Yet any one of these views may surface in the minds of many people with regard to particular issues, so that they lapse into sophistry on that point—like the unbelievers who rejected what they knew to be true. The Exalted has said:

“They rejected them, though their own souls were convinced of them, out of wrongdoing and arrogance; so see how was the end of the corrupters.”
(Qur’an 27:14)

He also said:

“Those to whom We gave the Book recognize him just as they recognize their own sons, yet a group of them knowingly conceal the truth.”
(Qur’an 2:146)

And He said:

“Indeed, they do not deny you; rather, it is the wrongdoers who reject the signs of God.”
(Qur’an 6:33)

Now, in this world there are people who lie, reporting the opposite of what they know in many matters, but no one lies in every single statement he utters. Likewise, there are those who deny much of the truth they possess, yet they do not deny everything that is presented to them—whether sensory facts or otherwise. Whoever negates realities while aware of them, or denies knowledge despite its certainty, is among the liars. Whoever feigns ignorance and says, “I do not know,” is among those who suppress the truth they hold, like one who withholds testimony. And whoever makes realities follow beliefs—as some speculative theologians fancy, claiming that with respect to occurrences for which they lack a decisive textual proof there is no determinate ruling to be sought by ijtihād, so that the ruling instead follows one’s belief—has adopted a doctrine whose very beginning is sophistry. Yet it is a sophistry that has emerged among a band of keen-witted dialecticians; it is the view of Abū al-Hudhayl and Abū