that the agent brings about what he loves and enjoys, and what he hates and what harms him. This much may be known through reason, through the revealed law, or through both together.

However, detailed knowledge of this, and knowledge of the ultimate outcome of actions—happiness or misery in the Hereafter—can be obtained only through revelation. People cannot know through their reason the details of the Last Day that the messengers have conveyed, or the detailed prescriptions of the revealed laws that they have commanded. Likewise, people cannot know through their reason the details of Allah’s names and attributes conveyed by the messengers, although they may know their general outlines through reason. This detailed knowledge, through which faith is attained and which the Book has brought, is indicated by the words of the Most High:

“And thus We have revealed to you an inspiration by Our command. You did not know what the Book was, nor what faith was, but We made it a light by which We guide whom We will of Our servants.”

And His words:

“Say, ‘If I go astray, I go astray only to my own detriment; but if I am guided, it is through what my Lord reveals to me. Indeed, He is All-Hearing, Near.’”

And His words:

“Say, ‘I warn you only through revelation.’”

Yet one group mistakenly supposed that goodness and badness had a meaning other than this, and that this meaning could be known through reason. Opposing them was another group, who supposed that the goodness and badness taught by the revealed law fell outside this understanding. Both groups—those who affirmed goodness and badness as known through reason, and those who affirmed them as known through the revealed law, while excluding them from this category—were mistaken.