Thus, when it is said, “Instances of knowledge and acts of willing have multiplied,” this describes an increase in their amount: they are more abundant and greater than before. It does not mean that there are separate, countable entities, as some people may understand it. Hence, “knowledge” is a generic noun and is hardly ever pluralized in the Quran. Rather, it says:

“Then whoever disputes with you concerning him after knowledge has come to you.”

Here, the generic term is used. Likewise, the Quran does not speak of “waters”; rather, it uses the generic term “water”:

“And We sent down purifying water from the sky,”

and similar expressions. Knowledge is likened to water, as in the Prophet’s saying—may Allah bless him and grant him peace:

“The guidance and knowledge with which Allah has sent me are like rain that falls upon a land…”—to the end of the hadith.

Allah also says:

“He sent down water from the sky, and valleys flowed according to their capacity,”

through to His words:

“Thus does Allah set forth examples.”

Whatever the Lord, Exalted is He, has created, He sees; and He hears the voices of His servants. All rational people agree that what is nonexistent cannot be seen.

The Sālimiyyah, such as Abū Tālib al-Makkī and others, did not say that it is seen as something subsisting independently. They said only that the Lord sees it within Himself, even though it has no existence in the nonexistent thing itself. Thus, they take the object of vision to be its conceptual representation subsisting within the knower