Aristotle denies that the Lord has any knowledge whatsoever of temporally originated events. His statements and arguments on this matter are among the most unsound, as we shall explain, Allah willing.

Ibn Sīnā and others like him, however, claimed that He knows only universals; as for particulars, He knows them in a universal manner. They sought to avoid admitting any change in His knowledge.

As for the Peripatetics before Aristotle, their teachings undoubtedly contain things that are better and closer to the teachings of the prophets than Aristotle’s. Thus, they are reported to have held that the celestial spheres had a beginning, and that Aristotle was the first Peripatetic to maintain that they were eternal.

As for his appeal to forewarnings and dreams to establish the Lord’s knowledge of particulars, this is a weak argument. Ibn Sīnā and others like him claim that the knowledge, forewarnings, and dreams received by human souls are merely an emanation from the Active Intellect and the celestial soul. When they seek to reconcile revealed religion with philosophy, they say that the celestial soul is the Preserved Tablet. Such statements appear in the writings of Abū Hāmid, in al-Ihyā’, al-Madnūn, and other works of his.

The same is found in the writings of the philosophically inclined Sufi shaykhs who followed his path. They speak of the Preserved Tablet, by which they mean the celestial soul, and claim that the gnostic may read what is in the Preserved Tablet and know its contents.

Anyone who knows the religion of Islam with which Allah sent His messengers knows that this is utterly remote from Islam, as has been explained at length elsewhere. For his attempt here to absolve the Peripatetic philosophers of having said such things displays gross partisanship on their behalf.