bodies, so too do illnesses afflict souls: the illnesses of doubts and desires.

A transmitted hadith states:

“Allah loves discerning insight when doubts arise, and He loves sound reason when desires arise.”

Al-Bayhaqī narrated it with a disconnected chain of transmission. Some added:

“And He loves generosity, even if it consists only of a handful of dates, and He loves courage, even if displayed only in killing snakes.”

But the Brahmins denied anything beyond this perceptible reality, as do the naturalist philosophers, the followers of Pharaoh, and others like them. It is this position that is refuted. This will be explained below in Imam Ahmad’s account of their debate with Jahm. It is possible that al-Rāhima, or some of them, said that whatever cannot possibly be known through the senses cannot exist. This is the position of most people on earth, both adherents of religious traditions and others, and it is the position that Ibn Sīnā rejected and sought to refute.

These people, however, fall into two groups. Some deny whatever people in general do not perceive through their senses in this world, going so far as to deny the angels and the jinn—indeed, even to deny the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him. These are the unbelieving materialists who utterly deny the Creator.

Ibn Sīnā and others like him refute these people, but sometimes do so with unsound arguments.

This is the second meaning: a person’s denial of whatever cannot be perceived through the senses in this world.

As for the third meaning—that what exists is whatever can be perceived through the senses, even in the Hereafter, and that the unseen matters of which the Messengers spoke, such as Paradise, Hell, and the angels, and indeed what they told us about Allah Most High, can be known through sensory perception, such as sight—