and motivation, what one is capable of doing must necessarily come about. These arguments should therefore have emerged among those most distinguished in reason and religion.
Since this was not the case, it is clear that this was due to their unsoundness, and that people did not accept them because their reason was sound, just as in the case of the doctrines of the esoteric Qarmatians, the extremist Rāfidah, and similar groups whose teachings are demonstrably unsound by clear reason.
Falsehood plainly has no fixed limit. People of reason and religion need not conceive of every falsehood and refute it, for there is no end to this. The situation is different with truths concerning Allah Most High that are established by clear reason, especially if they must be believed—indeed, if believing the Messenger depends upon knowing them. It is inconceivable that the virtuous generations, despite their great numbers and their excellence in reason and religion, neither knew nor affirmed such truths.
It is therefore clear that these objections are not sound rational propositions firmly established in clear reason. Rather, they are corrupt imaginings resembling rational propositions, which gain acceptance among some people but not others. They gained acceptance among the Jahmiyyah and those who agreed with them, but not among the great majority of rational people.
For this reason, they found their greatest acceptance among the most ignorant people, those most prone to rejecting truth and believing falsehood: the esoteric Qarmatians, those who teach divine indwelling, those who teach union between Creator and creation, and others like them.
It is well known that, in the established course of human experience, the transmitters of mass-transmitted reports cannot collectively lie or conceal information that people have abundant motives and incentives to convey. Just as innate human dispositions contain a restraint against lying, they also contain an incentive to disclose and explain. The same applies here.
Just as diverse minds and differing innate dispositions, when reporting what they know through immediate certainty or