Folio 7b

…falls to earth with the thunderbolt(?).*1

It is related that in the year 411 a cloud appeared over the province of Africa (Ifriqiya); with thunder and lightning it rained down stones, and whomever they struck, it killed.*1

Stranger still: in that same year a cloud appeared between Isfahan and Khuzistan. It hung no higher than a man's height and its thunder was like a stallion's cry; out of it rained stones(?), frogs and great fish. The people gathered so many of the fish that, dried, they made a full year's food for themselves and fodder for their livestock.*2

All the things related here are among the strange matters. God Most High's power has no bound or limit, and His bounty to His servants no count or end. What has been told here of the strange and the wondrous is a drop from the sea, a mote from the sun; with that much told, we have set about describing the states of created beings.

Section on the division of created beings. All beings of the heavens and of the earth are God Most High's creation, and over all of them His rule, decree and destiny hold. But to count and number them all is beyond human power, and it is neither possible nor conceivable for human knowledge to encompass them.

The eminent scholars, however, have divided them and declared as follows: beings are of two kinds. One kind is that whose essence is unknown to us, which reason and sight cannot(?) encompass or perceive. God Most High said: "And He creates what you do not know." The other kind our knowledge and perception do encompass.*3

This too is of two kinds. One is not perceived by sight and is known only through the Lawgiver's teaching and the revealed text: such as the angels, the Throne, the Footstool, the devils and the race of jinn; these have become known through the revealed texts, reports and traditions. Those perceived by sight are the earth and the sky, the stars of the sky, the turning of the sun and moon(?), and the mountains and deserts of the earth; these are things known by the senses and seen with the eye.*3*4

In all of this not a single mote stirs unless the exalted will of God Most High is bound to it. As the poet said: "In every moving and every stilling there is ever a witness; in every thing there is a sign of Him, pointing to His being One."

Introduction: on the higher world (the 'ulwiyyat). Let us describe the states of the higher world in summary. Section: the philosophers, [on] the true nature of the spheres and their arrangements…