definitively certain, while disparaging jurisprudence—which is the knowledge of rulings governing actions—to the point of treating it as a matter of conjecture rather than knowledge.

On this basis they have established principles that have spread among people, to the point that groups of jurists, Sufis, and hadith scholars have adopted them without knowing their origins or the corruption to which they lead. Yet the principles they have asserted in this regard are false and flimsy, as we shall explain elsewhere. They do not acknowledge that Allah has a determinate ruling in matters of law, such that a jurist exercising independent judgment may be either correct or mistaken. Rather, the ruling applicable to each person is whatever his independent judgment leads him to.

We have explained elsewhere the sophistry and heresy this entails. They acknowledge no ruling from Allah whatsoever in matters open to independent judgment, nor any evidence whatsoever from Him for such a ruling. Indeed, Ibn al-Bāqillānī and others say that there is no underlying indication by which one conjecture could be sounder than another; these are merely matters of chance. Thus, in his view, conjectures do not rest on evidence and indications that warrant them, as things known with certainty rest on evidence.

Furthermore, he and a group of others have also nullified the foundations of jurisprudence and denied their evidentiary force