To clarify the glory of knowledge and its great status, not a report on how it is obtained.

Second: What he alluded to regarding the idea of distinction in his saying: "Truths are distinguished by it." Thus, definition becomes useful because knowledge is not a discovery of the truths of things in themselves, but rather their essence. Rather, it is a distinction between their characteristics and their truths. From this, we can infer that Al-Mahdi believes that grasping the truths of things and comprehending their essences is impossible. The utmost that knowledge can achieve is to inform us of the distinction between their truths. This is the opinion that the Ash'arites reached in general, as indicated by Al-Iji's statement: "And the seventh [of the definitions of knowledge] which is the chosen one, is that it is an attribute that necessitates for its possessor a distinction between meanings that do not admit of their opposite."

The value and virtue of knowledge: "The most sought-after, the most excellent to acquire, the most precious to store, and the most beautiful to do is knowledge, which God has made a means to guidance to all good." Then he elaborated on this value and this virtue, explaining its foundations and manifestations. The most important of these foundations are the following two: A. Knowledge is the origin of faith. There is no source of guidance to faith, and consequently to all types of righteousness, except knowledge. This is the meaning that Al-Mahdi insisted on proving in more than one place.

He presented two arguments for this: a rational and a transmitted one.

The rational argument: Guidance (i.e., faith) and misguidance, truth and falsehood are two contradictory opposites. There is no intermediate position between them, according to God's saying: "And they do not differ in it except those who were given it after the knowledge came to them, out of envy among themselves." (Yunus/25).

And the paths leading to guidance and misguidance are limited to four: ignorance, doubt, and conjecture. Any path from these paths leads to one of the two opposites (faith and misguidance), it does not lead to its opposite.

Al-Iji: Al-Mawaqif, p. 163.

This issue is related to the discussion of logical definition, in which the general body of theologians from various sects hold that it provides a distinction between the defined and what is other than it, while those influenced by Greek logic hold that it provides a depiction of the defined and a definition of its essence and what follows. See Ibn Taymiyyah, Refutation of the Logicians.

"The most sought-after": Ibn Tumart.