then comes water, which ranks below it, yet is available far more plentifully and with greater ease than food, because the need for it is more acute.

In the same manner, the proofs of divine Lordship are what creation needs most urgently for its religious life, followed by the proofs of prophethood. For that reason Allah has made these evidences readily accessible and easy to grasp—far more so than questions that the general public need not occupy themselves with: debates about whether bodies are identical or different, whether accidents persist or perish, whether the indivisible atom exists or not; or legal issues such as the rulings for a woman with chronic bleeding, the consequences of a missed or invalidated pilgrimage, and other matters that only a select group of scholars discuss.