from Abū al-Hasan al-Āmidī, saying: “Taking it from him is better than taking Acre.” Yet in al-Āmidī’s time no one was more deeply versed in the disciplines of speculative theology and philosophy than he, and he was among the best of them in adherence to Islam and the soundest in belief.

It is well known that subtle matters—whether true or false, faith or unbelief—can only be grasped through intelligence and discernment. They therefore regard anyone who does not share their learning as ignorant, even if his faith is better than theirs, whenever he displays a deficiency in intelligence and eloquence. They are as Allah Most High described:

“Indeed, those who committed crimes used to laugh at those who believed, and when they passed by them, they would exchange derisive glances.”

And so on through the subsequent verses.

Thus, when they unquestioningly accept from their false authorities that whatever is not attained through these methods of logical inference is not knowledge, many of them may fail to gain through those methods the faith required of them. Such a person then becomes an unbeliever and a heretic, a hypocrite and an ignoramus, misguided and misleading, utterly unjust and ungrateful. He becomes one of the foremost enemies of the messengers and hypocrites within the Muslim community, among those of whom Allah said:

“And thus We have made for every prophet an enemy from among the criminals.”

Some of them may possess both faith and hypocrisy and be apostates—either from the very foundation of the religion or from some of its ordinances, whether their apostasy takes the form of hypocrisy or unbelief. This is frequent and widespread, particularly in times and places where ignorance, unbelief, and hypocrisy prevail. These people exhibit such astonishing ignorance, injustice, lying, unbelief, hypocrisy, and misguidance that there is no room here to recount it all.