about which he forms mistaken assumptions.

So if such a person goes on to report something whose falsehood is patently exposed by sound reason, his error is self-evident.

Likewise, when someone other than a prophet describes matters that lie beyond the intellectual reach of most people, that in itself neither establishes him as truthful nor condemns him as a liar. We suspend judgment until proof appears, for it is possible that he is mistaken, but it is also possible that he has indeed come to know what others are unable to grasp.

However, if a non-prophet makes a statement whose corruption is unmistakable to unclouded reason and then protests, “This is above reason,” or “This lies beyond the scope of both reason and revelation,” or “We can know this only by casting aside reason and revelation,”—or even recites lines such as:

They are a folk who shattered the order and burned the … fence;
For them there is neither duty nor voluntary act.
Madmen, yes—but the secret of their madness is precious;
At its very threshold reason falls in prostration—

it must be said to him: Such words could never be uttered by a prophet, nor reliably transmitted from a prophet, for the sayings of the prophets never contradict clear reason. How, then, can they be accepted from someone who is not a prophet?

And if he objects—as the Christians and others do—“What we claim is supported by the prophets’ own words; indeed, we have derived it from their speech,” we reply: Discussing the meanings of the actual phrases spoken by the prophets is one matter; the meaning you have read into those phrases is quite another.