—a path they themselves devised, one that mingles truth with falsehood and drags both polytheists and believers alike into dispute—just as those combatants of old imagined, by their own reckoning, that the only warfare open to them was a novel kind of warfare that pitted them against both the idolaters and the people of faith.
The word ihsās (1) is a broad term; it is applied to perception through outward or inward sight and witnessing. The Most High says,
“How many a generation We destroyed before them! Do you perceive from any of them a single soul, or hear from them so much as a whisper?” (2)
And He, exalted be He, says,
“When Jesus sensed from them disbelief, he said, ‘Who are my helpers in the cause of Allah?’” (3)
It is universally acknowledged that all human beings are born upon the fiṭrah (primordial disposition) (4); and this very fiṭrah makes it self-evident that whatever cannot possibly be perceived—whether inwardly or outwardly—has no existence at all.
(1) The underlying reading of q. is “ʿāmmata mā…,” and the reading authenticated is from Ṭāʾ. Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār explains: “al-iḥsās (sensation) is knowledge through the senses—namely the eye, ear, nose, tongue, and hand.” See al-Nihāya by Ibn al-Athīr, vol. 1, p. 384. Ibn Manẓūr records from al-Farrāʾ: “al-iḥsās means existence; in speech one says, ‘Have you sensed any of them?’” Al-Zajjāj adds: “The verb aḥassa in the language means ‘to know’ or ‘to find.’” It appears in expressions such as “Have you sensed your companion?” meaning “Did you see him?” and “Have you sensed the report?” meaning “Did you learn and comprehend it?” See Lisān al-ʿArab, vol. 6, p. 50 (under ḥ-s-s).
(2) Qur’an, Sūrah Maryam (19:98).
(3) Qur’an, Sūrah Āl ʿImrān (3:52).
(4) Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, 2:104 (Kitāb al-Janā’iz, “Chapter: What Is Said about the Children of Polytheists”), narrates from Abū Hurayrah (ra) that the Prophet (ṣallā llāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) said: “Every child is born on the fitrah (innate nature), then his parents turn him into a Jew, a Christian, or a Magus; it is like a newborn animal—do you ever see one mutilated [at birth]?” The term jadhāʿāʾ denotes an animal whose ears have been cut off.