or he may grasp some, most, or even all of what they are saying, yet in that very state fail to perceive the reality of what the Messenger—may God bless him and grant him peace—brought, of what sound intellects recognize, and of what the rest of rational people affirm in opposition to their claims. He reaches the furthest limit of their doctrine only after great toil and hardship, accompanied by a charitable opinion of them, and thus becomes entangled in a misguidance known only to God.
Should God thereafter rescue him—as He has rescued many distinguished scholars who at first thought well of them, only to have their error laid bare, obliging them to retract, disavow, and even refute them—then he is saved; otherwise he remains astray.
Their deviation in matters of the Divine is obvious to most people; hence, all Muslim theologians have declared them unbelievers on that score. It is only in logic that the matter has grown obscure for a group who never apprehended its realities and requisites, nor knew what other rational thinkers have said about its self-contradictions.
True, logic contains some evident matters, such as the first figure, yet they do not realize that whatever truth it holds does not depend on them. Instead, they have lengthened the path, taken the rough and narrow route, and failed to reach anything that yields genuine certainty.
Our aim here is not to point out what they erred in affirming, but what they erred in denying—namely their contention that theoretical knowledge is acquired only through their demonstration, which is a form of syllogism.
The inseparability of the universal syllogism and the analogical syllogism, illustrated by examples:
They classified proofs into three types—syllogism, induction, and analogy—and asserted that analogy does not confer certainty, whereas certainty is produced solely by syllogism whose matter consists of the propositions they list.
We have shown elsewhere that the analogical syllogism and the universal syllogism are inseparable, and that whatever knowledge or probability is obtained through one is obtained through the other as well, provided the material premises are the same.