Sixth Argument:
It may be said that we know—by both undeniable necessity and recurrent mass testimony—that the jinn can carry a human being from one place to another which he himself is powerless to reach. We have observed this in more than one instance, and others possess further details of which we are unaware. Whoever questions the very basis of the matter should consult those who do possess such knowledge; a person has no right to deny what he does not know.

We are personally acquainted with a great many such cases. We know of numerous individuals who were borne through the air from their hometowns to ʿArafāt and to Mecca outside the appointed time of the ʿArafāt standing. Some of them were outright unbelievers, never having embraced Islam; others were hypocrites who did not acknowledge the obligation of prayer; still others were simply ignorant, imagining that standing at ʿArafāt without entering iḥrām—and then returning to their homelands without tawāf, saʿy, or iḥrām—constituted an act of worship and a mark of saintly honor. A similarly large number were transported to destinations other than Mecca. Were I to list everything I know in this regard, the discourse would become interminable.

I know, for example, a man among our own companions whom the jinn lifted through the air from the ground floor of a house to its roof; they admonished him in matters of religion, whereupon he repented and reaped benefit. Another man, accompanied by a devil, would—in full view of the people in the town of al-Shawbak—be hoisted skyward until he reached the mountain-tops. Yet another was carried by his devil from Mount Ṣāliḥiyya all the way to the village of Yalda, approximately