and he employs this power for wicked ends, he is nothing but a malignant sorcerer.

He said as well: “The harm caused by the evil eye is almost of this very sort.”

He further remarked: “Only those who assume that any influence upon bodies must come through direct contact, or the emission of some particle, or the transmission of a quality by means of an intermediary, find such matters implausible. Whoever reflects on what we have set forth will see that this requirement need not be taken into account.”

Such, then, is a concise statement of their discourse on the subject. It is clear that everything they have described is a commonplace occurrence, frequent enough to be classed neither among the outright breaches of natural law nor among the miracles.

For this reason Ibn Sīnā, after recounting these points and citing the earlier maxim that “whoever rejects the whole will find the particulars easy to dismiss,” went on to say: “Perhaps you have heard reports from some people of spiritual insight that appear to overturn ordinary experience, and you hasten to declare them false—such as the claim that a prophet might at times pray for rain on behalf of the people, whereupon rain would fall for them.”