of the same kind that occurs to certain ascetics engaged in rigorous disciplines, and to some disturbed individuals who are seized by fits. They go on to claim that what the messengers reported concerning the Lord’s dominion and the Last Day is nothing more than imaginative fiction and illustrative parables, not true information about realities as they actually are.

Distinctive Quality Three: they say that the would-be prophet possesses a psychic force by which he manipulates the prime matter of the cosmos, just as the one who casts the evil eye exercises a psychic influence upon the person he envies. On this basis they contend that the extraordinary miracles granted to prophets and saints are of the same order.

The root of their doctrine is that they refuse to affirm for the Maker of the universe a will, a power of choice, and an omnipotence by which He can change the world and move it from one state to another. Indeed, their leading figures even deny that He has knowledge of the detailed affairs of the world: some of them say He knows nothing at all; others say He knows only Himself; still others maintain that He knows particulars only in a universal manner. This last view was adopted by Ibn Sīnā, and though it is the least objectionable of their positions, it remains self-contradictory and unsound.