and reminding it of them, just as God has done in many passages. He has set forth signs that point to Him—His oneness, power, knowledge, and so forth—thereby guiding His servants and leading them to the truth. He has likewise clarified the proofs for the prophethood of His messengers and for the Resurrection and its possibility.

Thus these questions are religiously grounded in two ways: first, because the Lawgiver has informed us of them, and second, because He has presented the rational proofs by which they may be established.

—the parables set forth in the Quran are themselves rational analogies; this has been treated at length elsewhere—

They are rational also in the sense that they can be known by reason alone.

[The Invalidity of the Theologians’ Proofs]

Many speculative theologians call these matters “rational fundamentals,” assuming that they can be known solely through reason, for in their view revelation is nothing more than the report of a truthful informant, and the truthfulness of that informant—the Prophet—cannot be established until these fundamentals have first been proven by reason.

They then differ among themselves concerning which fundamentals are necessary for affirming prophethood. One faction claims that the intellect’s power to declare things good or evil is among these fundamentals, insisting that prophethood cannot be established without it; they further hold that denying the divine decree is something the intellect itself rejects.