—expressions to which they never attached the meanings he gives them—just as he appropriates the terms al-mulk, al-malakūt, and al-jabarūt.

The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—used to say in his bowing and his prostration, “Glory be to the Possessor of jabarūt, malakūt, majesty, and magnificence.” The words jabarūt and malakūt follow the morphological pattern faʿalūt, the former derived from jabr (compulsion) and the latter from mulk (sovereignty), just as raḥmūt, raghbūt, and rahbūt are derived from raḥma (mercy), raghba (desire), and rahba (awe). The Arabs even say, “rahbūt is better than raḥmūt,” meaning: to be held in awe is better than to be shown mercy.

Thus jabarūt and malakūt encompass aspects of the Divine Names and Attributes conveyed by the sense of “the Sovereign, the Compeller.” Abū Ḥāmid, however, designates the “world of mulk” as the realm of bodies, and the “world of malakūt and jabarūt” as the realm of soul and intellect—yet it is clear that neither the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, nor the Muslims ever intended such meanings by these terms.

Moreover, the “intellect” affirmed by the philosophers is invalid in the sight of Muslims; indeed, it ranks among the gravest forms of unbelief. In their scheme the First Intellect originates everything other than God, while the Tenth Intellect brings into existence whatever lies beneath the lunar sphere. This is flagrant disbelief according to Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike.

In Muslim usage, ʿaql (intellect) is the verbal noun of ʿaqala–yaʿqilu and also an innate human faculty; its referent therefore belongs to the class of accidents, not that of self-subsisting substances. For the philosophers, by contrast, it belongs to the latter class.

As for the angels of whom the messengers have spoken, some who try to fuse prophecy with philosophy claim that these angels are nothing but the intellects. This is utter falsehood. The gulf between the attributes God assigns the angels in His Book and the “intellects” posited by those thinkers is obvious—except to one whose insight Allah has blinded, as we have explained elsewhere in detail.

There is also the ḥadith that is reported: “The first thing Allah created was the intellect. He said to it, ‘Advance,’ and it advanced; then He said, ‘Retreat,’ and it retreated. He then said, ‘By My might, I have not created any creature more noble to Me than you; through you…’”