Allāh the Exalted would not choose company for His Prophet—and He is the all-Knowing, the all-Wise—except the most perfect of people in faith, the most superior in intellect, the most upright in deeds, the most firmly resolute and the most guided in [their] path...

This is in opposition to the one who said that they are at the level of simpletons and commoners because they took the religion upon its apprentness, therefore they are common people, and that the intelligent ones are those who took from the Philosophers, those who know the foundations and end-results [of things], that when such and such happens, such and such results and what is similar to this speech. For this reason they say: The people are [divided into] the commoners and the elite. The commoners are those who take their religion upon its apparentness, and the elites are those who take it through the route of intellect, argumentation and debates.

But the reality is that the affair is the other way around. Those who take the religion upon its apparentness, submitting to Allāh (عز وجل) inwardly and outwardly, they are the people of intelligence. As for those, then just ask them at the moment of death, you will find them the most doubtful of people at the time of death—and refuge is with Allāh—[they], the people of kalām [speculative theology] and the people of argumentation, because they founded their beliefs upon other than the Sharīʿah.