there was no era in the past centuries that did not have true scholars who had read the books of their predecessors studied their people practiced those who agreed with them and suffered those who disagreed with them. they churned out wisdom and made its branches strange and stood at the boundaries of the sciences. they memorized the mothers and the origins and knew the laws and branches. they distinguished between similarities and counterparts and compared forms and types and connected between adjacent and parallel things and deduced the hidden and the obvious from the apparent and clear and they demonstrated the hidden and the problematic from the known and revealed. they were known for their penetrating understanding and brilliant knowledge and the ordeal decreed for them intelligence and cleverness so they wrote books on the types of sciences and the arts of literature for the people of their time and the successors after them. they thus approach the one who is grateful to them for the knowledge that god has placed in them distinguished them from others and favored them over them. they boast about it to the nations that oppose them and compete with each other about it. they have envious opponents from among the people of their time regarding those sciences and books.
إنه لم يخل زمن من الأزمان فيما مضى من القرون الذاهبة إلا وفيه علماء محقون، قد قرءوا كتب من تقدمهم، ودارسوا أهلها، ومارسوا الموافقين لهم، وعانوا المخالفين عليهم، فمخضوا الحكمة وعجموا عيدانها، ووقفوا على حدود العلوم، فحفظوا الأمهات والأصول، وعرفوا الشرائع والفروع، ففرقوا ما بين الأشباه والنظائر، وصاقبوا بين الأشكال والأجناس، ووصلوا بين المتجاور والمتوازي، واستنبطوا الغامض الباطن بالظاهر البين، واستظهروا على الخفي المشكل بالمكشوف المعروف، وعرفوا بالفهم الثاقب والعلم الناصع، وقضت لهم المحنة بالذكاء والفطنة، فوضعوا الكتب في ضروب العلوم وفنون الآداب لأهل زمانهم، والأخلاف من بعدهم. يزدلفون بذلك إلى الممتن عليهم بفضل المعرفة التي ركبها الله فيهم، وأبانهم من غيرهم، وفضلهم عليهم، ويباهون به الأمم المخالفة لهم، ويتبارون بذلك فيما بينهم. ولهم حساد معارضون من أهل زمانهم في تلك العلوم والكتب،