Hippocrates (1) that he said: “Know that our medicine, compared with the medicine of those who preside over the temples, is like the medicine of old women compared with ours.”
Thus, those men acknowledged the existence of something beyond natural and celestial forces. What they acknowledged was not merely the powers of the soul, as Ibn Sīnā and a group (2) maintain. Rather, angels fill (3) the upper and lower worlds, and the jinn too are so numerous that none but Allah can count them. Allah has appointed the angels to govern this world by His will and power, as indicated by the many proofs in the Quran and Sunnah and as may also be established by rational proofs.
The angels are living, rational beings; they are not accidents subsisting in other things, as many philosophers claim. Nor are they merely the ten intellects and nine souls. Rather, these notions (4) are false, as shown by many proofs (5).
(1) Hippocrates was a skilled physician who lived for ninety-five years. He studied medicine under Asclepius. Mubashshir ibn Fātik discussed him in *Mukhtār al-Hikam*, as did Hunayn ibn Ishāq in *Nawādir al-Falāsifa*. He died in 357 BCE. See *Uyūn al-Anbā fī Tabaqāt al-Atibbā*, p. 24; Ibn Juljul, *Tabaqāt al-Atibbā wa-al-Hukamā*, pp. 16–19; al-Qiftī, *Tārīkh al-Hukamā*, p. 90; and Ibn al-Nadīm, *al-Fihrist*, pp. 287–288.
(2) (H) and (B) read: “and his group.”
(3) “Rather, angels fill”: this is the reading in (W), and it is correct. All the other manuscripts read: “*bal bi-malīkihi bal*” (“rather, by its king—rather”).
(4) (N) and (M) read: “they are.”
(5) See what I stated in my book *Muqārana bayna al-Ghazālī wa-Ibn Taymiyya* (Dār al-Qalam, Kuwait, 1395 AH/1975 CE), pp. 89–92, concerning Ibn Taymiyya’s refutation of the philosophers’ claim that the angels are the intellects and souls, and the passages in which Ibn Taymiyya discusses this matter. See also *al-Radd alā al-Mantiqiyyīn*, pp. 493–499; and *al-Safadiyya*, 1/196–202.