I have found reason to be of two kinds:
innate and acquired through hearing.
What is heard brings no benefit
where innate reason is lacking,
just as the eye brings no benefit
when sunlight is withheld.

As for acting upon knowledge—securing what benefits a person and warding off what harms him by considering the consequences—this is the predominant meaning of reason in the words of the early generations and the leading scholars, including the reports transmitted concerning the virtues of reason.

Among these is the hadith transmitted from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, though its chain of transmission is disconnected:

“Allah loves penetrating insight when doubts arise, and He loves sound reason when desires surge.”

Understood in this sense, reason encompasses knowledge, and knowledge forms part of what it denotes. It is well known that knowledge combined with acting upon it is better than knowledge that is not acted upon.

This accords with what several of the early generations said concerning the meaning of wisdom. Mālik ibn Anas said:

“Wisdom is knowing the religion and acting upon it.”

The same was also said by al-Fudayl ibn