Others, meanwhile, had devils bring them food pilfered from people’s shops; this has happened to more than one person in our own day as well as in earlier times. On one occasion a group were handed a sweetmeat that came floating down through the air. The confection was later identified as stolen: its owner realized it was missing, the vessel it had been in was described to him, and its price was repaid to him. Incidents of this sort are known to us with absolute certainty and by recurrent, corroborated reports.
If the jinn are able to carry a human being through the air from one place to a distant one, to convey property to him from afar, and to inform him about matters hidden from those present, then it is clear that such extraordinary feats do not arise from the soul’s innate powers, but rather from the work of the jinn. And if the jinn can do this, the angels—who are higher, more capable, more perfect, and more virtuous—are surely able to do so as well.
Just as the followers of the revealed religions—Muslims, Christians, and Jews—affirm these phenomena, so too do the majority of the philosophers. Their treatises on occult sciences teem with accounts of similar events and with the various incantations and charms they list; they are replete with oaths sworn by the jinn, oaths imposed upon them, and supplications and requests addressed to them. Among them are those who claim to speak with the planets: when the so-called “spirit of the planets” descends upon one of them, it is in fact a devil that descends, informing him of certain matters and acting on his behalf—something they themselves acknowledge by recurrent report.
Therefore, anyone who maintains that these marvels are merely effects of disembodied souls and who denies the existence of jinn and devils and their influence over such information and wonders is in error, according to the consensus of the religious communities and the majority of philosophers alike. His falsehood is self-evident to anyone who has become acquainted with these matters through direct experience or through trustworthy, well-established reports.