part.”

If it is said:

“Rather, reason judges the universal proposition to hold universally,”

the reply is:

“It does so only through its knowledge of particulars, and thus returns to analogy.”

This is why most of their universal propositions prove false through counterexamples: they claim universality for them on the basis of familiar experiences and customary patterns, although in reality they admit exceptions, as actually occurs. For someone who says:

“Every fire burns whatever it touches,”

says this only because of his sensory experience of particular instances falling under this universal proposition. Yet his claim is contradicted when fire comes into contact with rubies, salamanders, and other things. A detailed discussion of this belongs elsewhere.

The point here is to draw attention to the fact that both analogical and syllogistic reasoning yield an unrestricted universal proposition through which knowledge of particular things existing in external reality is obtained. Yet knowledge of those particulars may not require either kind of reasoning. A particular that has no counterpart cannot be known through either kind. Moreover, the universal proposition may admit counterexamples. Thus, such reasoning does not by itself yield knowledge of particulars; it may yield no knowledge at all, and it may frequently admit counterexamples. Prophetic texts, by contrast, are invariably true and describe particulars as they really are.

The greatest object of inquiry is knowledge of Allah Most High, His names, His attributes, His actions, His commands, and His prohibitions. None of this can be known in its distinctive particulars through either syllogistic or analogical reasoning. For Allah Most High has no counterpart with whom He could be compared by analogy, nor is He subsumed