and Hammād ibn Zayd, al-Layth ibn Saʿd and others, and on declaring Muhammad ibn Saʿīd al-Maslūb, Abū al-Bakhtarī Wahb ibn Wahb the judge, Ahmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Juwaybārī and others like them to be liars.

Sharia-based evidence is contrasted not with rational evidence, but with evidence based on religious innovation. Fifteenth Argument

Sharia-based evidence is contrasted not with rational evidence, but with evidence based on religious innovation.

Fifteenth Argument

It may be said:

Whether evidence is rational or received through hearing is not a quality that in itself entails praise or blame, validity or invalidity. Rather, it indicates the means by which the evidence becomes known: hearing or reason—although hearing necessarily requires reason as well. The same applies to describing evidence as rational or transmitted. Describing it as Sharia-based, however, does not contrast it with rational evidence, but with evidence based on religious innovation, since religious innovation stands opposed to the Sharia. Being Sharia-based is a praiseworthy quality, whereas being based on religious innovation is blameworthy. Whatever contradicts the Sharia is false.

Sharia-based evidence may, in turn, be received through hearing or be rational. To describe evidence as Sharia-based may mean that the Sharia establishes it and points to it; it may also mean that the Sharia permits and authorizes it. If “Sharia-based” means what the Sharia establishes, then one possibility is that the evidence is also known through reason, but the Sharia draws attention to it and points to it. It is thus both Sharia-based and rational.