for him; he benefits from this inferior bread, and satisfying his hunger and nourishing himself with it is then better for him.
Seventh:
Abū Hāmid likens this to the work of Chinese and Byzantine artisans in decorating a wall: one group polished their wall until it reflected what the other group had polished. This analogy is unsound, because the person who emptied his heart had no other heart through which his own could acquire adornment, as one wall acquires it from the other. Rather, he says that knowledge is inscribed in the celestial soul, which he calls “the Preserved Tablet,” following Ibn Sīnā.
We have explained elsewhere that “the Preserved Tablet” mentioned by Allah and His Messenger is not the celestial soul. Ibn Sīnā and his followers took terms found in the revealed Law and assigned them referents different from those intended by the one who brought that Law. They then began using these terms, leading the uninformed to suppose that they intended the same meanings as the one who brought the Law. Thus, they took the kernel of philosophy and clothed it in the husk of the revealed Law. Examples include the terms “mulk” (dominion), “malakūt” (sovereignty), “jabarūt” (might), “the Preserved Tablet,” “angel,” “devil,” “coming into existence,” “beginninglessness,” and others.