authors and teachers by learning rational proofs that make the truth clear to them, they benefit more fully and to greater advantage from the words of Allah, then those proofs are rational insofar as reason recognizes their soundness once its attention is drawn to them, and scriptural insofar as revelation points to them and guides people to them.

On this understanding, the proofs are both scriptural and rational. Accordingly, one may say that scriptural evidence is of two kinds: rational and report-based. Rational evidence consists of the rational truths to which revelation points, while report-based evidence provides proof through reporting alone. Elsewhere we have mentioned that the leading speculative thinkers acknowledge that the Quran contains rational proofs.

In the terminology of these men, however, “scriptural evidence” often means report-based evidence: simply the report of the truthful Lawgiver. Even on their terminology, people dispute those rational premises through which they claim knowledge can be attained only.

As for the first premise—their assertion that knowledge does not arise directly in the soul but must be reached by some means—this is itself disputed. If they are told that knowledge may arise directly in the soul, they have no evidence to deny this apart from induction, which is either invalid or incomplete.

As for their assertion that rational people’s souls yearn for inferential proof, their opponents say to them: “We do not concede that all rational people are like this. Rather, most rational people