and that. Likewise, not everything known through reports and hearing can be examined through logical reasoning, either because it lacks a counterpart in all respects or for some other reason.

Furthermore, when a report is truthful and contains no falsehood, one can rely on it without fear of its being invalidated or proving unsound. Logical reasoning is different: much of it rests on universal propositions that admit counterexamples, although some of it does not.

The point is that not everything can be known through logical reasoning, nor does everything require it. Hence the leading scholars said:

“No inferential reasoning is needed in matters explicitly stated in the prophetic texts.”

As for the statement that these texts cannot be contradicted by the analogies drawn against them, this is what we have explained: no sound rational proof contradicts an explicit revealed text.

As for their statement, “They cannot be grasped by reason,” an individual’s innate rational faculty may itself be incapable of comprehending many things, especially unseen matters. Whoever seeks to comprehend everything through his own reason is therefore ignorant, particularly if he disparages the means of knowledge provided by transmitted prophetic reports.

This is the approach followed by some philosophers and those speculative theologians who resemble them. These are the people whose incoherence Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī and others discuss