the special knowledge of Allah that distinguishes scholars and those who know Him from ordinary people. Some therefore follow the method of those who employ innovated syllogistic reasoning, philosophers, and speculative theologians; others follow the innovated method of discipline and spiritual striving practiced by philosophical and Sufi practitioners, turning away from what the Messenger brought concerning the details of these matters. Yet if they know the truthfulness of the Messenger—who conveys his Lord’s message, guides people to Him, and calls them to Him, and for whom Allah perfected the religion and to whom He revealed the Book as an explanation of all things—how can they abandon reasoning from what he brought and following his example in favor of the two methods mentioned?

The fifth aspect:

Most of those who followed these two deviant paths did not believe that there was a third path—as certain eminent men, mistaken about fundamental principles, maintain. Thus, they move from Sabaean philosophical doctrines to Christian teachings centered on spiritual striving, and then to Jewish speculative theology. Their philosophers side one day with their practitioners of spiritual striving and another day with their speculative theologians, bewildered as they go along with these groups.

As for the faith-based, prophetic path of Muhammad—the religious path of the Sunnah and transmitted reports—they do not find their way to it, do not know it, and do not think that it offers a way to what they seek or leads to their goal. This is because they believe that no one follows it, or because they have unjustly restrained themselves from following it. Thus, because they have lost their way to it, or because of their waywardness and ignorance of it, or because they wrong themselves, they have turned away from it.

If you say:

“But the Quran commands reflection upon the signs.”