for which they deserve punishment, to an extent not known to us in the case of those earlier philosophers.
Even if news of some prophets’ missions had reached those earlier philosophers, and a messenger had been sent to them, he was not the equal of Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Indeed, we know with certainty that no Book like the Quran, no messenger like Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and no revealed law like his ever came to them.
Everyone acquainted with him knows, as an indisputable fact of his religion, that he declared that Allah created the heavens and the earth in six days, that He is the Creator of all things, and that these celestial spheres are not eternal and without beginning. Anyone who asserts their eternity contradicts his teachings and those of Moses and the other messengers—a contradiction that no one familiar with the matter would dispute. Whichever of these two alternatives a person chooses, neither is worth choosing.
The root of this misguidance is their ignorance of the true nature of what the Messenger—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—brought; their defence of what they suppose he brought by means of what they suppose to be rational arguments; their opposition, using such supposed rational arguments, to what is known to have come from him; and their mistaken belief that authentic transmitted revelation conflicts with sound, unambiguous reason. This is the speculative theology condemned by the early generations and the leading scholars.
As for those possessing sound knowledge of both reason and transmitted revelation, they do not say of their predecessors what necessarily follows from these people’s position, just as they do not say such things of the prophets. Rather, they know with certainty that the prophets’ words are the truth, and that whatever contradicts them—whether the statement of a philosophizer, a speculative theologian, or anyone else—is false. They know that reason cannot contain anything that contradicts the prophets’ words, and that proofs yielding certain knowledge, whether grounded in revelation or reason, can never conflict. They also know that the class of