The logicians have stated that propositions known through mass transmission, experience, and the senses are confined to those who know them and do not constitute proof against anyone else, unlike other propositions, which are shared and may be used as proof against an opponent. This distinction is false and is one of the foundations of irreligion and disbelief. For, concerning miracles and other matters transmitted from the prophets through mass transmission, one of these people says, on the basis of this distinction: “This has not reached me through mass transmission, so it constitutes no binding proof against me.” Yet that is not a prerequisite.

This also includes the denial, by many adherents of religious innovation, speculative theology, and philosophy, of prophetic reports known to hadith scholars. They say, “These are not known to us,” just as some disbelievers say that the prophets’ miracles are not known to them. This is because they have not become acquainted with the means that necessarily yield knowledge of these matters. Nevertheless, the proof is binding upon them, whether or not these reports have reached them through mass transmission.

The philosophers who practise logic have embraced ignorant notions, such as their claim that the angels are the ten intellects, that they are eternal and without beginning, and that the intellect is the lord of everything other than itself. No Jew, Christian, or Arab polytheist has ever said anything like this. None has ever said that an angel is the lord of the entire world. They also say that the active intellect is the originator of everything beneath the lunar sphere. This, too, is disbelief that none of the disbelievers among the People of the Book or the Arab polytheists has ever reached.

They also say that the Lord does not act by His will and power, does not know particulars, and cannot change the world; rather, the world is an emanation that has flowed from Him without His will, power, or knowledge