This is exemplified by the comparisons Allah sets forth in His Book, concerning which He says:

“We have certainly presented for people in this Quran every kind of example.”
Al-Zumar: 27.

These comparisons are rational inferences, whether categorical syllogisms or analogies. They include what they call “demonstrations”: categorical syllogisms constructed from premises known with certainty. In ordinary Arabic, however, burhān (proof) has a broader meaning, as Allah called the two signs of Moses “two proofs”:

“These are two proofs from your Lord.”
[Al-Qasas: 32]

To clarify this: in theological inquiry, it is impermissible to employ an analogy that places the original case and the analogous case on an equal footing, or a categorical syllogism whose individual instances are treated equally. Nothing is like Allah, glorified is He, so He may neither be likened to anything else nor included under a universal proposition whose individual instances are on an equal footing.

Thus, when groups of philosophers and speculative theologians employed such forms of inference in theological questions, they did not attain certainty through them. Rather, their arguments contradicted one another, and—in the end—bewilderment and confusion prevailed among them, as they perceived the invalidity of their arguments or their equal force. What should instead be employed in these matters is a fortiori reasoning, whether in analogical or categorical form, as Allah Most High says:

“To Allah belongs the highest description.”
[Al-Nahl: 60]

For example, one may recognize that every perfection established for a contingent or originated being, involving no deficiency whatsoever—that is, a perfection of an existent being that does not entail nonexistence—belongs more fittingly to the necessary, eternal Being; and every perfection, free of deficiency in any respect, that is established