We have discussed these people at length in several places. We have explained that their claims are utterly unsound; that ordinary individuals and followers of the prophets attain things greater than what they have designated as distinctive characteristics; and that the angels described by the messengers are living, speaking beings, the greatest of Allah’s creatures. They are numerous, as Allah Most High says:

“And none knows the hosts of your Lord except Him.”

They are not ten in number, nor are they accidents. These people, moreover, claim that the first emanation is the “First Intellect,” from which everything beneath it emanated, and that the “Tenth Active Intellect” is the lord of everything below the lunar sphere. The falsity of all this is known by necessity from the religion of the messengers: no angel is the originator of everything other than Allah.

These people claim that this is the intellect mentioned in a report which states:

“When Allah first created the intellect, He said to it, ‘Come forward,’ and it came forward. Then He said to it, ‘Go back,’ and it went back. Then He said, ‘By My might, I have created nothing more honoured in My sight than you. Through you I take, and through you I give. Yours is the reward, and upon you is the punishment.’”

They also call it “the Pen,” citing the hadith beginning, “When Allah first created the Pen,” narrated by al-Tirmidhī.

The report they mention concerning the intellect is a lie, fabricated according to the hadith experts, as stated by Abū Hātim al-Bustī, al-Dāraqutnī, Ibn al-Jawzī and others. It does not appear in any of the authoritative hadith collections. Yet even so,