Intermingling the doctrines of the logicians with the prophetic sciences—and the havoc it wreaks on minds and religions:

Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Rāzī, the son of the preacher, did notice the stance adopted by the leading theologians. In his Maḥṣūl and elsewhere he affirmed that conceptual cognitions are not acquired, which is in fact the very assertion of those who maintain that a definition does not convey the true conception of what is defined. Yet neither he nor others like him were guided to the insight already reached by the earlier masters of kalām on this point.

Now this is a noble issue that ought to be understood, for neglecting it has allowed corruption to creep into the intellects and faith of many. People mixed what the logicians said about definitions with the prophetic sciences brought by the messengers—those acknowledged by Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike—and even with other disciplines such as medicine, grammar, and so forth.

Consequently they began to exalt the matter of definitions, claiming that they alone are the true authorities, and that the definitions offered by anyone else are merely verbal, imparting no awareness of the quiddity or reality—unlike their own. They pursue lengthy, arduous paths and employ imposing, affected expressions that accomplish nothing but the squandering of time, the weariness of minds, an abundance of babble, and the pretence of precision through falsehood and slander. They occupy souls with what yields no benefit—indeed, what may divert them from what they truly need—and they entrench ignorance, the root of hypocrisy, in hearts, even while asserting that it is the root of knowledge and verification.

This is an offshoot of speculative discourse that the salaf forbade, though what they forbade was in fact better and sounder than this, for it concerned proofs and rulings. The early theologians were unwilling to wade into definitions in the manner of the logicians, whereas the later ones plunged into it, imagining it to be rigorous investigation; it is, rather, a deviation from the straight path.

Accordingly, since such definitions and the like bring a person no knowledge he did not already possess, but only an excess of talk, their proponents came to be known as “the people of kalām.”