miracles. For whenever people feel an urgent need to know something, Allah eases for them the means of attaining it, just as He makes those bodily necessities most needed by them easy to obtain. Because their need for breath and air is greater than their need for water, air is available to everyone at every moment; and because their need for water surpasses their need for food, water is correspondingly more abundant.

In the same way, since their supreme need is to know the Creator, the signs that attest to His lordship, power, knowledge, will, and wisdom are more manifest than any other evidences. And because, after that, their need to verify the truthfulness of the messengers is greater than their need for anything else, Allah—glorified be He—has established proofs of their veracity and clear testimonies to their prophethood: the upright condition, happiness, and salvation of those who follow them; the beneficial knowledge and righteous deeds such followers acquire; and, conversely, the wretched state, misery, ignorance, and wrongdoing of those who oppose them. All this becomes obvious to anyone who contemplates it.

“And for the one to whom Allah has not granted light, there is no light.” (Qur’an, 24:40)

This method we have described—gauging a matter by comparing it with its peers, counterparts, and parallels, and by contrasting it with its opposites and challengers—enables one, when faced with similar things, to discern which of them is more perfect