The Final Chapter of This Book: Showing the Disagreement of People Concerning the Aforementioned Miracle Worked Through the Aforementioned Persons

The Last Chapter of This Book

On the demonstration of people's disagreement concerning this miracle mentioned as occurring by the mediation of the people mentioned

And these are two parties. The one of them holds fast to the divine laws and the religious customs, and believes that these prodigies are granted by the Creator, exalted be He (1), to whoever has deserved [72] the granting of them; and upon this belief the three nations (2) agree — I mean the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims. As for the possessors of the second belief, they are the masters of the philosophical sciences, and with them the miracles fall under four aspects: the first, the power of the perfect to abstain from food for a period neither familiar nor customary; the second aspect, the extraordinary acts whose burden others cannot bear; the third aspect, the announcing of the unseen; the fourth aspect, that the elements and the animals obey them (3).

As for the confirmation of the first aspect, they said: we see that when the hot diseases befall some people, a man remains a long while without nourishment, because the innate heat is there occupied with repelling the disease and so dissolves nothing of the body, and therefore he stands in no need of nourishment so long as he is beheld in the disease. So likewise the perfect man: when his soul is occupied with the recollection of the divine intelligibles, he draws the innate heat along with it and stands in no need of nourishment for a long period.

[73] As for the confirmation of the second aspect, they claimed: when violent anger and excessive agitation befall a man, he has power to double his strength; and in fear and pain and dejection his strength falls away altogether. So likewise the perfect knower: when he is immersed in the sea of rejoicing in the Truth, exalted be He, and in nothing else, an extraordinary thing comes about in his movements or in some of his conditions.

The confirmation of the third aspect, they said: it has been established for us by continual experiences that when a man's thoughts are pure and far from the natural basenesses, it is not unlikely that he behold in his sleep matters that do not differ from the waking state. And if that is so, it is not unlikely, in the case of a perfect person far from worldly attachments, that his soul proceed in the governance of his body in the waking state, so that there comes about for him what comes about for another in the state of sleep.

As for the exposition of the fourth aspect, they said: we see our thoughts working change in our bodies many times over [74] — as with walking (1) upon a beam set up in the air, which brings on slipping, and as the frequent imagining of illness brings on illness. So it is not unlikely that the thoughts of a knowing person should work a strange act upon the bodies of the elements and the animals, and press them into his purpose, just as our thoughts do upon our bodies. And they said also: strange things occur in this world of ours from three causes. One of them, that the rational soul does this by its own property — and if that is good, it is the soul of a prophet, and if it is evil, the soul of a sorcerer. The second, if this matter is by the mediation of the powers of the elements, as with the magnet's attraction of iron, then it is by property alone. The third, the matters that are by the mediation of the celestial movements together with elemental bodies, and these are the strange things known as talismans (ṭilasmāt). And praise be to God, the Patron of things everlasting.

Here ends this noble treatise, which is on the constitution of the rational soul and its properties. May God have mercy on the one who dealt justly by it. Amen.

Index

The books cited as testimony by the author of this compendium

The Gospel, pp. 10, 22, 22, 33, 37, 43, 43, 45, 53 The Acts of the Apostles 37, 55 The Epistle of Buṭrus the Apostle 46 The Epistles of Būlus the Apostle 9, 10, 22, 22, 29, 37, 44, 51 The Book of Leviticus 33 The Book of Ayyūb 33 The Book of Genesis 10, 33 The Book of Ecclesiastes 37 The Book of Exodus 21, 43, 55 The Book of Psalms 10, 21 (8 times), 22, 37, 38, 38 The Prophecy of Zakariyā 33

— Notes —

[59] 1) Say « yamnaḥuhā al-bāriʼ taʻālá ».

[59] 2) In the original: al-thalāthah.

[59] 3) In the original: tuṭīʻuhā.

[60] 1) In the original: al-māshī.