Within the account of the Muʿtazilah, reason is treated as the determining criterion of doctrinal claims. Texts not fitting their reasoning were reinterpreted; in some cases their readings of transmitted texts were also rejected.
They invoked rational judgments of good and bad (ḥusn and qubḥ) in making claims about actions and moral obligations. This forms part of the dispute over the place of reason in relation to revelation.
Using reason and making one's reason the authority over revealed texts are not identical. The criticism addresses the latter approach.