from the Muslims’ own powers of reason and expression enough to help him excel in those disciplines; thus even the very rabble of the Muslim community has come to surpass those early scholars in understanding and articulating these sciences.

As for the divine sciences, the God-given gnoses, and the unseen matters about which the prophets have spoken—such as the Throne, the angels, the jinn, Paradise and Hell, and the detailed stages of the Afterlife—whoever compares the writings of the Muslims with those of Jewish and Christian scholars will find the Muslims’ treatment fuller and more precise. It is already acknowledged that the People of the Book and the followers of revealed religions know more about such matters than do those outside their traditions.

With respect to worship, ascetic practice, moral character, and both domestic and civic governance, discussion must be grounded in one fundamental principle: understanding the objective sought by these practices and the means by which that objective is realized.

We say, then: People differ regarding the purpose of acts of worship. Some maintain that their aim is only to refine and regulate the soul’s character, thereby readying it for knowledge, and that the acts themselves are not sought for their own sake; they classify them under the heading of ethics. This is the view of the Greek philosophers and of those who adopted their path among the atheists, the Ismailis, and other self-styled philosophers in the Muslim world.