are either hypocrites, evildoers, advocates of grave innovation, or the like. The same applies to those who claim to possess sound reason and knowledge of intelligible realities, and who claim soundness of reasoning and knowledge of conclusive evidence and demonstrations weighed on a just balance. In many—or most—of their affairs, they are among the furthest removed from reason and intelligible realities. All this amounts to calling observable things and attributes by names other than their own, as Allah Most High says:

“They are nothing but names you and your forefathers have named, for which Allah has sent down no authority.” [al-Najm 23]

Since that is so, those who dispute this say that sound reason rules out the possibility that sound reason could exist alongside something else while being neither inside it nor outside it, or neither separate from it nor sharing its location; or that it could subsist independently without being distinct in direction from another independently subsisting entity—and other such notions that can be expressed in various ways. The leading scholars of Islam have consistently stated that reason rules out the existence of such a thing. Thus, the assertion, “This