—whether in truthfulness or in falsehood—that, too, would be an additional sign. At times a man may be known for lying, yet people can still tell that he is truthful in a particular report—let alone one who maintains the very same account for more than twenty years while mixing with every sort of person under changing circumstances.

One must also realize that people differ in their capacities for knowledge, experience, perception, and deduction across all fields. A person may notice an indication that another person misses, and something may become clear to him that remains hidden from others.

Even the prophets vary in rank, as the Exalted says:

“And [remember] David and Solomon, when they judged concerning the field into which the sheep of some people strayed by night, and We were witnesses to their judgment. We made Solomon understand it, though to each We gave judgment and knowledge.” (Al-Anbiyaʾ 78–79)

The point is that recognizing a truth-teller’s veracity or a liar’s falsehood—like other kinds of knowledge—may be immediate and self-evident, or it may be the product of deliberation. It is not among the universal, axiomatic necessities, such as knowing that one is half of two. Rather, it concerns specific matters, like discerning the blush-redness of the bashful, the fear-induced pallor of the anxious, the equity of the just, the oppression of the wrong-doer, and so forth—things an experienced observer can know with intuitive certainty. When the knowledge is gained through inference, however, it is not obtained merely by the presence of