and others, as well as later figures such as al-Rāzī and al-Āmidī. They said:

“We do not deny that some people may acquire immediate knowledge of what we come to know through rational inquiry. We do not dispute this. But if it is not immediate knowledge, it must have evidence, and that evidence must entail what it demonstrates, such that the absence of the evidence entails the absence of what it demonstrates.”

They said:

“If rejecting the belief he has acquired would entail rejecting something known with immediate certainty, then this is the evidence. Otherwise, it is mere delusion that deserves no consideration.”

A fuller discussion of this belongs elsewhere. The point is that this kind of experience does occur. Yet many things also occur that are thought to belong to this category, or many of these people fail to distinguish truth from falsehood, just as happens with rational and scriptural evidence.

Some of these people hear a voice addressing them or see someone instructing them to do something, when that address comes from Satan and the one addressing them is Satan, though they imagine him to be one of Allah’s allies, one of the “men of the unseen.”

These “men of the unseen” are jinn, though the person imagines the one before him to be human. He may say to him:

“I am al-Khadir, or Elijah; indeed, I am Muhammad, or Abraham, the close friend of Allah, or the Messiah, or Abū Bakr, or ‘Umar; or I am Shaykh So-and-so, or Shaykh So-and-so”—naming people of whom he thinks well.

He may carry him through the air or bring him food, drink, or money for his expenses. The person then imagines this to be a miraculous favour—indeed, a sign and a miracle indicating that this being is one of the men of the unseen or one of the angels—when in fact it is a devil who has deceived him. Thus, this