useless controversy, and the one party disbelieved in the other party. Now I will explain the matter in order that both may be instructed. SECTION. You must know that there is a great difference of opinion touching the gnosis and right cognition of God. The Mu`tazilites assert that gnosis is intellectual and that only a reasonable person (_`áqil_) can possibly have it. This doctrine is disproved by the fact that madmen, within Islam, are deemed to have gnosis, and that children, who are not reasonable, are deemed to have faith. Were the criterion of gnosis an intellectual one, such persons must be without gnosis, while unbelievers could not be charged with infidelity, provided only that they were reasonable beings. If reason were the cause of gnosis, it would follow that every reasonable person must know God, and that all who lack reason must be ignorant of Him; which is manifestly absurd. Others pretend that demonstration (_istidlál_) is the cause of knowledge of God, and that such knowledge is not gained except by those who deduce it in this manner. The futility of this doctrine is exemplified by Iblís, for he saw many evidences, such as Paradise, Hell, and the Throne of God, yet they did not cause him to have gnosis. God hath said that knowledge of Him depends on His will (Kor. vi, 111). According to the view of orthodox Moslems, soundness of reason and regard to evidences are a means (_sabab_) to gnosis, but not the cause (_`illat_) thereof: the sole cause is God’s will and favour, for without His favour (_`ináyat_) reason is blind. Reason does not even know itself: how, then, can it know another? Heretics of all sorts use the demonstrative method, but the majority of them do not know God. On the other hand, whenever one enjoys the favour of God, all his actions are so many tokens of gnosis; his demonstration is search (_ṭalab_), and his neglect of demonstration is resignation to God’s will (_taslím_); but, in reference to perfect gnosis, resignation is no better than search, for search is a principle that cannot be neglected, while resignation is a principle that excludes the possibility of agitation (_iḍṭiráb_), and these two principles do not essentially involve gnosis. In reality Man’s only guide and enlightener is God. Reason and the proofs adduced by reason are unable to direct anyone into the right way. If the infidels were to return from the place of Judgment to this world, they would bring their infidelity back with them (cf. Kor. vi, 28). When the Commander of the Faithful, `Alí, was asked concerning gnosis, he said: “I know God by God, and I know that which is not God by the light of God.” God created the body and committed its life to the spirit (_ján_), and He created the soul (_dil_) and committed its life to Himself. Hence, inasmuch as reason and human faculties and evidences have no power to make the body live, they cannot make the soul live, as God hath said: “_Shall he who was dead and