the speaker’s intended meaning are clearer and more evident to all human beings than the category of purely rational proofs. Thus, every community that refers to the words of someone whose authority it accepts differs less over what he intended than those who rely solely on purely rational proofs.

For this reason, the various groups of polytheists outside the People of the Book—including the philosophers of India, Greece, Arabia, and elsewhere—differ far more over what they claim to be rational proofs than the People of the Book differ over the prophets’ intended meaning. Likewise, the people of hadith and Sunnah, who refer to the Messenger’s hadith—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—alongside the Quran, differ less than those who lack such knowledge.

Those who reject authentic reports on the grounds that they are solitary reports that do not yield certain knowledge, or who accept weak or fabricated reports believing them to be authentic, differ more than those well versed in hadith. The latter’s greater knowledge of hadith enables it to guide them to the Messenger’s intended meaning, so they differ less than the former. And the community of Muhammad, even though