attribution of the act to a command or a prohibition. In this he touched upon part of the truth, for he traced the matter back to what agrees with or repels the natural disposition and to the perfection or deficiency of the one who possesses the quality. Yet he erred in imagining that rationally perceived goodness and badness arise from that alone. Still, the two parties were not altogether mistaken, for goodness and badness—as discerned by sense perception, by intellect, and by the Sacred Law; by sight, reflection, and transmitted report; by what is outwardly well-known and what is inwardly perceived; by rational analogy and by divine injunction—are, in essence, of a single kind. Each avenue conveys knowledge of them, confirming through one what cannot be known through another, while each in turn is corroborated by the others.

[The Three Avenues of Knowledge]
These three—hearing, sight, and reason—are the pathways to knowledge:

1. Sight—meaning both outward and inward witnessing—perceives within these movements and volitions what is congenial or repugnant, and what is of immediate benefit or harm.

2. Hearing—namely Allah’s revelation and His sending down—reports what direct witnessing is too limited to grasp concerning their benefit or harm in the Hereafter.

Thus the perfection of the religion lies in the fiṭrah (innate disposition) and in preserving it as Allah proportioned it, not in altering or distorting it. Every newborn is born upon the fiṭrah; Allah created His servants ḥunafāʾ (upright monotheists), but the devils led them astray, made unlawful for them what Allah had made lawful, and commanded them to associate with Him that for which He sent down no authority. So Allah has informed us, as His Messenger related from Him in the authentic hadith narrated by Muslim.

By their very nature they love Allah alone and love to partake of the wholesome things they need, for love follows witnessing and sensation. What is in their fiṭrah of perception and movement toward worshipping their Creator, together with the wholesome provision that assists them in that, is the aspect of goodness affirmed in righteous deeds—whether obligatory or merely permissible. All of it is good because of this harmony, suitability, and love upon which they were created. Whatever of that lies in the realm of observable reality is apprehended by witnessing and sensation, and whatever is unseen is apprehended by the hearing conveyed by the messengers.