in hearts as both knowledge and intent, cannot be uprooted by anyone except by altering innate human nature. As the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said:

“Every child is born upon the natural disposition; then his parents make him a Jew, a Christian, or a Magian, just as an animal gives birth to an intact offspring: do you detect any mutilation in it?”

As for a disputant, if he tells his opponent that he knows something necessarily and self-evidently, or says, “This premise is self-evident or necessarily known to me,” his opponent cannot properly argue against him by presenting something that contradicts that necessary knowledge, as mentioned. For the most he can do is argue from premises that he grounds in necessarily known premises. Thus, even supposing that self-evident truths could contradict one another, or appeared contradictory to someone, rejecting one self-evident truth on the strength of another would be no more justified than the reverse. How much more so, then, if what is set against them is