anybody to be his messenger, if he happens to have his symbols upon him. We can admit his claim only after we know that Zaid did send a messenger. So when we admit the existence of the prophetic mission, and the miracles, then how can it be correct for us to say that one who performs the miracles is a prophet. We cannot believe in this by hearing only, for this faculty is not the thing by which such things can be proved. At the same time we cannot claim this premise to be true by experience and habit, except that the miracles performed by the prophets can be seen by one who believes in their mission, and has never seen them to have been performed by anybody else, so that they may be taken as a convincing sign for distinguishing a prophet of God, from one who is not, that is a distinction between one whose claim is right, and one whose claim is wrong.
By these things it is seen that the Mutakallimun have missed the whole
