and rational truths that no one disputes. Anyone who attributes a single position on these subjects to [all] (1) the philosophers is ignorant of their various schools and divergent doctrines. His knowledge is confined to examining the approach of the Peripatetics, the followers of Aristotle—such as Themistius, Alexander of Aphrodisias (2), and Proclus (3) among the ancients; and al-Fārābī, Ibn Sīnā, al-Suhrawardī the Slain, Ibn Rushd the Grandson, Abū al-Barakāt, and their like among the later philosophers. Yet each of them holds views concerning metaphysics, prophethood, and the Resurrection that he does not transmit from his earlier predecessors, for in this field they possess no body of knowledge from which their followers might benefit. The greater part of their knowledge concerns natural philosophy; there they range freely and vaunt themselves. It was on account of this and the like (4) that some exalted Aristotle and followed him, because he wrote extensively on natural philosophy and was correct in most of it. As for (5) metaphysics, he and his followers are among those furthest from understanding it.

Nothing in the sound rational arguments found in the writings of these or other philosophers indicates anything contrary to what the messengers reported. They possess no presumptive proof whatsoever—much less a conclusive one—for the eternity of the celestial spheres, or even for the eternity of any one of them. Most of their proofs are merely general propositions pertaining to universal kinds; they do not demonstrate the eternity of any particular thing in the universe.

Accordingly, regarding what the messengers reported that Allah created—such as their report that Allah