And at the beginning of Surah al-Baqarah, after dividing people into three categories—believers, disbelievers and hypocrites—He says:

“O mankind, worship your Lord, who created you and those before you, that you may become righteous.”

He mentions His blessings, which manifest His bounty and power, then follows this by establishing prophethood through His saying:

“And if you are in doubt about what We have sent down upon Our servant.”

A speculative theologian admires such an arrangement and considers it magnificent, since lordship is established first, followed by messengership. He supposes that this accords with his own theological method of first examining rational propositions: establishing lordship, then establishing prophethood, and then receiving through prophethood those matters known through revelation. This is the well-known method of speculative theology followed by the Muʿtazilah, Karrāmiyyah, Kullābiyyah and Ashʿariyyah.

Those who follow this path first establish the existence of the Creator on the basis that the world began to exist, then affirm and negate His attributes through rational inference—with their various agreements and disagreements concerning either the questions themselves or the proofs. Only afterward do they discuss, in general terms, matters known through revelation, such as resurrection, reward and punishment, the caliphate, relative merit and faith.

The mainstay and bulk of their theological discourse consist of those propositions they call rational, which constitute the foundations of their religion. They have based these on inferences that entail rejecting much of what the Sunnah has brought. They have therefore incurred censure both for the weakness of the inferences on which they have built and for their rejection of what the Sunnah has brought.

They fall into two groups: one group, such as the Ashʿariyyah, bases doctrinal principles, but not practical principles, on these rational propositions derived by inference,