and others like him, polytheists who worshipped idols, associated partners with the Most Merciful, and made offerings of every kind to Satan’s offspring?

Is not sorcery among their greatest sciences—sorcery whose ultimate aim is for a person to worship a devil, fast and pray, and make offerings to him, thereby obtaining some worldly gain whose harm outweighs its good and whose sin outweighs its benefit?

Does not the most misguided polytheism in the world stem from some of these would-be philosophers? Is not everyone who draws closer to the revealed laws, even in the slightest detail, closer to reason and knowledge of the truth? Have you ever seen a philosopher secure the welfare of a single village, let alone a city? Can his religious and worldly affairs be set right unless he joins the ordinary adherents of the revealed laws?

Then he is told:

You and those like you are the leaders of your followers. Yet this assertion of yours, of Aristotle, and of others like you among the leading philosophers concerning the Necessary Existent, His attributes and His acts—despite your claim to the utmost monotheism, rigorous understanding and knowledge concerning the Necessary Existent, His attributes and His acts, and despite their claim to the utmost monotheism, rigorous understanding and knowledge—is an assertion made only by someone among the most ignorant and misguided of people, and the most like brute beasts.

That any one of you is skilled in medicine, the study of the stars, horticulture or construction is due to how little you know of Allah, His names, His attributes, His acts and His worship, and how meagre your share and portion are in this pursuit, which is the noblest of pursuits and the loftiest of gifts,