find any truth in them, they began to occupy themselves with mathematics, as leading philosophers such as Ibn Wāsil and others were also keen to do. Likewise, many later scholars of our school spend their leisure studying inheritance shares, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and similar subjects, because these refresh the soul and constitute sound knowledge free of error.

It is reported that ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb said:

“When you seek recreation, practise archery; and when you converse, discuss inheritance shares.”

The calculation of inheritance shares is a rational discipline founded on a basis prescribed by the revealed law. It thus combines intellectual exercise with preservation of the revealed law. Yet it is not a science to be pursued for its own sake, nor does the soul attain perfection through it.

Those polytheists used to worship the celestial bodies, build temples for them, and invoke them with various supplications. This is well known from accounts of them and from books composed according to their methods on polytheism, magic, the invocation of celestial bodies, and the incantations and oaths through which Iblīs and his hosts are glorified. Through their polytheism and magic, Satan would entice them with things that themselves drew them into that polytheism and magic. They would observe the celestial bodies to learn their magnitudes, the measures of their motions, and the alignments between them, using this knowledge to assist them in what they considered appropriate to those bodies.