…forced, and volitional. Anything that moves does so either by a power inherent in it or by a power external to it. The latter produces coerced motion—the movement of a thing driven against its will. The former, if the moving body is devoid of awareness, is called “natural” motion; but if it possesses awareness, its movement is “volitional.” Coerced motion depends entirely on the coercer, for without him the coerced object would not move at all. Natural motion occurs only when a body has been displaced from its proper place and, by its very nature, seeks to return; once it is back, it comes to rest—like dust settling on the ground or water reaching its level. Consequently, nothing initiates motion in the first instance except that which moves by its own volition, and the origin of every motion is therefore a volitional act.

Now, human beings do not set the air, the clouds, and the other celestial bodies in motion. Those bodies are moved by living beings who act deliberately—and these beings are the angels.

The term malak (angel) literally means “messenger.” Its original form is malaʾak, on the morphological pattern mafʿal; the vowel of the hamzah was shifted to the preceding consonant and the hamzah itself was dropped. The root conveys the sense of “sending” or “message,” whether the lām precedes the hamzah, as in malak, or the hamzah precedes the lām. A detailed linguistic treatment belongs elsewhere.

The point here is to realize that the explanations these philosophers give of the angels and of revelation flatly contradict what is necessarily known from the Prophet’s religion. Accordingly, the kind of prophethood they affirm is entirely fictitious. Their claim that a prophet’s knowledge comes only through formal logical syllogism or through the soul’s union with the celestial soul is among the most groundless of assertions. It exposes the falsity of their logical theory, which confines the avenues of knowledge to “matter” and “form”—precisely the issue under discussion. It also shows that they have shut out from the realm of true knowledge what is far more exalted, magnificent, and extensive than what they have retained. The methods they champion yield only a handful of paltry insights, neither abundant nor noble.

Such, in truth, is the level of these people: in both learning and practice they are among the most contemptible of mankind, and in many respects even the unbelieving Jews and Christians surpass them in knowledge and in conduct.