by its own standards. But has he ever seen, among the peoples of the world, a nation more intelligent than the Arabs?

Consider their common language: how precisely it articulates meanings and distinguishes subtle meanings from broad ones through specific words that explicitly convey what is meant. Hebrew comes next in perfection. How can this compare with the language of your inarticulate foreign companions, who string together lengthy expressions with little substance? Had you and your like not shared in some of the good fortune of the Muslims and Arabs, thereby acquiring a measure of human perfection in intellect and language, and consequently translating those books into Arabic, refining them and making them intelligible, those books would have contained such prolixity and nonsense that one would begrudge the time spent on them.

As Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī said of them:

“They contain either true sciences that offer no benefit—and we seek refuge in Allah from knowledge that brings no benefit—or false conjectures that deserve no trust; indeed, some suspicion is sinful.”

For what is established by proof in mathematics and similar fields requires much effort but yields little benefit: the meat of a scrawny camel atop a rugged mountain—neither a mountain easy to climb nor meat fat enough to be worth taking. What is not established by proof consists of conjectures and falsehoods.

Then he should be told: Suppose that the inarticulate Arāniyyīn and the tent-dwelling Arabs you mentioned cannot grasp subtle matters. Can you say the same of the intelligent