by rational standards, not sound by those standards. Knowledge of Allah does not depend on their principles. Rather, complete knowledge depends on recognizing the invalidity of their principles. Even if they call them “the foundations of knowledge and religion,” they are “the foundations of ignorance and of Satan’s religion, not the religion of the Most Merciful.” Their discourse really amounts to “setting out principles in opposition to the Messenger and reason.” As the inhabitants of the Fire said:

“If only we had listened or reasoned, we would not be among the inhabitants of the Blaze.”

Whoever opposes the Messenger therefore opposes both revelation and reason: he opposes both scriptural and rational proofs.

As for those who affirm the Necessary Existent, we have shown in several places that they have offered no proof of the Necessary Existent, and that when al-Rāzī followed Ibn Sīnā, his books contained no proof of the Necessary Existent. For they made establishing His existence dependent on establishing “the contingent,” a category in which they include the eternal. Thus, their method leaves no way to establish the Necessary Existent except by establishing an eternal contingent being. Yet this is impossible according to self-evident reason and the consensus of rational people. Their method therefore depends on a premise that clear reason shows to be false, and whose falsity rational people unanimously acknowledge. Their proof is consequently invalid. This is why their discussion of “the contingent” is utterly inconsistent. They were, however, able to argue that whatever comes into existence must have an eternal cause, and this is