“The people will not cease to be upon goodness so long as they take knowledge from their Scholars, their greater ones and their elders. So, when they take knowledge from their young ones and their foolish ones, they are destroyed.”
Abdullāh bin Mas’ood (radhyallāhu ‘anhu), reported by Ibn Mandah in the Musnad of Ibrāheem bin Adham, pg. 34 and reported by other compilers.
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“He intends by this that the people will not cease to be upon goodness so long as their ‘ulamā are the elders, and they not the young ones. This is because the delights of youth have left the elder one; and likewise, his rage and anger are no longer present; nor his hastiness, or foolishness. So, now [in old age] he is accompanied by experience, practice and expertise — and doubts do not enter his knowledge, he is not overcome by desires and he does not incline towards greed. The Shaitān cannot cause him to slip as he causes the younger scholars to slip. So along with [old] age comes composure, dignity, sobriety, reverence and awe. The [blameworthy] affairs that the elder scholar is secure from may befall the younger one! So when they befall him, and then he issues fatawa, he ruins others and ruinshimself.”
Ibn Qutaibah (rahimahullāh), Nasīhatu Ahlil-Hadīth of Khatīb Al-Baghdādi, p. 16.