and the Greeks worshipped the celestial bodies and idols. They had no knowledge of the angels and prophets, and Aristotle’s books contain no mention of any of these. Their learning was chiefly concerned with natural phenomena. As for divine matters, each of them was seldom right and frequently wrong. Even after abrogation and alteration, the Jews and Christians know far more about divine matters than they do. Their later followers, however, such as Ibn Sīnā, sought to patch together their predecessors’ teachings and what the Messengers had brought. They borrowed elements from the principles of the Jahmiyyah and the Muʿtazilah and constructed a doctrine to which philosophers belonging to religious communities may profess allegiance. It contains errors and contradictions, some of which we have pointed out elsewhere.

When these thinkers saw that the mission of Messengers such as Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—had dazzled the world, acknowledged that the law with which Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—was sent was the greatest law ever to reach the world, and found that the prophets had spoken of angels and jinn, they sought to reconcile all this with the teachings of their Greek predecessors. Yet those predecessors were the furthest of all people from knowing Allah, His angels, His Books, His Messengers, and the Last Day.

Those predecessors affirmed ten intellects, which they called “immaterial entities” and “separate entities.” This notion was originally derived from the soul’s separation from the body. They called these entities “separate” because they are separate from matter and free of it. They also affirmed the celestial spheres, assigning a soul to each sphere. Most of them regarded these souls as accidents, while some regarded them as substances. Upon examination, these “immaterial entities” which they affirmed amount to things