He then said:

“This is the preface of our shaykh, Abū Bakr ‘Abd al-‘Azīz ibn Ja‘far ibn Ahmad, which he included at the beginning of his book al-Shāfī. I wished to open my book with it, seeking blessing through him, and because he explicitly affirmed rational inquiry and inference in his words: ‘who commands those endowed with insight to reflect, and those endowed with understanding to draw lessons.’”

He said:

“This establishes the obligation and validity of rational inquiry and dispels the confusion of anyone who has supposed otherwise regarding the school’s position.”

I say: Requiring rational inquiry in general is different from requiring inquiry by one particular method: the method based on accidents being temporally originated and necessarily accompanying bodies. None of the imams of the Muslims who know what the Messenger—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—brought and follow it holds that this method is obligatory for Muslims. For it is self-evident to anyone acquainted with his teachings that the Messenger—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—did not require inquiry by this method, nor did he even indicate its validity. Rather, what he taught contradicts its implications. Although some adherents of innovated speculative theology have made it a foundation for knowing the Maker and His attributes and establishing the truthfulness of His messengers, upon close examination it contradicts knowledge of the Maker, knowledge of His attributes, and the truthfulness of His messengers, as has been explained at length elsewhere.

The point here is that al-Qādī Abū Ya‘lā and others like him, who initially held that knowledge