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Consequently, as I drew near the age of adolescence, the bonds of mere
authority (taqlid) ceased to hold me and inherited beliefs lost their grip upon
me, for I saw that Christian youths always grew up to be Christians
(Nazarenes), Jewish youths to be Jews and Muslim youths to be Muslims. I
heard, the Prophetic Saying related of the Prophet of Allah, praise and
veneration upon him, as reported in Ahmad, Bukhari, and Muslim, in which
he said:

“Every child is born upon innocent upright nature; then his parents make
him a Jew or a Christian or a fire worshipper (Magian).”

So inside me I craved to discover the reality of what this original innocent
upright nature belief really was and also the reality of this abrupt belief by
emulating parents and teachers and to distinguish between these emulations
and its beginning, and how it is delivered to the child and to distinguish the
truth from all types of falsehood.

I therefore said to myself: “Firstly, what I want is the knowledge of the
reality of affairs, so I should seek the reality of knowledge and what it is.” It