his sophistry and drive him to admit the truth. This is like a man who makes an error in arithmetic—an area that allows for no two equally valid answers. His mistake may be plain to see, yet he either does not notice it or refuses to acknowledge it. Accordingly, one takes him through a lengthy demonstration so that the truth becomes manifest, saying: “You took such-and-such and such-and-such, so the sum became such-and-such; then you took such-and-such and such-and-such, and the outcome became such-and-such.”

In the same way, during a debate one may strike analogies for an opponent, for an analogy lays bare the reality—even in matters grasped by sense perception or immediate intuition. One may also secure certain premises from him at the outset; otherwise, he might deny them once he realizes that conceding them would oblige him to affirm what he now rejects. This was the method of the early Muslim dialecticians and the ancient Greek disputants: in debate the one adducing the proof is the questioner, not the objector. He first borrows the premises, asking, “What do you say about such-and-such and such-and-such?” or he says, “Let such-and-such and such-and-such be established,” one premise at a time; when those premises are conceded, he then sets forth the conclusions that necessarily follow.

It is therefore essential to distinguish between what the knowledge of truth actually depends on and needs, and what truth can be known without—even though the latter may remove certain maladies or silence a stubborn adversary. Allah, exalted be He, knows best.

Many polemicists adopt a particular path to reach the desired conclusion and insist that no other route exists; they say the same about definitions. That path may be flawed, or it may be sound yet other paths exist that are better. Thus many of them claim that there is no way to know the Maker, or to verify the truthfulness of His Messenger, except through this one method—when, in reality, people have other avenues that surpass it.

The Book of Opinions and Religions by al-Nawbakhtī: I once jotted down a brief critique of the logicians in a single sitting, hastily, because a certain circumstance required it. Some time later I looked into the Book of Opinions and Religions by Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī and found that he had reported virtually this same point from the earlier Muslim theologians, for he