and His signs manifested in His acts, which He has created within human beings and throughout the universe. These point to Him and provide insight and a reminder, even though one’s innate disposition had already recognized the Lord Most High before this, after which one experienced some ignorance, doubt, forgetfulness, or the like.

It should also be understood that a person’s knowledge and conception of something is one thing; his awareness that he knows it is another; and his knowledge that he acquired it through a particular means is a third.

Likewise, his willing and loving something is one thing; his awareness that he wills and loves it is another; and the fact that this will and love arose through a particular means is a third.

A person performing ablution, praying, or fasting inevitably has in his heart an intention to perform the voluntary act. He cannot rid himself of it, even if he does not verbalize the intention. Yet he may then suppose that the intention arose only because he verbalized it, and in this he is mistaken.

Likewise, he may acquire immediate knowledge of what mass-transmitted reports convey, then reflect on what the reports indicate and suppose that the knowledge he possesses arose only through reflection, although he already knew it before reflecting.

It may be said that reflection reinforced that knowledge or brought it back to mind after it had slipped from his awareness. This helps show you that many speculative thinkers suppose that they did not come to know Allah through the particular line of reasoning they pursued. That reasoning may be sound, or it may be flawed.

If it is flawed, it does not yield knowledge, yet they suppose that their knowledge arose only through it. They are mistaken.