…the angels and the prophets as lords is a disbeliever—even though the pagan Arabs only treated them as intercessors and sought thereby to draw nearer to Allah. Thus, if those who called upon a created being to intercede for them with Allah—petitioning and entreating him without Allah’s permission, just as one creature appeals to another—were branded by Allah as polytheists and unbelievers whose abode is Hell, how much graver is the shirk (polytheism) of these philosophers and the “intercession” they affirm!
They permit the invocation of the higher “substances”: the sun, the moon, the planets, and the spirits they label “intellects” and “souls,” which adherents of the revealed religions would call angels. Spirits may descend upon such idolaters, fulfill some of their requests, and disclose certain matters to them, yet they do not distinguish between angels and jinn; rather, they call them all “angels” and “spirits,” speaking of the “spirit of the sun,” the “spirit of Mercury,” or the “spirit of Venus.” In truth these are male and female devils that mislead anyone who associates partners with them. Likewise every idol—an image fashioned in the name of some object of worship, whether of a prophet, a righteous person, a star, or a spirit—has devils that enter it, sometimes speak to certain idolaters, and at times even appear visibly so that some of the caretakers and others see them.
The polytheists among the philosophers who claim the universe is eternal are therefore more deeply steeped in shirk, and the intercession they allege for their deities is a worse form of unbelief than that of the pagan Arabs. Those Arabs at least said that the intercessor asks Allah and that Allah grants the request, believing Him to be the Creator who acts by His power and will. These philosophers, however, assert that He does not know particulars and effects nothing by His will and power; rather, the world, in their view, merely emanated from Him.
Accordingly they state that when a supplicant turns toward the one he is invoking—whether toward the dead at their graves or elsewhere, or toward the lofty spirits—a flow of influence pours down upon him from that exalted being whom he has called upon, sought relief from, and humbled himself before, without any act on the part of that intercessor and without his appealing to Allah. They liken it to sunlight that falls upon a polished surface such as a mirror, then reflects from that bright surface onto a wall or onto water. This, others have also mentioned…