in this and similar matters that have perplexed many people, who see what is said to be known through reason as conflicting with what is said to be known through revelation. This has led each group to deny what it does not fully understand. Matters reached the point where some speculative theologians opposed the philosophers concerning the “celestial spheres” with arguments for which they had no evidence, whether from revelation or reason. They thought these arguments defended the revealed Law, although what they denied was also established by scriptural evidence.
As for the “philosophizers and their followers,” the furthest they reach is to draw inferences from the sensory phenomena they have observed; they know nothing beyond that. They may know, for example, that rising vapour condenses into clouds, and that when clouds collide, a sound results, and so forth. Yet their knowledge of this is like their knowledge that semen enters the womb. But what brings it about that semen, whose constituent parts are alike, gives rise to these different organs and their different functions, in this precise and masterful arrangement, containing such wisdom and mercy as to astound the mind?
Likewise, what causes this air or vapour to condense into clouds of a particular measure, at a particular time, over a particular place, and then to rain down upon people when they need it, providing them with just as much water as they require—neither so much that they perish nor so little that they are left in want? And what causes water to be conveyed to barren land that receives no rain, or receives too little to sustain it—such as the land of Egypt, where a little rain is insufficient, while abundant rain demolishes its buildings?
Allah Most High says:
“Have they not seen that We drive water to barren land and bring forth thereby crops from which their livestock and they themselves eat? Will they not then see?”