Thus, when a given individual sees an animal and assumes it is pregnant, if he neither knows that it is a mule nor that mules are barren—or if he once knew both statements but has forgotten them, or has forgotten one and never learned the other—then he must grasp two premises. Recalling what was forgotten is itself a form of knowledge: he needs to know that the beast is a mule and that mules do not conceive.

If, on the other hand, he already knows that a mule does not conceive but does not realize that this animal is a mule, all he requires is a single premise. Let him be told, “This is a mule.” Once he recognizes it as such, while the principle that mules do not conceive is already fixed in his mind, he immediately understands that this particular animal is not pregnant.

Again, suppose he is aware that the beast is a mule and had earlier learned that mules do not conceive, yet at this moment that knowledge has slipped from his mind. In that case he has forgotten what he once knew, and forgetfulness is the opposite of knowledge. When he is reminded, he recalls; and once he remembers that a mule does not conceive, he has obtained one premise.

Knowledge, then, is attained through knowing the proof: by one who had never known it at all, and by one who recollects it after having forgotten. For this reason the Exalted says:

“Have they not looked to the heaven above them—how We built it and adorned it, leaving no gaps therein? And the earth—We spread it out, set upon it firm mountains, and caused every pleasant pair of plants to grow therein—as an insight and a reminder for every penitent servant.” (Q 50:6–8)

The Almighty thus makes plain that His signs are both an insight (tabṣirah) and a reminder (tadhkirah): insight after blindness, that is, ignorance, and reminder after forgetfulness, the antithesis of knowledge.

When these scholars embraced the view that two premises are indispensable and that the conclusion issues solely from them, some observed that the two premises were already known to the man who thinks the mule is pregnant despite his ignorance. They therefore said: he simply needs to pay attention. We reply: what you call “paying attention” is exactly what he requires; he needs no premise but this. That attentiveness is nothing other than recalling what he forgot, and that is a single premise.

Whoever says that this attentiveness counts as one of the two premises is correct in that much, but he must also be told: you need only this single premise; nothing else is required. Whenever the person who supposes