and growth would have redoubled, hearts would have been set at ease, and lamps of light would have shone within them. And Allah guides whom He wills to a straight path.”

[Commentary by Ibn Taymiyyah]

What Shaykh Abū Sulaymān al-Khattābī has described is the condition of the speculative theologians who oppose the Book and the Sunnah with their reason. They interpret the Book contrary to its true meaning and reject hadith by whatever means they can—for example, by claiming that a report is solitary, even when it is among the widely transmitted reports received with acceptance, and by other such grounds for rejection. This is because the principles upon which they have built their religion contradict the explicit statements of the Book and the Sunnah, such as the arguments from accidents, composition, specification, and similar methods discussed earlier.

In the rational arguments they pursue in opposition to the revealed texts, they are beset by perplexity, misgivings, and doubt. Those among them who are accomplished and intelligent, and who understand the furthest limits of their methods, are left in perplexity and doubt. Those who have not reached that point merely follow these men uncritically. Such a person abandons adherence to the infallible Prophet and the infallible consensus of the believers, and blindly follows the leaders of speculative theology that contradicts the Book and the Sunnah—men who are themselves in doubt and perplexity.

Thus every one of these people is either bewildered and doubtful or self-contradictory, asserting something and then asserting its opposite, which necessarily means that one or both assertions are false. Despite all their reflection and discourse, they remain confined either to simple ignorance or to