it believes and professes. Yet Allah has willed that the truth and sound creed be found only among the people of hadith and transmitted reports, for they received their religion and beliefs from their predecessors, generation after generation, reaching back to the Successors. The Successors received it from the Companions of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace; and the Companions of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, received it from the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. There is no way to know the upright religion and straight path to which the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, called people except this path followed by the people of hadith. The other groups, however, sought religion through a different path: they turned to their own reasoning, thoughts, and opinions, seeking religion from these sources. Whenever they heard anything from the Book and the Sunnah, they measured it against their reason. If it conformed, they accepted it; if it did not measure up to their reason, they rejected it. If they were compelled to accept it, they distorted it through far-fetched interpretations and strained meanings. Thus they turned aside from the truth and strayed from it, cast religion behind their backs, and trampled the Sunnah underfoot. Exalted is Allah above what they ascribe to Him.

Those who uphold the truth, however, took the Book and the Sunnah as their guide and sought their religion from them. Whatever their own reasoning and thoughts suggested, they tested against the Book and the Sunnah. If they found it consistent with them, they accepted it and thanked Allah for showing it to them and guiding them to it. If they found it contrary to them, they abandoned what had occurred to them, turned to the Book and the Sunnah, and questioned their own judgment instead. For the Book and the Sunnah guide only to the truth, whereas human judgment may arrive at either truth or falsehood. This is the meaning of the statement of Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī, who was unrivalled in knowledge in his time:

‘Whenever my soul suggested anything to me, I demanded of it two witnesses from the Book and the Sunnah. Unless it produced them, I rejected the suggestion outright’—or words to that effect.

Another indication that the people of hadith follow the truth is that, if you were to examine all their books, from their earliest scholars to their latest, past and present—despite the differences in their lands and times, the great distances separating their homes, and their residence in different regions—you would find them