the messengers and those who followed them in faith, and His honoring them in this world before the Hereafter; and how often Allah has invalidated every specious doubt raised by the deniers of the Resurrection, just as He has established proofs that demolish the objections hurled by deniers against His oneness and the truthfulness of His messengers. He has laid bare their folly and the corruption of their intellects, showing that they have no grounds for rejection other than sheer incredulity and the presumption of measuring the power of the Lord of the worlds by the standard of created beings!

The point, then, is that these tremendous foundations are upheld by decisive proofs from every angle and by every consideration. All other sound truths lack even a hundredth of the diverse evidences erected in support of these foundations. Hence, whoever affirms any fact—whether by rational demonstration, transmitted report, or sensory perception—yet denies one of these three foundations that form the bedrock of the religion has only opposed his own reason, perception, and knowledge, proclaiming his own glaring contradiction; for the very avenues that led him to accept his other conclusions—indeed many times more numerous, stronger, and clearer—have all testified to divine oneness, prophethood, and the Resurrection.

Know that the knowledge conveyed by Allah’s report and the reports of His messengers, in general, includes information about Allah Himself, His angels, every matter of the unseen, and issues of revelation and decree. These are infallible, truthful reports whose veracity renders anything that contradicts them manifestly false and void. Let this sample of examples suffice, and Allah knows best.

After this come the reports of truthful people concerning the locations, incidents, and events they have witnessed. According to the integrity of the reporters and the multiplicity of their transmission, such testimony yields definitive knowledge. The same applies to the truthful transmission of the sciences they have heard and the exact wording they have conveyed. The most reliable transmitters in this regard are the bearers of the Muhammadan law, owing to the intensity of their care, the perfection of their truthfulness, and the strength of their religion; indeed, they have been specifically safeguarded from collective error and unanimous deviation from what is right.