"they know everything one can possibly know about a text, except what it says" :)

We have numerous experts in Islamic philosophy and Sufism, among both Muslims and non-Muslims, who have made tremendous contributions to textual and historical studies but who deal with their subject as a repository of historical information, not as a living tradition whose raison d'etre is the transformation of the human soul....they know everything one can possibly know about a text, except what it says.

-Chittick, Cosmos, p. 9.