Some followed these disciplines while professing Islam. These are the Sabaeans among the Muslims, known as philosophers. They thus came to believe in some of the Scripture but not the rest, like the religious innovators among the Jews and Christians prior to abrogation, when they altered some of the scriptures in their possession.

Others did not intend to follow these disciplines, but adopted ideas from their adherents, supposing that all of them agreed with Islam and supported it, whereas many contradicted and undermined it. Such is the condition of many Muʿtazilī practitioners of speculative theology. Hence they have been called “the effeminates of the philosophers.”

Others turned away from these disciplines in a general, undifferentiated manner, yet did not follow those teachings of the Quran and Islam that would suffice in place of all the truth these disciplines contain and repel their falsehood. Nor did they strive against their adherents in the prescribed manner. Such is the condition of many scholars of hadith and jurisprudence, and others. I have previously written about aspects of this in various discussions of foundational principles. In my summary of the main principles of logic, I also mentioned the ignorance and misguidance it has caused, as well as some of its defects.

Here I summarize that discussion, saying:

The discussion concerns the methods of acquiring knowledge in the form of conceptions and assents. (The first) includes definition and description; (the second) includes syllogism in its various forms, demonstrative and otherwise, as well as analogy and induction. They may claim that the conceptions sought can be attained only through definition in the broad sense