or had been corrupted by the false opinions and desires that affected it, a corruption they then removed. The Quran and hadith are full of examples of this: Allah explains truths through rational comparisons and illustrative parables. He explains how to treat like things alike and distinguish between unlike things. He condemns those who depart from this, as when He says:

“Or do those who commit evil deeds think that We will make them like those who believe and do righteous deeds”—to the end of the verse.

And He says:

“Shall We then treat the Muslims like the criminals?”

“What is the matter with you? How do you judge?”

That is, this is an unjust judgment, not a just one, because it treats unlike things alike.

An example of treating like things alike is His saying:

“Are your disbelievers better than those?”

And His saying:

“Or do you think you will enter Paradise without facing trials like those who passed away before you?”—to the end of the verse.

The point is to draw attention to the fact that the rational balance is sound, as Allah has stated in His Book. It is not confined to Greek logic; rather, it consists of sound inferences that treat like things alike and distinguish between unlike things, whether formulated as syllogistic deduction or analogical inference. Analogical formulations are primary; they involve assimilating one case to another. The balance is the common element—the attribute linking the two.

(The eighth argument): Just as they restricted certainty to the syllogistic form, they also restricted it to the material they specified: propositions based on sense perception, self-evident first principles, mass-transmitted reports, experience, and intuition. Yet it is well known that there is no proof for excluding propositions other than these. Moreover, even in matters of sensory and rational knowledge and the like, they took into account only what is ordinarily shared by