Nor, moreover, do they possess any evidence to exclude the possibility that the soul may behold other realities that pertain to its own condition—such as the things a person sees at the hour of death, realities that exist yet were hidden from him while the soul remained attached to the body. The same applies to one who is asleep: although dreams may involve imagined images, they have no proof that everything the sleeper sees is mere fantasy, for it is perfectly possible that in his sleep he witnesses something of the same order as that which the dying person sees when his spirit is leaving his body. It is the rational soul that perceives; what bars its vision is only its connection to the body. Once that bond is fully severed by death, it perceives what previously lay beyond its sight, as the Most High says:

"We have removed your covering from you; today your vision is piercing." (Qaf 50:22)

He also says:

"Why, then, when the soul reaches the throat while you look on—and We are closer to him than you, yet you do not see—" (al-Waqiʿah 56:83-85).

The exegetes explain that the beings nearer than you are the angels. A similar, though lesser, degree of disengagement occurs in sleep; hence there are people who see something in a dream and later find it come to pass exactly as they saw it, without the slightest alteration—the object seen in the dream is the very object encountered while awake.

As for the fact that many people have seen the jinn, whether during demonic possession or in other circumstances, this is too frequent and well-known to require lengthy discussion. The physicians’ assertion that every instance of epilepsy is caused solely by bodily humors is patently false, for the entry of a jinni into a human body, its speaking through the person’s tongue in various ways, and similar phenomena are matters that multitudes know with certainty. The leading scholars of Islam are unanimously agreed on this, just as they concur on the very existence of the jinn. More than one person has seen them and spoken with them; the accounts are countless. If this is so with the jinn, then what of the noble angels whom the prophets—peace be upon them—behold, both inwardly and outwardly?

Furthermore, the divine scriptures and the sound prophetic hadith, transmitted by the widest consensus, state that angels—and likewise jinn—can assume human form and be seen in that guise. Allah relates in several places the story of Abraham’s guests, and He tells of Mary when He sent to her the Spirit, namely Gabriel:

"He appeared before her as a well-proportioned man. She said, ‘I seek refuge with the All-Merciful from you, if you are God-fearing.’ He replied, ‘I am only a messenger of your Lord, to grant you a pure son.’" (Maryam 19:17-19)

For all these matters they have nothing to support their denial but the feeblest of conjectures. To reject such manifest inward and outward sensory realities is to speak without knowledge. For this reason they end up construing what has been conveyed…