It is instructive to see what this study reveals about how the dominant voices in Muslim scholarship viewed the maturation and decay of knowledge over time. Thereafter, it is apt to present a summary of the relationships and cross-overs between the four disciplines – theology, legal theory, hadith and Qur’an – studied in the preceding chapters, as well as brief comments on tolerance and orthodoxy.

Before addressing these issues, it is appropriate to suggest further scholarship on tawātur. Considerable overlap exists between Muslim discussions of tawātur, on the one hand, and modern Western epistemological discussions of testimony, plausibility and corroboration, as well as classical problems such as the Sorites paradox, on the other. There is scope for more detailed comparative study of this in the future. Chapter 6 has shown that some intra-Sunnī debates appear to have conceptual underpinnings similar to some issues contentious between Sunnīs and non-Sunnīs, such as what makes Ḥanafī-majority disputes intra-Sunnī, despite their resemblance to some Sunnī-Khārijī or Sunnī-Muʿtazilī debates. Lucas’ conception of Sunnī identity can partially answer these, and Dickinson's article offers some insight as well, but the issue merits further study. Modern developments in the field of tawātur is a topic open to discussion more detailed than what the limited scope of this book has allowed.

Maturation and Decay of Knowledge

This study of tawātur has revealed that most Muslim scholars over time held a semi-progressivist attitude to knowledge.