nor does it mean that sound reason does not know this to be impossible. Rather, we say that sound reason knows it to be impossible, as people of sound reason among the imams and scholars of Islam have explicitly affirmed, stating that reason rules it out. This has never been presented to anyone of sound reason without their rejecting and denying it once they understood its true meaning.

As for someone whose reason does not reject it, this is because he has not subjected it to sound reason. For sound reason is pure and unalloyed, untainted by desire or ignorance. Many people hear these commonly used terms—space, that which occupies space, body, substance, accident, attributes, and the like—which admit of multiple meanings and ambiguities that cause rational people to disagree over them. Much reflection on what these terms denote is therefore not an exercise of sound reason free from ambiguity and equivocation.

Some people become familiar with a view, grow accustomed to it, and accept it on the authority of someone they hold in high esteem. For example, they accept on authority that the Creator is not in a direction, does not occupy space, and is neither a body nor a substance; or that He is a body or a substance. This uncritical acceptance prevents their reason from being sound, as Allah Most High says:

“When they are told, ‘Follow what Allah has revealed,’ they say, ‘Rather, we