew in the books they authored. One of their leading figures said:

The furthest reach of intellects is but a halter,
and most of mankind’s striving is sheer misguidance;
our spirits dwell estranged within our bodies,
and the harvest of this world is pain and woe.
Through all the years we spent in disputation,
we gained nothing but a pile of “he said” and “they said.”

Another of them remarked, “Those most plagued by doubt at the moment of death are the dialectical theologians.”

Yet when the matter becomes reality and the veil is lifted, one finds with them no trace of true knowledge of Allah and no share of pure, intimate awareness of Him; they have laid eyes on neither its reality nor its sign.

How, then, can these belittled, veiled, bewildered, floundering men be more knowledgeable of Allah and His verses than the earliest forerunners—the Emigrants and the Helpers—and those who followed them with excellence: the heirs of the prophets, the deputies of the messengers, the beacons of guidance and lamps in the darkness? By them the Book was upheld and through it they stood firm. Allah granted them such knowledge and wisdom that they surpassed all other followers of the prophets, encompassing the realities of knowledge and the inner truths to such an extent that, were the wisdom of others gathered beside theirs, anyone seeking comparison would be put to shame.

And how could the best generations of this ummah be deficient in knowledge and wisdom—above all, knowledge of Allah, the rulings of His names, and His signs—when measured against these insignificant late-comers? How could the fledglings of the philosophers, the disciples of India and Greece, be more learned about Allah than the heirs of the prophets and the people of the Quran and faith?!

The eminent scholar al-Saffārīnī said in his Sharḥ al-ʿAqīdah ⦗1/21 – abridged⦘:

“It is inconceivable that the dissenters be more knowledgeable than the predecessors, as is claimed by some who have no real grasp of the matter—those who neither accord the salaf their due, nor truly know Allah Most High, His Messenger, nor…"