and if that were not the case, it would follow that they had recognized the truth and distorted it. Both are impossible as a matter of ordinary experience and religion, and the grounds establishing this are numerous. This fact, known with certainty, cannot be overturned by reports whose authenticity is unknown—much less when they are known to be false—or by wording whose import is unknown—much less when it is known not to convey the alleged meaning—or by incoherent analogies. These are opposed by rational proofs and transmitted reports whose chains are firmly established and whose meanings are known, and which are stronger, more worthy of being regarded as true, and more deserving of acceptance.

These Rāfidah, who reject (1) the truth known (2) with certainty through numerous lines of evidence—a knowledge that admits no contrary—on the basis of exceedingly weak specious arguments, are among the foremost sects whose hearts contain deviation (3): those who follow the ambiguous and abandon the unequivocal, like the Christians, the Jahmiyyah, and others like them among the adherents of religious innovation and caprice. They abandon the sound texts that yield knowledge and oppose them with specious arguments that yield nothing but doubt and that, if subjected to scrutiny (4), would not stand. In matters of transmitted reports, this is sophistry, just like sophistry in rational matters: impugning what is known through sense perception and reason by means of specious objections raised against it. Whoever seeks to overturn the certain knowledge (5) firmly rooted in people’s hearts through specious arguments has taken the path of sophistry.

Sophistry is of several types:

The first is negation, denial, and rejection: either of existence or of knowledge of it.

The second is doubt and uncertainty. This is the approach of the agnostics, who say, “We do not know.” They neither affirm nor deny; in reality, however, they have denied knowledge, and that is a form