Darbās, and others, just as some before them had said that it can be acquired only through revelation.

By reason, these scholars mean the innate faculty and the knowledge it necessarily entails, which rational people generally acquire. This alone does not necessarily yield knowledge of Allah; something further is required.

As they argued: “If knowledge of Allah were acquired through reason, every rational person would know Him. Since some rational people are unbelievers, this shows that knowledge of Him is not established through reason. Do you not see that those who engage in rational inquiry do not disagree over what is known self-evidently?”

This, however, only rules out knowledge of Allah associated with faith; otherwise, rational people generally acknowledge the Creator. Moreover, this rules out such knowledge being self-evident. Their argument also entails that rational methods do not settle the point in dispute or secure consensus. This is indeed as they say.

For although some inferential methods of rational inquiry lead to certain knowledge, they do not settle disputes among the people of the earth. Sometimes this is because they are subtle and obscure; at other times it is because people may dispute self-evident premises, just as most practitioners of rational inquiry dispute many self-evident premises.

For this reason, when disputes arise, Allah has commanded recourse only to the revealed scriptures. Allah Most High says:

“Humanity was one community; then Allah sent the prophets as bearers of good tidings and warners, and sent down with them the Scripture in truth to judge between people concerning that over which they differed