and blind, who do not return to the guidance they once followed, or who never exercised reason at all.

Of people such as these, Allah Most High says:

“Those who deny Our signs are deaf and mute, in darkness. Whomever Allah wills, He sends astray, and whomever He wills, He places on a straight path.”
[al-An‘ām: 39].

Allah has drawn comparisons illustrating both groups in several passages of the Quran, including Surah al-Nūr and elsewhere.

[Fifth Argument]

It may be said:

We do not concede that affirming the transmitted evidence establishing Allah’s being above His creation, while rejecting the supposedly rational arguments that contradict it, undermines the foundation of revelation, as asserted in the statement:

“For reason is the foundation of revelation; rejecting reason in order to affirm revelation therefore entails rejecting both.”

We reply:

We do not concede that the rational argument denying Allah’s being above His creation is a foundation of revelation. Knowing revelation to be true does not depend on everything termed rational, nor on everything known through reason. Those matters on which knowledge of the truth of revelation does not depend are not foundations of revelation.

Nor is it valid to say, “Revelation is known through rational knowledge in general, so none of it may be rejected.” Rational people agree that rejecting some rational propositions does not entail rejecting revelation, even supposing those propositions to be sound—for example, intricate questions of arithmetic and the like. For although they are