a veil except in relation to a body,” denies what rational people know as a matter of necessity.

Twelfth: A veil is, indisputably, an impediment to vision. It is known that an impediment to something cannot be identical with its absence, for the mere absence of something does not prevent its existence. An impediment is only conceivable as such when a cause requiring the thing’s existence is present. Nonexistence is nothing at all, so it cannot constitute an impediment. Were something’s nonexistence an impediment to its existence, nothing that has come into being would ever have existed, since its nonexistence preceded its existence.

It follows that the veil preventing vision must be something other than vision simply not being created. If that were impossible, there would be no impediment to vision at all. Seeing Allah, Mighty and Majestic, would then necessarily occur whenever one’s eyesight was sound and unimpaired, because the cause would be present and the impediment absent, just as with seeing all other things.

Thirteenth: If we put before reason the proposition that a person sees something that does not face him in any way whatsoever, and that there is absolutely no impediment to seeing it except the mere absence of the requisite power in the eye, and we also put before reason the proposition that it is not implausible for that thing to be veiled, reason would not judge accordingly. For affirming that such a thing can be seen is further removed from reason than denying that it is veiled, and reason does not affirm what is more obscure