The Method of Receiving Knowledge Among the Salaf Is Learning from Scholars, Unlike the Sufis Whose Method Is Inspiration

The Shaykh : We do not believe that there is any path for seeking knowledge other than the path known to everyone, which is that the ignorant person receives knowledge from the scholar. We have no path claimed by some of those who affiliate themselves with certain Sufi orders, whereby a person, if he is illiterate and cannot read or write, can receive knowledge by means other than the established method of receiving knowledge, which they call inspiration. For many Sufis, inspiration is almost akin to revelation. It is regrettable that we must mention this bitter truth: that Imam al-Ghazali mentions something of this path of inspiration in the beginning of his book *Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din*. He states that a person, through his struggle against his self, his monitoring of his Lord, and the Lord’s saving him in his seclusion, can receive from inspiration knowledge of what he did not know. He also mentions a specific method where one sits in a dark room, places his head on his knees, closes his eyes, and sits thus in three darknesses: the darkness of the room, the darkness of closed eyes, and the darkness of... The direction he takes is contrary to the method of receiving knowledge, as he waits for something of the revelation they call inspiration to descend upon him.
From this comes the phrase repeated by many of the early and late Sufis, which is their saying: "My heart has informed me about my Lord." None of them says, as the hadith scholars say, "So-and-so informed me from so-and-so," nor does any of them say, as the jurists say, "So-and-so said in his book from so-and-so." Rather, immediately they say: "My heart has informed me about my Lord."