The second branch of knowledge is that we contemplate these created things and draw from them their varied benefits. For Allah has subjected them to us and empowered us to extract every religious and worldly advantage they contain. He has tamed the earth so that we may plough, sow, and plant, and so that we may mine its minerals and tap into its blessings. He has also rendered it compliant with our sciences and labors, allowing us to devise useful industries from it. All the branches of craftsmanship—despite their profusion, diversity, and remarkable advancement, especially in our times—fall under this realm of subjugation. Indeed, in the present age the need, rather the dire necessity, to discover new benefits and to elevate the arts and industries without limit is well known. New materials and elements have recently been uncovered that yield tremendous advantages for humankind.

We have already established under the Principle of the Necessary Means (qāʿidat al-lāzim) that whatever an objective cannot be achieved without becomes itself obligatory. This shows that learning the newly emerging crafts and inventions is legally required by the Sacred Law just as it is rationally indispensable; it even comes under the heading of jihad in the cause of Allah and forms part of the sciences encouraged by the Quran.

Allah has alerted His servants that He “sent down iron, wherein is formidable might and benefits for people,” and that He has “made subservient to you all that is in the earth.” Hence they must strive to obtain these benefits by the nearest and most accessible means, which are known through practical experience.

This is one of the Quran’s very signs. It is the greatest proof of the vastness of Allah’s knowledge, the perfection of His wisdom, and His mercy toward His servants, for He has permitted them every blessing and facilitated their access to those blessings by ways that continually emerge over time. He has declared that the Quran is a reminder through which His servants recall all that benefits them—so they pursue it—and what harms them—so they avoid it; it is guidance for every good.