and accept these transmitted reports as your guide, just as those before you accepted them as theirs. By my life, you are no more knowledgeable about the Book of Allah than they were, nor even their equals; rather, you are further astray and more ignorant. You cannot follow their example except by following these reports as they are transmitted. Whoever refuses to accept them only seeks to follow a path other than that of the believers. Allah Most High says:

“and follows a path other than that of the believers, We will leave him to what he has chosen and cast him into Hell—what an evil destination!” (115) [al-Nisā’ 115]

If one of them says, “No; rather, we uphold what is rational,” we reply: This is where you have strayed from the right path and entered a wilderness from which you can find no escape. For what is rational is not one single, defined and delimited thing upon which everyone agrees, such that one could confine oneself to it. Were it so, it would make matters easy for people, and we too would uphold it and go no further. But Allah Most High says:

“Each faction rejoices in what it has.” (53) [al-Mu’minūn 53]

Thus we found that, for each faction, what is rational is whatever it adheres to