discipline are the most beset by doubt and confusion, the least possessed of knowledge and precision, and the furthest from attaining sound, well-balanced knowledge—even though some among them may establish certain points of knowledge. That, however, is due to the soundness of the subject matter and evidence they examine, and to the soundness of their intellect and perception, not to logic. Indeed, introducing the discipline of logic into sound sciences lengthens their exposition, obscures their meaning, makes accessible knowledge remote, and turns what is easy into something difficult. Thus, you find that those who have introduced it into juristic disputation, speculative theology, the principles of jurisprudence, and other fields have gained nothing but an abundance of words and elaborate discourse, with little knowledge or precision. It is therefore clear that it is among the greatest sources of verbiage and among the things furthest removed from the way of sound-minded people.

Admittedly, it cannot be denied that certain elements of logic may benefit someone immersed in unbelief and error, blindly following the ignorant people among whom they grew up—such as ordinary Christians, Jews, the Rāfidah, and others like them—and that logic may lead them to abandon the beliefs held by those people. Most of these individuals, however, end up pandering to their common followers and leading them astray from Allah’s path, or become hypocritical heretics who affirm neither truth nor falsehood, but abandon truth just as they abandoned falsehood. Thus, the clever members of misguided sects are either pandering deceivers or heretical hypocrites; scarcely any of them falls outside these two categories.