to describe. Those afflicted with disordered humours and others experience false imaginings too numerous to describe.

Among the philosophers who say that the soul is not a body and deny bodily resurrection, some maintain that certain souls attach themselves to a part of the celestial sphere, where they imagine things that afford them imaginary enjoyment, and that this takes the place of sensory pleasure. It may even be said that it is greater than sensory pleasure, as Ibn Sīnā mentioned.

What these people say is of the same kind as the reality claimed by those who made the world of imagination the land of reality.

We do not deny the existence of imaginings, for no rational person denies this. Rather, we reject exalting them and equating them with real entities, or claiming that what Allah has promised His believing servants is of this kind.

The point here is that no one denies imaginary representations, nor does anyone say that they are identical in essence, attributes, and size to things existing in external reality, whether those imaginings represent those things or something else.

It has thus become clear that what Ibn Sīnā and other philosophers stated and established through rational proofs does not contradict Allah’s knowledge of particulars. Indeed, it includes evidence for that knowledge.

Yet the most this amounts to is their inconsistency: they affirm something without affirming its necessary implications. Thus Ibn Sīnā affirmed His knowledge of complete beings as individuals, and of the kinds of changing things, without any change in His knowledge.