indeed, even their speculative theologians who are accused of religious innovations possess, through the methods of reasoning they have devised, many, many times more knowledge of divine matters than the most accomplished practitioners of philosophy.

Later, when some among them, such as al-Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā, and others, became proficient in metaphysics according to the philosophers’ method, Ibn Sīnā composed books in which he added matters that his predecessors had not mentioned, drawing on principles they shared. This was called divine science. He discussed prophethood, miraculous gifts, and the spiritual stations of those who know Allah in terms that were noble and elevated compared with those of his predecessors.

Yet, measured against prophetic knowledge of divine matters, his discussion contains deficiencies, failings, hypocrisy, ignorance, misguidance, and unbelief that are plain to anyone with even the slightest insight into knowledge and faith. It found acceptance only among those who followed the philosophers’ path, because he made knowledge of Allah, prophethood, prophetic miracles, and friendship with Allah more accessible to them according to the principles of the Sabian philosophers—not according to the truth itself—through the light of the message and the proof of prophethood that had shone upon their ignorance.

This was akin to what was done by Nestorius, the Christian who lived in the time of al-Ma’mūn and to whom the Nestorian doctrine concerning the Trinity and the union is attributed. Through the light of the Muslims that illuminated him, however, he removed much of the corruption in the Christian creed, though substantial remnants of it remained with him. Likewise, when the Christian Yahyā ibn ʿAdī took up philosophy, he brought the Christian doctrine of the Trinity closer to the philosophers’ principles concerning the intellect, the subject that understands, and the object understood.