‘My Lord has only forbidden shameful deeds, whether open or secret, sin, unjust aggression, associating with Allah anything for which He has sent down no authority, and saying about Allah what you do not know.’”
Allah Most High also says:
“He only commands you to commit evil and shameful deeds, and to say about Allah what you do not know.”
And He says:
“Do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge.”
And He says:
“O People of the Scripture, do not exceed the bounds in your religion, nor say anything about Allah except the truth.”
And He says:
“Was not the covenant of the Scripture taken from them, that they would say nothing about Allah except the truth?”
Just as a person may not affirm anything without knowledge, neither may he deny anything without knowledge. Thus, the burden of proof rests upon the one who denies, just as it rests upon the one who affirms.
Another principle that must be understood is that “proofs of the truth do not contradict one another.” When Allah reports something—whether affirming or denying—it is impossible for another of His reports to contradict that first report. Nor can anything understood through reason independently of revelation contradict what that report conveys.
Proofs that yield knowledge cannot contradict one another, whether both are based on revelation, both are rational, or one is based on revelation and the other is rational. Contradiction may, however, arise between things that some people suppose to be proofs but are not. Someone may hear a report and suppose it to be authentic when it is not, or understand it to mean something it does not indicate. Or a specious argument may occur to him which he supposes to be a rational proof, though it is false: truth has become confused with falsehood in his mind, and on that basis he rejects what Allah and His Messenger have reported.
This is one of the reasons why those who reject the messengers go astray: either by rejecting them altogether, as did those who rejected all the messengers, such as the people of Noah, ʿĀd, Thamūd and others like them; or by believing in some and disbelieving