nations ask the prophets for signs as evidence of their truthfulness. This makes them more excusable in doing so. Accordingly, since the Companions—may Allah be pleased with them—had no need of signs for their religious knowledge and practice, owing to what they had witnessed of the Messenger and the knowledge they had acquired, anyone further removed from them, even if his path is sound, needs what they possessed for his religious knowledge and practice. Thus, extraordinary occurrences appear among individuals in times and places where prophetic guidance has waned, which do not appear to them or to others when prophethood and its call are manifest.

Section

There are various means of knowing created things and having them unveiled: sense perception, reason, unveiling, and transmitted reports, as well as immediate and inferential knowledge, and other means. Such knowledge is also divided into certain, probable, and other categories. Allah Most High willing, we shall discuss which of these means may be followed in rulings of Islamic law and which may not. I mean the rulings of Islamic law concerning knowledge of created things obtained through unveiling, whether awake or asleep, as I have written in the discussion of jihad.

As for knowledge of religion and its unveiling, religion comprises two kinds of matters: matters concerning reports and belief, and matters