—exalted is He:

“There has certainly come to you a Messenger from among yourselves. Your suffering weighs heavily upon him; he is deeply concerned for you and is compassionate and merciful towards the believers.” Al-Tawbah 128.

And He says:

“However eager you are for their guidance, Allah does not guide those He causes to stray.” Al-Nahl: 37.

Allah has obliged him to convey the message clearly and has sent down the Book to him so that he may explain to people what has been revealed to them. His explanation, address, and speech must therefore be more complete and comprehensive than anyone else’s. How, then, could he have failed to explain the truth, while it was explained instead by those whose ignorance and deficiencies in knowledge and understanding are established by abundant evidence?! This is discussed at length elsewhere.

Much of what people say concerning the foundations of religion, speculative theology, the rational sciences, and wisdom is such that anyone who considers it carefully knows that it contradicts what the Messenger brought, or that the Messenger said nothing of the kind. Yet some have believed that these teachings belong to the foundations of religion and encompass the universal sciences, knowledge of divine matters, and true wisdom or first philosophy. Consequently, many of them have come to say that the Messenger did not know the foundations of religion, or did not explain them. Some hold the Prophet in awe, but say instead that the Companions and their successors did not know these things. Those who esteem the Companions and their successors while also esteeming these thinkers’ views remain bewildered: how could those eminent people have failed to discuss these matters, which constitute the most excellent branches of knowledge? Those who believe in the Messenger and hold him in esteem find it difficult to understand how he could have failed to explain the foundations of religion, when people need them more than anything else.