The Sciences on Superphysics

Human Intellect

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1. Man’s ability to think

God distinguished man from all the other animals by an ability to think.

Perception - that is, consciousness, on the part of the person who perceives, in his essence of things that are outside his essence - is something peculiar to living beings to the exclusion of all other beings and existent things.

The World that Exists Through Action Materializes through Thinking.

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2. The world of the things that come into being as the result of action, materializes through thinking.

The existent universe comprises:

pure essences, such as the elements
the things resulting from their influence
the 3 things that come into being from the elements:

minerals
plants
animals

All these things are connected with the divine power.

The Experimental Intellect

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The Experimental Intellect and how it comes into One knows from philosophical works the statement that “man is political by nature.”

The philosophers say “man is political by nature” when establishing prophecy and other things.

The sciences of human beings and the sciences of angels

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Through sound intuition, we observe in ourselves the existence of three worlds.

The world of the senses or sensual perception.

We become aware of it through the perception of the senses, which the animals share with us.

Scientific Instruction and the kinds of intellect

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6. Man is essentially ignorant. He becomes learned through acquiring knowledge

There are various kinds of intellect:

The discerning intellect

This lets us arrange our actions in an orderly manner

Critical Thinking Versus Memorization

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Judge Abu1-Qasim bin Zaytun

After the destruction of the dynasty in Marrakech, in the mid-13th century, Judge Abu1-Qasim b. Zaytun traveled from Ifrigiyah to the East.

He made contact with the pupils of the imam Ibn alKhatib.
He studied with them and learned their method of instruction.
He became skilled in intellectual and traditional matters.

Then, he returned to Tunis with a great deal of knowledge and a good method of instruction.

No to Intellectual or Racial Superiority

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The inhabitants of the East are more firmly rooted in the craft of scientific instruction and in all the other crafts than Maghribis.

Many Maghribis who have traveled to the East in quest of knowledge, have noted that the intellect of the people of the East is more perfect than that of the Maghribis. They have:

The sciences are numerous only in large, sedentary civilizations with a culture highly developed

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This is because scientific instruction is one of the crafts, and crafts are numerous only in cities.

The quality and the number of the crafts depend on the greater or lesser extent of civilization in the cities and on the sedentary culture and luxury they enjoy, because (highly developed crafts) are something additional to just making a living.

The various sciences that exist in contemporary civilization

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The sciences in cities are of 2 kinds:

The philosophical sciences

These are natural to man.

Man is guided by his own ability to think this.

This makes man aware of the distinction between:

The Jews who converted to Islam

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The People of the Book were:

the Jews who had the Torah
the Christians who followed the religion of the Jews

The Jews who lived among the Arabs at that time were themselves Bedouins.

The Quranic sciences

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The Quran is the word of God that was revealed to His Prophet.

It was written down between the two covers of copies of the Qur’an (mushaf). Its transmission has been continuous in Islam.

The Hadith: sciences concerned with Prophetic traditions

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There are many and varied hadith.

One of them concerns abrogating and abrogated traditions. The permission to abrogate previous statements and the occurrence of abrogation have been established in our religious law.

The 5 Main Works

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The 5 main works have been the most popular.

Al-Bukhari’s Sahih occupies the highest rank among them.

People found it difficult to comment on the Sahih and have found it rather complicated. This is because:

Islamic Jurisprudence and its subdivision, inheritance laws

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Jurisprudence is the knowledge of the classification of the laws of God, which concern the actions of all responsible Muslims, as obligatory, forbidden, recommendable, disliked, or permissible.

These laws are derived from:

The Malikite School

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Malik b. Anas was followed by Muhammad b. Idris al-Muttalibi ash-Shafi’i.

He traveled to the ‘Iraq after Malik’s time. He met the followers of the imam Abu Hanifah and learned from them. He combined the approach of the Hijazis with those of the ‘Iraqis.

The science of inheritance laws

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The science of inheritance laws is the knowledge of estate division and the correct determination of the proper shares in an estate with regard to the relation of the individual shares to the basic divisions.

The Science, Principles, Dialectics of Jurisprudence

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The science of the principles of jurisprudence is one of the greatest, most important, and most useful disciplines of the religious law.

Controversial Questions and Dialectics

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Islamic jurisprudence is based on religious evidence. It involves many differences of opinion among scholars of independent judgment.

Differences of opinion result from the different sources they use and their different outlooks, and are unavoidable.

The Science of Speculative theology

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This is a science that involves arguing with logical proofs in defense of the articles of faith and refuting innovators who deviate in their dogmas from the early Muslims and Muslim orthodoxy.

The religious obligations

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The object of all religious obligations is the acquisition of a habit firmly rooted in the soul, from which a necessary knowledge results for the soul.

It is the (recognition of the) oneness of God, which is the (principal) article of faith and the thing through which happiness is attained.

The Mutazilah

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Later on, the sciences and crafts increased.

People were eager to write systematic works and to do research in all fields. The speculative theologians wrote on God’s freedom (from human attributes).

The science of logic

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Afterwards, the science of logic spread in Islam and people studied it.

They made a distinction between it and the philosophical sciences, in that (they stated that) logic was merely a norm and yardstick for arguments and served to probe the arguments of the (philosophical sciences) as well as (those of) all other (disciplines).

The ambiguity in the Qur'an and the Sunnah and the resulting dogmatic schools

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The Prophet Muhammad told us in the Quran about the obligations that would lead us to salvation and bliss.

The Levels of Reality

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Even though human reality is a uniform element, it has different levels which lead to different realities.

Level 1 is made up of our external sense perception, our worldly thoughts such as that for making a living

The Science of Sufism

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Sufism is based on the assumption that the method of the Sufis was always the path of truth and right guidance by:

the important early Muslims,
the men around Muhammad,
the men of the second generation, and
those who came after them

The Sufi approach is based on:

The Sufi Removal of the Veil

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The Sufis do not consider removal of the veil sound, unless it originates in straightforwardness.

People who do not eat and who retire from the world, such as sorcerers, Christians, and other ascetics, may obtain removal of the veil without the existence of straightforwardness. However, we mean only that removal (of the veil) which originates in straightforwardness. It may be compared with the reflections of a mirror. If it is convex or concave, the object reflected by it appears in a distorted form different from the actual form of the object, but if themirror is flat, the object appears in its correct form. As far as the “states” impressed upon the soul are concerned, straightforwardness means to the soul what flatness means in a mirror.

The Errors of Ibn Dihaq

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This is a short exposition of (Sufi) opinion, as gathered from the discussion of Ibn Dihaq. It is most erroneous.

A country that we have left or will visit exists, even if we do not see it any more.

The Four Topics of Sufism

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Many jurists and muftis have undertaken to refute these and similar statements by recent Sufis. They summarily disapproved of everything they came across in the (Sufi) path.

The truth is that discussion with the (Sufis) requires making a distinction. The Sufis discuss 4 topics:

The science of dream interpretation

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This belongs to the sciences of the religious law. It originated in Islam when the sciences became crafts 553 and scholars wrote books on them.

Dream visions and dream interpretation existed among the ancients, as among later generations. It existed among former (pre-Islamic) religious groups and nations. However, their dream interpretation did not reach us, 554 because we have been satisfied with the discussions of Muslim dream interpreters.

The Idea of dream interpretation

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The rational spirit has its perceptions and passes them on to the imagination.

The imagination then forms them into pictures but it forms them only into such pictures as are somehow related to the (perceived) idea.

The history of the intellectual sciences

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These sciences naturally arise from us being thinking beings. They are not restricted to any particular religious group.

They are studied by the people of all religious groups who are all equally qualified to learn them and to do research in them. They have existed (and been known) to the human species since civilization had its beginning in the world.

Arithmetic: The sciences concerned with numbers

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This is the knowledge of the properties of numbers combined in arithmetic or geometric progressions.

Arithmetic progression is where:

each number is always higher by one than the preceding number
the sum of the first and last numbers of the progression is equal to the sum of any two numbers in the progression that are equally far removed from the first and the last number, respectively, of the progression.
Or, the sum of the first and last numbers of a progression is twice the middle number of the progression, if the total number of numbers (in the progression) is an odd number. It can be a progression of even and odd numbers, or of even numbers, or of odd numbers.
Or, if the numbers of a geometrical progression are such that the first is half of the second and the second onehalf of the third, and so on,
or if the first is 1/3 of the second and the second one-third of the third, and so on, the result of multiplying the first number by the last number of the progression is equal to the result of multiplying any two numbers of the progression that are equally far removed from the first and the last number, respectively, of the progression.
Or, (the result of multiplying the first number by the last number of a geometrical progression,) if the number of numbers (in the progression) is odd, is equal to the square of the middle number of the progression. For instance, the progression may consist of the powers of two= two, four, eight, sixteen.
Or, there are the properties of numbers that originate in the formation of numerical muthallathah (triangle), murabba’ah (square), mukhammasah (pentagon), and musaddasah (hexagon) progressions, 607 where the numbers are arranged progressively in their rows by 608 adding them up from one to the last number.

Thus, a muthallath(ah) is formed.

Algebra of al-Khuwarizmi

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Another subdivision of arithmetic is algebra. This discovers the unknown from the known data, if there exists a relationship between them requiring it.

Special technical terms have been invented in algebra for the various multiples (powers) of the unknown.

The geometrical sciences

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This studies quantities (measurements) . Quantities (measurements) may be continuous, like lines, planes, and (geometrical) solids, or discontinuous, like numbers.

It also studies the essential properties of the quantities (measurements), as, for instance=

The Science of Astronomy

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Astronomy studies the motions of the fixed stars and the planets.

From the manner in which these motions take place, astronomy deduces by geometrical methods the existence of certain shapes and positions of the spheres requiring the occurrence of those motions which can be perceived by the senses. Astronomy thus proves, for instance, by the existence of the precession of the equinoxes, that the center of the earth is not identical with the center of the sphere of the sun.

The science of logic

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Logic concerns the norms enabling a person to distinguish between right and wrong, both in definitions that give information about the essence of things, and in arguments that assure apperception.

The Five Universals

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The theologians invented the science of speculative theology in order to support the articles of faith with rational evidence.

Their approach was to use particular evidence which they mentioned in their books.

The Science of Physics and Avicenna

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This studies:

bodies from their motion and stationariness.
the heavenly and the elementary bodies (substances)
the human beings, animals, plants, and minerals created from those elementary bodies.

the springs and earthquakes in the earth
the clouds, vapors, thunder, lightning, and storms in the atmosphere
the beginning of motion in bodies - that is, the soul in the different forms in which it appears in human beings, animals, and plants.

The books of Aristotle on the subject are available to scholars.

The Science of Agriculture

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This craft is a branch of physics.

It concerns the study of the cultivation and growth of plants through:

irrigation
proper treatment
improvement of the soil 734
observance of the suitable season
the care for plants by applying these things

The ancients were very much concerned with agriculture. Their study of agriculture was general.

The Science of Metaphysics

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This studies existence.

First, it studies general matters affecting corporeal and spiritual things, such as the quiddities, oneness, plurality, necessity, possibility, and so on.

Then, it studies the beginnings of existing things and (finds) that they are spiritual things. It goes on to study the way existing things issue from (spiritual things), and also (studies) their order. Then, (it studies) the conditions of the soul after its separation from the body and its return to (its) beginning.

The Sciences of sorcery and talismans

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These are sciences showing how human souls may become prepared to exercise an influence upon the world of the elements, either without any aid or with the aid of celestial matters.

Sorcerers and the Evil Eye

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In the Maghrib, there is a type of magical practitioners who are known as “rippers” (baaj).

They point at a garment or a piece of leather, and it is torn to shreds.
Or they point at the bellies of sheep and goats with a ripping gesture, and they are ripped open.

Such sorcerers nowadays are called “rippers” in the Maghrib because most of their magical practice concerns ripping animals open.

The Science of the secrets of letters

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This science is now called simiya “letter magic”.

The word was transferred from talismans to this science and is used by Sufi practitioners of magic.

This science originated in Islam after some time it was created. The extremist Sufis appeared and tried to remove the veil of sense perception. They produced wonders and were active in the world of the elements.

The story of Abu Yazid al-Bistami

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One evening, he was in a hurry when he reached the bank of the Tigris.

The 2 banks of the river came together so that he would have been able to cross over. But Abu Yazid invoked God’s protection and said: “I will not sell my share in God for a farthing.”

The Za'irajah

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The science of letter magic has a branch that has the technique of finding out answers from questions through connections between the letters used in the question.

The 7 principles of Za'irajah

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Note: The letters of the chords and the table are composed of 3 basic types:

Arabic letters

These are taken at their face value as numerals

Ghubar letters.

They are treated differently. Some are taken at their face value, when there are no more than four cycles. If there are more than four, they are used as tens as well as hundreds, as required by the operation.

Other Za'irajah Methods

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People have methods other than the zd’irajah for finding out answers from questions.

However, those answers are not rhymed.

The secret of obtaining a rhymed answer from the za’irajah lies in the fact that a verse, namely, that of Malik b. Wuhayb -“A weighty question, etc.”- enters (into the operation).

Other Za'irajah Methods

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A number of Maghrib people know the science of letter magic.

They have produced extraordinary things.

Every virtue depends on exertion.

Za'irajah Method: Deduction

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Deductions that can be drawn with the help of letter systems as to deeply hidden thoughts.

This goes as follows: If someone asks what is the sickness of the patient, the cause of whose disease is not known, and what medicine will be appropriate for its cure, one orders the person who asks the question to name something that can be applied to the name of the unknown sickness, so that the word he names can be made the foundation of (the operation).

The Science of Alchemy

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This studies the substance through which gold and silver can be artificially generated.

he alchemists acquire knowledge of the tempers and powers of all created things and investigate them critically.

The Alchemy of Ibn Bishrun

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I shall pass on here an epistle on alchemy written by Abu Bakr b. Bishrun to Ibn as-Samh. Both were pupils of Maslamah.

The Alchemy of Ibn Bishrun

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The fine and the coarse elements are as easily separated (under the influence of fire) as water and oil (are), or similar things.

The mixtures, which are the elements of alchemy, agree with one another. They are derived from one substance.

Alchemy is Sorcery

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I constructed a geometrical figure to illustrate it. It proves the correctness of Maslamah’s statement.

For instance, when the compound is complete and perfect, the element of air in it is, to the element of air in the egg, in the same proportion as the element of fire in the former is to the element of fire in the latter.

The corruption of philosophy

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The sciences occur in civilization. They are much cultivated in the cities. They can greatly harm religion.

The corruption of philosophy

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The arguments concerning the existentia beyond sensual perception - the spiritualia - constitute what the (philosophers) call “the divine science” or science of metaphysics.

The essences of (the spiritualia) are completely unknown. One cannot get at them, nor can they be proven by logical arguments, because an abstraction of intelligibilia from the individual existentia of the outside world is possible only in the case of things we can perceive 1026 by the senses, from which the universals are thus derived.

Astrology is wrong, has weak achievements, harmful goal

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Astrologers think that astrology, with the knowledge it gives of astral powers, individually or in combination, and of astral influences upon elemental creations, enables them to know the things that are going to be in the world of the elements, before they are created.

The worthlessness of astrology

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The worthlessness of astrology from the point of view of the religious law, as well as the weakness of its achievements from the rational point of view, are evident.

Astrology does harm to human civilization.

The impossibility of alchemy and the harm it causes

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Many unemployed peopleare led by greed to cultivate alchemy. They think that:

Why Alchemy is Wrong

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The (alchemical) process follows these lines:

The (alchemists) take a substance possessing primary preparedness. They use it as the basis.

In treating and processing it, they imitate the way nature processes substances in mines and, eventually, transforms them into gold or silver. They (try) hard to increase the active and passive powers (in the process), so that it will be completed in a shorter time (than required by nature). It has been explained in the proper place that an increase in the power of the agent shortens the time needed for his activity.

The 7 Valid Purposes of Writing a literary composition

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The storehouse of human science is the soul of man. In it, God has implanted perception (idrak) enabling it to think and, thus, to acquire (scientific knowledge).

The process starts with perception (tasawwur) of the realities and is then continued by affirmation or negation of the essential attributes of the (realities), either directly or through an intermediary.

The great number of scholarly works is an obstacle to attaining scholarship

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Among the things that are harmful to the human quest for knowledge and to the attainment of a thorough scholarship are the great number of works (available), the large variety in technical terminology (needed for purposes) of instruction, and the numerous (different) methods (used in those works).

The Great Many Brief Handbooks On Scholarly Subjects Is Detrimental To Instruction

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Many recent scholars have turned to brief presentations of the methods and contents of the sciences.

They want to know the methods and contents.
They present them systematically in the form of brief programs for each science.

These brief handbooks express all the problems of a given discipline and the evidence for them in a few brief words that are full of meaning.

The Right Attitude In Scientific Instruction And How To Give Such Instruction

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The teaching of scientific subjects to students is effective only when it proceeds gradually and little by little.

At first, the teacher presents the student with the principal problems within each chapter of a given discipline.

The study of the auxiliary sciences should not be prolonged

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There are 2 kinds of sciences:

The religious sciences

This includes Qur’an interpretation, Prophetic traditions, jurisprudence, and speculative theology

The Instruction of Children

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Instructing children in the Qur’an is a symbol of Islam.

Muslims have, and practice, such instruction in all their cities. This is because it imbues hearts with a firm belief in Islam and its articles of faith, which are (derived) from the verses of the Qur’an and certain Prophetic traditions.

Severity to students does them harm

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Severe punishment during teaching harms the student, especially little children, because it belongs among the things that make for a bad habit.

Scholars are least familiar with the ways of politics

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Scholars are used to mental speculation and to a searching study of ideas which they abstract from the sensibilia and conceive in their minds as general universals.

This makes them applicable to some matter in general, but not to any particular matter, individual, race, nation, or group of people.

Most of the scholars in Islam have been Persians

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Most Muslim scholars both in the religious and in the intellectual sciences have been non-Arabs. When a scholar is of Arab origin, he is non-Arab in language and upbringing and has non-Arab teachers. This is so in spite of the fact that Islam is an Arabic religion, and its founder was an Arab.

A person whose first language was not Arabic has a harder time acquiring the sciences

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This is because all scientific research deals with ideas of the mind and the imagination.

This applies to the religious sciences in which research is mostly concerned with words and the substance of which is the laws derived from the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the language used in (both the Qur’an and the Sunnah) that leads to (the formulation of) these (laws). These are all matters of the imagination.

The Sciences Concerned with the Arabic language

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There are 4 pillars of the Arabic language:

lexicography
grammar
syntax and style (bayan)
literature

Knowledge of them all is necessary for religious scholars, since the source of all religious laws is the Qur’an and the Sunnah, which are in Arabic.

The science of lexicography

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This science is concerned with explaining the (conventional) meanings of the words of the language. This comes about as follows.

The habit of the Arabic language, as far as the vowels called i’rab by the grammarians are concerned, became corrupted. 1254

The Science Of Rhetorical Figures

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This is a science which originated in Islam after Arabic philology and lexicography.

It belongs among the philological sciences because it is concerned with words and the ideas they convey and are intended to indicate.

The Inimitability of the Qur'an

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Contemporary Easterners are more concerned with commenting on and teaching (the Miftah) than any other (work).

In general, the people of the East cultivate this discipline more than the Maghribis.

Language is a technical habit

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All languages are habits similar to crafts techniques. They are habits (located) in the tongue and serve the purpose of expressing ideas.

The good or inadequate (character of such expression) depends on the perfection or deficiency of the habit. This does not apply to individual words but to word combinations.

Modern Arabic Language

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Perhaps, if we were to concern ourselves with the presentday Arabic language and evolve its laws inductively, we would find other things and possibilities indicating what the vowel endings, which no longer exist, used to indicate, things that exist in the (present-day language) and that have their own peculiar rules.

The current language of sedentary is different from the Mudar

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The usual form of address used among the urban and sedentary population is not the old Mudar language nor the language of the (present-day) Arab Bedouins.

The habit of the Mudar language

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49. The habit of the (Mudar) language is different from Arabic philology and can dispense with it in (the process of) instruction.

This is because Arabic philology is merely a knowledge of the rules and forms of this habit. It is the knowledge of a quality, 1 369 and not a quality itself. It is not the habit itself. Rather, it is comparable to a person who has a theoretical knowledge of a craft but does not know how to exercise it in practice.

What is the real meaning of the word 'taste'?

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The word “taste” is in current use among those who are concerned with the various branches of literary criticism (bayan). It means the tongue’s possession of the habit of eloquence. What eloquence is 1380 was explained above.

The urban population is generally deficient in linguistics

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The more remote urban people are from the Arabic language, the more difficult 1392 it is for them to obtain it.

The division of speech into poetry and prose

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The Arabic language and Arab speech are divided into two branches. (One of them) is rhymed poetry. It is speech with meter and rhyme, which means that every line of it ends upon a definite letter, which is called the “rhyme.” The other branch is prose, that is, non-metrical speech.

The Craft of poetry and the way of learning it

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This discipline is one of the disciplines connected with Arab speech.

The Arabs call it “poetry” (shi’r). It exists in all the other languages. Here, however, we speak only about Arabic poetry. It is possible that the speakers of other languages, too, find in (poetry) the things they desire to express in their speech.

What is Poetry?

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The prosodists define poetry as a metrical rhymed speech. This is a wrong defintion. Prosody considers poetry only 1466 under the aspect of the agreement of the verses (of a poem), with respect to the number of successive syllables with and without vowels, 1467 as well as with respect to the similarity of the last foot of thefirst hemistich of the verses of a poem to the last foot of the second hemistich.

Poetry and prose work with words, and not with ideas

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Both poetry and prose work with words, and not with ideas.

The ideas are secondary to the (words). The (words) are basic. The craftsman who tries to acquire the habit of poetry and prose uses words for that purpose. He memorizes appropriate words from Arab speech, so as to be able to employ it frequently and have it on his tongue. Eventually, the habit of the Mudar language becomes firmly established in him. He becomes free from the non-Arab (linguistic habits) in which he was reared among the people of his race.

Natural and contrived speech

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The secret and spirit of speech that is, expression and address - lie in conveying ideas.

If no effort is made to (convey ideas), (speech) is like “dead land” (mawat) 1568 which does not count.

Natural Speech

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Examples of natural speech which is free from contrived technique, such as, for instance, the verse of Qays b. Dharih: I go out from among the tents; perhaps, I Shall talk about you to my(self) in secret, being alone. Or the verse-of -Kuthayyir.

People of rank are above cultivating poetry

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Poetry was the archive of the Arabs, containing their sciences, their history, and their wisdom. 1604

Leading Arabs competed in it. They used to stop at the fair of ‘Ukaz 1605 to recite poetry. Each would submit his product for criticism 1606 to outstanding and intelligent personalities. Eventually, (Arab poets) came to vie in having their poems hung up at the corners of the Holy Sanctuary to which they made pilgrimage, the house of their ancestor Ibrahim (the Ka’bah).