The prophets—may Allah’s blessings be upon them—did not confine their teaching to bare report, as many theoreticians imagine. Instead, they set forth rational demonstrations by which the divine sciences are truly known—proofs entirely absent from the arsenal of those other thinkers. Thus their instruction brings together both rational and revealed evidence, whereas the teaching of their opponents yields neither sound rational proofs nor authoritative scriptural ones. Added to this is the arrogance lodged in those people’s hearts—an arrogance they will never attain—just as the Exalted says:

“Indeed, those who dispute Allah’s signs without any authority that has come to them—there is nothing in their breasts but pride they shall never attain. So seek refuge in Allah; surely He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.” (Q 40:56)

And He says:

“Those who dispute Allah’s signs without any authority that has come to them are greatly detested by Allah and by those who believe. Thus does Allah seal the heart of every arrogant tyrant.” (Q 40:35)

And the Most High also says:

“When their messengers came to them with clear proofs, they rejoiced in the knowledge they possessed, but what they had been scoffing at engulfed them.” (Q 40:83)

Verses of this import abound in the Qur’an; we have dealt with them at length in our work Repelling the Conflict between Revelation and Reason.

Because these people frame in their minds what they imagine to exist externally, they have divided the sciences into three levels. The lowest, according to them, is physics, which never abstracts from matter—neither in thought nor in external reality—and concerns the body, its properties, and its divisions. The middle level is mathematics, which abstracts from matter in the mind though not in the external world, such as arithmetic and geometry, for it