distortion, as in the account given by the master Abū Ishāq al-Isfarāyīnī when explaining what can and cannot be known through reason. He said:

“The adherents of truth maintain that knowledge and intellect are one and the same, and that differences in people’s intellects arise from the greater or lesser extent of their knowledge. When a person’s intellect is fully developed and free from impairment, he can infer from the acts he observes that the world came into existence. For the unaided intellect contains proofs of this and of the world’s need for an Originator who brought it into being. It also contains proofs of its Originator’s eternity without beginning, of His attributes indicated by His acts, and of what is possible for Him