Muhammad.com collection in 109 languages

(I) the Theologians (mutakallimun), who claim that they are the exponents of
thought and intellectual speculation;

(2) the Batiniyah, who consider that they, as the party of `authoritative instruction‟
(ta‟lim), alone derive truth from the infallible imam;

(3) the Philosophers, who regard themselves as the exponents of logic and
demonstration;

(4) the Sufi or Mystics, who claim that they alone enter into the `presence‟ (sc. of
Allah), and possess vision and intuitive understanding.

I said within myself: `The truth cannot lie outside these four classes. These are
the people who tread the paths of the quest for truth. If the truth is not with them,
no point remains in trying to apprehend the truth. There is certainly no point in
trying to return to the level of naive and derivative belief (taqlid) once it has been
left, since a condition of being at such a level is that one does not know one is
there; when a man comes to know, the glass of his naive beliefs is broken. This
is a breakage which cannot be mended, a breakage not to be repaired by