and the Sunnah, agreed upon by the early generations of the Muslim community—indeed, known through the innate disposition Allah Most High has instilled in humankind and indicated by unequivocal rational arguments—they were opposed by those who said that knowledge can be attained only through revelation.

For the most part, these latter people do not mean by this the knowledge possessed by people in general, whether unbelievers or others. They regard such knowledge as innate and self-evident, or as acquired through some form of rational reflection.

We have already discussed people’s statements that the fundamental acknowledgment of the Creator is innate and self-evident, or may be self-evident, contrary to those who say that it can be attained only through rational reflection. The early generations and the imams have spoken extensively on this subject.

Thus, many of his followers who say that the first obligation is rational reflection, and that knowledge can be attained only through it, may say the opposite elsewhere.

It has already been mentioned that Judge Abū Ya'lā and others used to maintain that reflection according to this method—the method of accidents—was obligatory, but subsequently retracted that position. They say that knowledge is inferential and is attained by reflecting on the proofs mentioned in the Quran.

Many people initially maintained that the particular form of reflection required by the Jahmiyyah and the Mu'tazilah was obligatory: reflection on the origination of accidents, their inseparability from bodies, and the proposition that whatever cannot be free of events must itself have originated. They held that this was the first obligation upon Allah’s servants. They later retracted this position once it became clear to them that affirming such a requirement was unsound.

[Abū Ya'lā’s discussion in al-Mu'tamad of the obligation to engage in rational reflection]

Among these were Judge Abū Ya'lā, Ibn 'Aqīl, Abū al-Ma'ālī al-Juwaynī,