(Defining the Zanīm and the meaning of the statement of the people of innovation that the evidence of the texts is indicative of probability and the evidence of reason is indicative of certainty, and the refutation of them) He is the Zanīm, a claimant to a people of whom he was not*** one of them
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The Shaykh :"He is the Zanīm" and the Zanīm is the one who claims affiliation with a people but is not one of them, as Allah the Exalted said: So he claims knowledge, but he is not among the scholars
"He is the Zanīm, a claimant to a people of whom he was not *** one of them, and he did not accompany them in any place
And their speech is always with him general *** and separate from the command of certainty"
The pronoun in "their speech" refers to the speech of the people, which is the Book and the Sunnah. In the view of this man, it is general and does not clarify what is intended by it. For this reason, he says: "separate from the command of certainty". For this reason, they say that the evidence of the texts is indicative of probability and the evidence of reason is indicative of certainty, and there is no contradiction between the probable and the certain, because we prioritize the certain over the probable. For this reason, they prioritized reason and denied the transmitted reports. We ask Allah for safety. Some of them, for example, say regarding the Qur'an: "The evidence of the Qur'an regarding its meaning is probable," because he cannot attack the chain of the hadiths if they are of the category of mutawatir (mass-transmitted) which cannot be rejected. He says their evidence is probable, like the Qur'an. And if it is of what can be rejected, which is the report of a single narrator (khabar al-ahad) in their view, even if it is authentic, he says: "Its establishment is probable." It is probable in its establishment, so it does not contradict the certain. For this reason, they went astray, and may Allah protect us, in a far-reaching error. So he says: "The legal evidences." This principle is with them: "The legal evidences do not yield certainty, because they are either probable in their establishment or probable in their indication." What yields certainty? With them, it is reason. This reason in which they are in the greatest confusion. They did not differ in anything as they differed in the meanings of reason, until some of them say: "The Shaykh al-Islam: Some of them say this is obligatory by reason," and another comes and says: "This is impossible by reason." What is this? Contradictory opposites. Indeed, some of them in their books, their old and new works, see the impossibility of what they previously saw as obligatory. Where is the certainty? Where is the certainty in the indication of reason, among a people where some see that this is obligatory by reason and the second sees that it is impossible by reason, or that the man himself, one person, says in one place "this is impossible" and says in another place "this is obligatory"? So where is the certain indication in rational matters? But the speech of Allah and the speech of His Messenger, as you heard at the beginning, according to what a person is accustomed to from the Book of Allah and the speech of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), he knows that this is a decisive text in its indication, and the one below it he sees as apparent. As for the pretender who claims knowledge but is not a knower, he sees it as general and containing nothing certain.
a harsh man, then a Zanīm
عتلٍ بعد ذلك زنيم"He is the Zanīm, a claimant to a people of whom he was not *** one of them, and he did not accompany them in any place
And their speech is always with him general *** and separate from the command of certainty"
The pronoun in "their speech" refers to the speech of the people, which is the Book and the Sunnah. In the view of this man, it is general and does not clarify what is intended by it. For this reason, he says: "separate from the command of certainty". For this reason, they say that the evidence of the texts is indicative of probability and the evidence of reason is indicative of certainty, and there is no contradiction between the probable and the certain, because we prioritize the certain over the probable. For this reason, they prioritized reason and denied the transmitted reports. We ask Allah for safety. Some of them, for example, say regarding the Qur'an: "The evidence of the Qur'an regarding its meaning is probable," because he cannot attack the chain of the hadiths if they are of the category of mutawatir (mass-transmitted) which cannot be rejected. He says their evidence is probable, like the Qur'an. And if it is of what can be rejected, which is the report of a single narrator (khabar al-ahad) in their view, even if it is authentic, he says: "Its establishment is probable." It is probable in its establishment, so it does not contradict the certain. For this reason, they went astray, and may Allah protect us, in a far-reaching error. So he says: "The legal evidences." This principle is with them: "The legal evidences do not yield certainty, because they are either probable in their establishment or probable in their indication." What yields certainty? With them, it is reason. This reason in which they are in the greatest confusion. They did not differ in anything as they differed in the meanings of reason, until some of them say: "The Shaykh al-Islam: Some of them say this is obligatory by reason," and another comes and says: "This is impossible by reason." What is this? Contradictory opposites. Indeed, some of them in their books, their old and new works, see the impossibility of what they previously saw as obligatory. Where is the certainty? Where is the certainty in the indication of reason, among a people where some see that this is obligatory by reason and the second sees that it is impossible by reason, or that the man himself, one person, says in one place "this is impossible" and says in another place "this is obligatory"? So where is the certain indication in rational matters? But the speech of Allah and the speech of His Messenger, as you heard at the beginning, according to what a person is accustomed to from the Book of Allah and the speech of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), he knows that this is a decisive text in its indication, and the one below it he sees as apparent. As for the pretender who claims knowledge but is not a knower, he sees it as general and containing nothing certain.