as a well-proportioned man, and the Companions’ seeing Gabriel in the form of a Bedouin.

It is thus clear that seeing realities with the eye corresponds to seeing them with the heart. Each comprises “three categories”: perceiving the externally existing thing itself; perceiving it through its representation in an inward or outward mirror; and perceiving it represented in a form other than its own, either inwardly in the heart or outwardly before the eye. And Allah, glorified be He, knows best.

Reasoning by analogy concerning sensory matters is therefore like reasoning by analogy concerning intellectual matters. What I have written about visionary disclosures has its counterpart in communications, for sight and hearing disclose what follows.