my Lord wills something to happen. My Lord encompasses all things in knowledge. Will you not then take heed? How could I fear what you associate with Allah, when you do not fear associating with Him things for which He has sent you no authority? Which of the two groups has more right to security, if you know?’”

“Those who believe and do not taint their faith with wrongdoing—it is they who will have security, and they are rightly guided.”

Allah Most High said:

“That was Our argument which We gave Abraham against his people. We raise in rank whom We will. Surely your Lord is All-Wise, All-Knowing.”

When these people interpreted “setting” as motion and opened the door to distorting words from their proper meanings, the heretics entered through that door. Ibn Sīnā and other heretics like him interpreted setting as the contingency they postulated. They maintained that the celestial spheres are eternal, without beginning, yet contingent, as are the stars and the two luminaries within them.

They said that Abraham’s words, “I do not love those that set,” mean: “I do not love what is contingent and caused, even if it is eternal and without beginning.” But where in the word “setting” is there anything to indicate this meaning? Such, however, is the way of those who distort words from their proper meanings.

After them came others of the same kind who went further in distortion, saying that “the stars, the sun, and the moon” refer to the soul, the active intellect, and the first intellect. Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī mentioned this in some of his books and attributed it to others in some of them. These people said: “No rational person can fail to recognize that the stars, the sun, and the moon are not the Lord of all worlds, unlike the soul and the intellect.” For the words “star,” “sun,” and “moon” to signify these meanings—even if such things existed—