and no nation whatsoever can live upon it (1).

Chapter Eighteen: on the division of people, with respect to the texts of revelation, into the people of taʾwīl (reinterpretation), the people of takhyīl (imagistic suggestion), the people of tamthīl (anthropomorphic likening), the people of tajhīl (declaring others ignorant), and the people of the straight path.

Chapter Nineteen: on the factors that make it easy for ignorant souls to accept taʾwīl despite its contravention of the bayān (2) that Allah taught humankind and with which He endowed them by nature.

Chapter Twenty: demonstrating that the proponents of taʾwīl can never, under any circumstances, establish a textual proof against a false claimant.

Chapter Twenty-One: on the causes that give rise to taʾwīl.

Chapter Twenty-Two: on the various kinds of disagreement that stem from taʾwīl, and on classifying disagreement into what is praiseworthy and what is blameworthy.

Chapter Twenty-Three: on the reasons for the disputes that arose among the imams after they had agreed upon a single foundation to which they all referred for judgment—the Book of Allah and the sunnah of His Messenger.

Chapter Twenty-Four: naming the four false idols with which the adherents of corrupt taʾwīl have razed the fortresses of religion, violated the sanctity of the Quran, and effaced the traces of faith. They are:
Their assertion that the speech of Allah and the speech of His Messenger are merely verbal indicators that impart no knowledge and yield no