the scriptural texts belong to this category, including such terms as “body,” “space,” “direction,” “substance,” and “accident.” Anyone whose objections rely on such expressions may not declare his opponent a disbeliever unless the revealed law makes clear that the opponent’s statement constitutes disbelief. For disbelief is a judgment of the revealed law, learned from the one who brought that law. Reason may establish whether a statement is correct or mistaken, but not everything that is mistaken according to reason constitutes disbelief under the revealed law, just as not everything that is correct according to reason must be known under the revealed law.
It is astonishing that some speculative theologians say:
“The fundamentals of religion, disagreement with which constitutes disbelief, consist in speculative theology known through reason alone.”
As for what cannot be known through reason alone, they classify it as matters of revealed law. This is the approach of the Mu‘tazilah, the Jahmiyyah, and those who follow their path, such as the followers of the author of al-Irshād and others like them.
They may be answered as follows:
This statement contains two claims: first, that the fundamentals of religion are those matters known through pure reason rather than revelation; and second, that whoever disagrees with them is a disbeliever. Although each premise is false, combining them also produces a contradiction. For if something can be known only through reason, it cannot be known that disagreement with it constitutes disbelief as defined by the revealed law. The revealed law does not state that whoever disagrees with something knowable only through reason becomes a disbeliever. Rather, disbelief consists in denying what the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, has reported, or refusing to follow him despite knowing that he is truthful—as in the disbelief of Pharaoh, the Jews, and others like them.
In short, disbelief is connected to what the Messenger brought. This is clear according to those who hold that nothing is obligatory or forbidden except through the revealed law. For, supposing no message had been sent, disbelief would not be forbidden and faith would not be obligatory according to them. Even those who establish these judgments through reason do not dispute that, after the coming of