The Supreme Sign | Introduction | 21
(16-25)

belief is knowledge and a manifestation of being; it is affirmation and judgement. Every negating aspect of belief is the gate to a positive truth or the veil covering it. If the unbelievers who struggle against faith attempt, with the utmost difficulty, to affirm and accept their negative beliefs in the form of acceptance and admission of non-being, then their unbelief may be regarded in one respect as a form of mistaken knowledge or erroneous judgement. But as for non-accceptance, denial, and non-admission something more easily done it is absolute ignorance and total absence of judgement.

In Short: The convictions underlying unbelief are then of two kinds:

The First pays no regard to the truths of Islam. It is an erroneous admission, a baseless belief and a mistaken acceptance peculiar to itself; it is an unjust judgement. This kind of unbelief is beyond the scope of our discussion. It has no concern with us, nor do we have any concern with it.

The Second Kind opposes the truths of belief and struggles against them. It consists in turn of two varieties.

The First is non-acceptance. It consists simply of not consenting to affirmation. This is a species of ignorance; there is no judgement involved and it occurs easily. It too is beyond the scope of our discussion.

No Voice