The path they lay down for the student who seeks to reason never escapes one of two flaws: either it contains an error that diverts him from the truth, or it is so long and winding that it exhausts him before he reaches the truth—even though he could have arrived by a nearer, straighter course. One of our predecessors illustrated this by saying: it is like a man who, when asked, “Where is your ear?” raises his hand far over his head, swings it around, and finally touches his left ear, although he could have pointed straight to either ear with ease.

How perfectly they match the poet’s words:

He labored for days over his composition,
And after all that strain compared water to water.

And another poet who said:

Indeed—indeed, and yet again indeed—
When my sandal-strap breaks, I simply tie on another.

How beautiful, too, is Allah’s description of His Book:

“Indeed, this Qur’an guides to that which is most upright.” [Q 17:9]

The most upright road to the loftiest goal is therefore what Allah sent His Messenger with. As for the way of these logicians, in some matters it misleads, in others it is crooked and protracted, and in the end it brings a person to nothing that can save him from Allah’s punishment—much less grant him happiness or lead to the perfection of human souls.

Invalidity of restricting proofs to syllogism, induction, and analogy

What they have asserted—that proof is confined to syllogism (qiyās), induction (istiqrāʾ), and analogy (tamthīl)—is a restriction without evidence, and in fact it is false. Their further claim that the desired knowledge is obtained only through two, no more and no less, premises is likewise baseless and false.

They try to justify this restriction by saying,

“Reasoning is either from the universal to the particular, from the particular to the universal, or from one particular to another; the first is syllogism, the second induction, and the third analogy.”

We say to them: You have produced no proof that all reasoning is limited to these three, for if what you meant