But if it is asked, “What is the difference between this and cases in which collusion is impossible—affirming what is not the case or denying what is established—as in mass-transmitted reports?”

The answer is that, without prior collusion, people’s innate dispositions cannot concur in denying what is self-evidently known. With collusion, however, it is possible for a great many people to agree upon a lie that they all know to be a lie, even if it entails, to whatever extent Allah wills, denying what is known through the senses or by necessity and affirming its opposite.

As for doctrines, a large body of people may agree in denying necessary truths when a specious argument or personal inclination is involved. Most of them may not have understood what their leading thinkers have said. For example, this issue is expressed in terms of denying direction, space, and place. Their ordinary followers suppose that they mean to declare Allah Most High free from being confined within His creation or dependent upon any created being. They therefore agree with this correct meaning, supposing it to be what that expression conveys. But if they understand what the position actually means—that there is no Lord above the heavens and nothing exists beyond the world—no one, having understood it, agrees with them on the basis of his innate disposition. Only someone persuaded by one of the deniers’ specious arguments agrees with them, especially if he has a personal inclination or ulterior purpose.

If those who agree upon this denial, after understanding it, profess it only because they have been persuaded by the deniers’ arguments, then they may be mistaken and fall into error in this matter, and may agree in denying whatever contradicts it, even if it is known by necessity, just as