that spiteful ignoramus imagines; on the contrary, it only raises his rank and increases his merit, for in this he follows the noble example set by the righteous predecessors, the four Imams, and all who have followed them with excellence—certainly not the dialectical theologians. How could they belong to that company when they are the very ones who declare, “The knowledge of the early generations is safer, whereas the knowledge of the later generations is more discerning and more judicious” (1)? Such a statement is disbelief pure and simple, if they but knew, for “Grave indeed is the word that comes from their mouths; they speak nothing but a lie” (2).

And why not, when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ himself stands at the head of those early generations whose knowledge they have impugned! This is not the place to list every instance in which they have contravened the earliest community, yet it suffices the rightly guided Muslim to know that they sided with the Muʿtazila and the Khārijites in many of their aberrations. One example is their claim that the Quran—Allah’s speech—is created. True, they do not state it as openly as the Muʿtazila; rather, they say dissemblingly, in taqiyyah (dissimulation), “The speech of Allah is uncreated,” only to interpret that as a kind of inner speech that cannot be heard, though it may be understood. In so doing they negate the plain meaning of Allah’s words to His confidant Moses (peace be upon him): “Listen, then, to what is revealed” (3). They turn divine speech into nothing more than divine knowledge (4), thereby nullifying the attribute of speech through verbal sleight of hand—exactly as the Muʿtazila, or some of them, did with the attributes of hearing and sight, claiming that what is meant is merely knowledge (5). Thus they negated the two attributes of hearing and sight just as they negated the attribute—