about Him. Once this faith is firmly established in a person’s heart, he cannot give precedence over the Messenger’s report to anything that contradicts it.

[Thirty-fifth argument]

It may be said: Their position is contradictory, and a contradictory position is unsound.

These people require some scriptural texts to be reinterpreted, but not others. Yet no one who professes allegiance to the Muslim community—or indeed anyone outside it—can reinterpret all scriptural texts.

That being so, they may be asked: What distinguishes the texts you have deemed open to reinterpretation, diverting them from their apparent sense and clear meaning, from those whose meaning you have accepted?

They face two alternatives. Either they say, as most of them do: “We reinterpret whatever is opposed by a conclusive rational argument, and accept whatever is not opposed by such an argument.”

They may then be told: In that case, you cannot rule out reinterpretation for anything, since you cannot rule out every opposing rational argument, as explained above.

Moreover, the absence of a conclusive opposing rational argument does not establish certainty about what scriptural evidence signifies. For, on your own account, if you allow that the Lawgiver might make a statement with an intelligible meaning without intending that meaning, because it is contradicted by subtle rational considerations that never occur to most people—or never occur to humanity for many centuries—then he could likewise intend by his words something contrary to what they imply even without such considerations. Something contradicting that meaning might become apparent in the Hereafter, or that meaning might not be known through an argument