his position cannot consistently claim that a rational person has denied all knowledge except out of obstinacy. It is well known that obstinacy serves some purpose, and no one has any purpose in persistently opposing and denying everything.

At the opposite extreme are people who may imagine that beliefs have no effect on their objects and that rulings do not vary with differing beliefs. Such a person imagines that, if he believes an act to be obligatory or forbidden, anyone who departs from his belief is in the wrong, committing something forbidden or neglecting an obligation, and deserves the blame and punishment due to those who neglect obligations or commit forbidden acts. If it is objected that the other person is acting on an interpretation or exercising independent judgment, he disregards this and says, “He is misguided, mistaken, and deserving of punishment.”

Taken without qualification and applied universally, this view, too, is not held by anyone sound in reason and religion. As with the first extreme, I know of no one who maintains it absolutely and universally. I know only of individuals and groups afflicted with aspects of it and its implications in certain matters. For among the majority of those who maintain that the prophets and the twelve Imams are protected from error in word and deed are some who hold that, if the Imam were to err in an action, this would constitute a fault and grounds for blame.

Between these two widely separated extremes lie other positions, which have given rise to disagreement over whether those exercising independent judgment are correct or mistaken in fundamental and subsidiary matters, as we shall explain, Allah willing.