As for Qur’anic exegesis, that discipline is simply conceded to him. His power to summon the relevant verses at the very moment proof is required for a given issue is astonishing; any professional reciter who observes him is left bewildered. Because of the breadth of his mastery in tafsir and the magnitude of his learning, he points out the errors of many (1) statements made by earlier commentators, undermines numerous other views, and vindicates the single opinion that accords with what the Qur’an and the hadiths indicate.

In the course of one day and night (2) he would produce—whether in tafsir, jurisprudence, al-uṣūlayn (the two fundamentals) (3), or in refutations of the philosophers and the ancients—something like four notebooks, and sometimes even more. It is hardly far-fetched to estimate that his writings to date come to five hundred volumes (4). On a host of individual questions he composed separate monographs (5) of a single volume each. After listing a number of these he said: “Among them is a book on the accord between reason and transmitted revelation, in two volumes.” (6)

I say: That work—namely, Darʾ Taʿāruḍ al-ʿAql wa’l-Naql (Repelling the Conflict Between Reason and Revelation)—consists of four large volumes, and some copies run to more than four. It is a book