and others like them among the accomplished speculative thinkers who have gathered the essence of what the proponents of negation among the philosophers and speculative theologians have said. Indeed, they oppose what must be believed, and what sound reason recognizes as agreeing with it, by means of what sound reason knows to be false. At other times, each group refutes the rational method on which the other relies—n—by arguments that demonstrate its invalidity through sound reason. They do not agree on a single method.

This demonstrates that they are all mistaken in two respects:

First, through the sound reason by which each group has demonstrated the invalidity of what the others say; and second, because they share no common rational principle, let alone one established by sound reason.

Rather, a premise that one group of speculative thinkers—speculative thinkers—claims to be valid is declared invalid by another. This contrasts with the premises of those who affirm, which accord with what the Messenger brought, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. These are rational principles upon which the innate dispositions of rational people of sound disposition agree. No one disputes them except someone who has learned to do so from another, rather than being led to it by his own innate disposition. He challenges them only through a premise accepted on another’s authority or derived through theoretical reasoning,