placed their confidence in one approach rather than another, although each approach contains things to be accepted and things to be rejected. The most important matter is to know what the Messenger brought and to understand it.

It is established in the two Sahīh collections that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“Whoever Allah intends good for, He grants understanding of the religion.”

The first step in understanding the religion is to understand the words of Allah and His Messenger, after establishing that they have been authentically transmitted from the Messenger. Even if it were indeed the case that what is conveyed through revelation need not be accepted until proof of the messenger’s truthfulness has been established, and a person were still working toward that proof, he should not examine any question people have discussed until he knows what this Messenger said and what has been authentically transmitted from him. For even if the Messenger were hypothetically regarded as merely one of the scholars engaged in rational inquiry, one ought to know what he said on disputed questions, so as to consider his views alongside those of others, just as one does when examining the views of rational thinkers. How much more so, then, when he is in fact the one protected from error, who does not speak from his own desire?

It is well known that if a man were to discuss a disputed medical question, having heard that Hippocrates, Galen, and others like them had made an explicit statement about it, he ought not to settle on a position