camels, while others report that he gave another man a thousand sheep, and still others report that he gave someone else ten horses and slaves in all, and so forth, until the reports about him become numerous. Although mass transmission is not established for each kind of report separately, it is established for their general category, and the reports collectively yield certain knowledge that Hātim was generous. The same applies to these events: although their individual instances have not been established through mass transmission, an immense multitude of narrators, whose numbers cannot be counted and whose collusion in falsehood is inconceivable, have established that he brought something that humans were powerless to match and that lay beyond their capacity. His prophethood is thus established.”

[Al-Khattābī’s remarks in The Emblem of Religion]

Al-Khattābī also said in the supplement he appended to his book Shiʿār al-Dīn wa-Barāhīn al-Muslimīn (The Emblem of Religion and the Proofs of the Muslims):

“The objectionable speculative theology which the scholars warned against and condemned consists in immersing oneself