bodies, as well as Paradise with its food, drink, spouses, and sensory pleasures, and Hell with its tangible, burning substance that scorches skins and melts fat. From the point to which they had advanced, the philosophers proceeded further: they interpreted nonliterally everything reported concerning the Hereafter, reducing it to intellectual and spiritual suffering and intellectual pleasures. They denied the resurrection of bodies and maintained that souls continue to exist, either tormented or blessed with suffering or bliss imperceptible to the senses. These are the ones who went to excess.

The boundary of this middle course, between such abandonment of restraint and the rigidity of the Hanbalīs, is subtle and obscure. It is discernible only to those granted divine guidance, who perceive matters through a divine light, not through transmitted reports. Then, once the realities of things have been unveiled to them as they truly are, they examine the transmitted texts and their wording. Whatever accords with what they have witnessed by the light of certainty, they affirm; whatever conflicts with it, they interpret nonliterally.

As for anyone who derives knowledge of these matters from transmitted texts alone,