AL-QISTAS AL-MUSTAQIM

THE CORRECT BALANCE BY GHAZALI

Abu Hamid al-Ghazāli

Translated by Richard McCarthy, S. J.

This is the work Ghazāli refers to in Paras. 68, 69, 70. 75, and 76.
I translate the title as The Correct Balance. The expression occurs
twice in the Qur’ān: 17.37/35 and 26.182. Blachére translates “la
balance exacte,” and Arberry “the straight balance.” Ghazālī
appropriately took his title from the Qur’ān, since this work is a
somewhat curious attempt to Islamicize, or “Qurānize,” some of
the Aristotelian, and Stoic, logic which he expounded more
“scientifically” in others of his works. I have used the Arabic text
edited by Victor Chelhot, S.J.-al-Qistās al-Mustaqīm, Beyrouth,
1959, and his French translation Institut Français de Damas,
Bulletin d’Etudes orientales, Tome XV, annèes 1955-1957,
Damas, 1958. “Ar” followed by a number indicates the pagination
of the Arabic text, and “Fr” that of the French text. Some
discrepancies seem due to the fact that Father Chelhot did his
French translation from other texts before he himself edited the
Arabic text. I have enclosed in brackets references,
transliterations, variant translations, and explanatory notes. No
great deal of explanation is needed. The reader unfamiliar with
Arabic will no doubt be interested, and perhaps even intrigued, by
the light this work throws on the character and thought of its
brilliant author.

[CHAPTER ONE]

Introduction [Fr 43-47; Ar 41-46]

1 First I praise God Most High; secondly I invoke His blessings on

His Elect Apostle. Then I say: My brethren, is there among you
one who will lend me his ears that I may relate to him something
[that took place in one] of my conversations? On a certain trip a
companion who belonged to the group professing al-ta‘līm
[authoritative instruction; a Bāţinite] unexpectedly questioned me
and disputed with me like one sure of his skill and his brilliant
argument. He said: I see that you claim the perfection of
knowledge. By what balance, then, is true knowledge perceived?
Is it by the balance of independent reasoning [al-ra’y] and
analogy [al-qiyās]? But that is extremely contradictory and
ambiguous and is the cause of disagreement among men. Or is it
by the balance of authoritative instruction? In this case you would
be obliged to follow the infallible Teacher-Imam-but I do not see
you desirous of seeking him out.

2 I replied: As for the balance of independent reasoning and

analogy, God forbid that I should cling to it!-for it is the balance of
Satan. And I ask God Most High to protect religion from the evil of
any of my friends who alleges that it is the balance of knowledge,
for he is an ignorant friend of religion-and such a one is worse
than an intelligent enemy. Had he been gifted with the happiness
of [professing] the doctrine of authoritative instruction [Ghazālī is
being sarcastic], he would first have learned how to dispute from
the Qur’ān, where the Most High said: “Call thou to the way of thy
Lord with wisdom and good admonition, and dispute with them in
the better way” [16.126/125]. God thus taught that some men are
called by wisdom [philosophy; Chelhot: connaissance rationelle,
as opposed to the vision of faith], and some by admonition
[exhortation, preaching], and some by disputation [dialectic].

3 [Fr 44; Ar 42] If those called by admonition [preaching] are fed

wisdom [philosophy] it harms them, just as feeding with the meat
of fowls harms the suckling child. And if dialectic is used with
those called by wisdom [philosophy] they are nauseated by it, just
as the robust man’s nature is nauseated by being breast-fed with
human milk. And one who uses dialectic with those called by
dialectic, but not in the better way as he has learned from the
Qur’ān, is like one who feeds the desert Arab with wheat bread,
when the latter is used only to dates, or the townsman with dates,
when he is used only to wheat. Would that he had found a good
example in Abraham, the Friend of God-God’s blessings be upon
him!-where he disputed with his adversary [Nimrod] and said: “My
Lord is He who gives life and makes to die” [2.260/258]. Then,
when he saw that that did not suit Nimrod and was not good in his
view, so that the latter said: “I give life, and I make to die” [ibid.],
Abraham shifted to what was better suited to his nature and more
accessible to his understanding, and he said: “God makes the sun
rise from the east; do you, then, make it rise from the west”: then
the unbeliever was confounded [ibid.]. The Friend [of God]-God’s
blessings be upon him!-did not stubbornly persist in proving his
adversary’s inability to quicken the dead, since he knew it would
be difficult for him to understand that-for he on his side thought
that “slaying” was “making to die.” But proving that would not
have suited Nimrod’s bent or have been in keeping with the limit
and level of his intelligence. And the Friend’s aim was not to
annihilate Nimrod, but to animate him: and feeding with suitable
food is an animating, but stubbornness in forcing to what is not
suitable is an annihilation. These are subtleties perceived only by
the light of [the true] authoritative instruction acquired from the
illumination of the world of prophecy. Therefore they have been
excluded from understanding, because they have been excluded
from the secret of the doctrine of the [true] authoritative teaching
[i.e. that brought by the Prophet Muhammad].

4 He said: If you find their [the Ta‘līmites’] way rough and their
proof weak, with what do you weight your knowledge? I said: I
weigh it with “the correct balance” [17.37/35 and 26.1821 so that
its true and its false, its straight and its deviant, may be evident
to me. In this I follow God Most High and learn from the Qur’ān
sent down on the tongue of His truthful Prophet, where He said:
“And weigh with the correct balance” [17.37/35].[Ar 43] He said:
And what is the correct balance? I said: The five scales which God
Most High sent down in His Book and with which He taught His
Prophets to weigh. He who learns from the Apostle of God and
weighs with God’s scales is indeed rightly guided. But he who
turns from them to independent reasoning and analogy indeed
errs and is ruined. He said: Where are these scales in the Qur’ān-
and is this anything but falsehood and untruth [slander]?

5 I said: Have you not heard what the Most High said in the Sūra
of the Benefactor [All-Merciful]: “The All-Merciful has taught the
Qur’ān. He created man and He has taught him the Explanation.. .
and heaven-He raised it up, and set the Balance [transgress not in
the Balance, and weigh with justice, and skimp not in the
Balance] [55.1-3/1-4 and 6/7-8/9]. Have you not heard what He
said in the Sūra of Iron: “Indeed, We sent Our Messengers with
the clear signs, and We sent down with them the Book and the
Balance so that men might uphold justice” [57.25]? Do you think
that the Balance joined with the Book is the balance for wheat
and barley and gold and silver? Do you imagine the Balance
whose setting corresponds to the raising of heaven in His
utterance “and heaven-He raised it up, and set the Balance”
[55.6/7] is the assay balance [coin balance, “trèbuchet”] and the
steelyard [qabbān: cf. Dozy Suppl. II, 315; “balance romaine”]?
What an improbable reckoning and enormous slander [calumny]!
So fear God and do not interpret arbitrarily! Know for sure that
this Balance is the Balance of the knowledge of God and of His
angels and of His Scriptures and of His Apostles and of His
material and spiritual worlds [or: sensible and mental, or, visible
and invisible: mulkihi wa malakūtihi-cf. Wensinck: Ĺa pensèe de
Ghazzālī, pp. 86 ff.], so that you may learn how to weigh with it
from His Prophets, as they learned from His angels. God Most
High, then, is the first teacher, the second is Gabriel, and the third
the Apostle. And all men learn from the Apostles that which they
have no other way of knowing [the negative is missing from
Chelhot’s Arabic text, but is clearly required].
6 I said: I also know that by authoritative teaching [al-ta‘līm]-but
from the Imam of the Imams [i.e. the supreme Imam],
Muhammad ibn ‘Abdallāh ibn ‘Abd al-Muţţalib-God’s blessings be
upon him! For I, though I do not see him, hear his teaching
[ta‘līm] which [Ar 441 has come to me through impeccable
transmission which I can not doubt. His ta‘līm is simply the
Qur’ān, and the clearness of the correctness of the Qur’ān’s
scales is known from the Qur’ān itself. He said: Then give me your
proof, and educe your balance from the Qur’ān and show me how
you understand it and how you understand, from the Qur’ān itself,
its correctness and its soundness.

7 I said: Then give me your own proof: tell me how you know the
correctness and soundness of the balance for gold and silver.
Knowledge of that is a prerequisite of your debt, if you owe
something, so that you may settle it completely without any
deficiency, or, if someone owes you something, that you may
receive it justly without any excess. So when you enter a Muslim
market and take a balance by which you pay the debt or exact
payment of it, how do you know that you are not unjust by paying
too little or exacting too much? He said: I esteem Muslims, and I
say that they would not engage in business except after
regulating [equilibrating] the scales. But if a doubt occurred to me
about one of the balances. I would take it and raise it and look at
the two pans and the tongue [needle, indicator] of the balance.
And if the needle was perfectly vertical with no inclination to one
of the two sides, and I saw, along with that, the exact equilibrium
of the two pans, I would know that it was a sound and correct
balance.
8 [Fr 46] I said: Granted that the needle is perfectly vertical and
that the two pans are at the same level, how do you know that
the balance is correct? He said: I know that by a necessary
knowledge deriving from two premises, one empirical and the
other a fact of sensation. The empirical is that I know from
experience that a heavy thing sinks downwards, and the heavier
it is the more it sinks. So I say: “If one of the two pans were
heavier, it would sink more.” Now this is a universal empirical
premise which I come to have and [it is] necessary. The second
premise is: I see that one of the two pans of this very balance
does not sink but is on a perfect level with the other. This premise
is [Ar 45] a fact of sensation which I have seen with my own eyes.
So I doubt neither about the sensible premise, nor about the first
which is an empirical premise. In my mind, then, there necessarily
follows from these two premises a peremptory conclusion, viz. the
equipoise of the balance. For I say:

If one of the two [pans] were heavier, it would sink more.

But it is perceived by sensation that one does not sink more.

Therefore it is known that it is not heavier.

[This is a conjunctive hypothetical syllogism.]

9 I said: But this is independent reasoning and

rational analogy! He said: Not at all! It is a necessary knowledge
following necessarily from certain premises, by which certitude
derives from experience and sensation. How, then, could this be
independent reasoning and analogy, when analogy is surmise and
conjecture not giving serene certitude-and I feel in this serene
certitude? I said: If you know the soundness of the balance by this
proof, by what do you know the [correctness of the] şanja and the
mithqāl [weights used as counterpoises]? Perhaps the mithqāl is
lighter or heavier than the true mithqāl. He said: If I doubt about
this, I take its measure from a şanja which I know and I compare
this with it. If it is equal, I know that the gold, if it is equal to it, is
equal to my şanja: for the equal to the equal is equal.

10 I said: And do you know who he was who originally set up the
balance? For he was the first originator from whom you learn this
[way of] weighing. He said: No! And whence have I need of him,
since I have already come to know the soundness of the balance
by seeing with my own eyes? Nay, but I eat greens without
inquiring about the kitchen garden [truck farm]. For the one who
sets up the balance is not wanted for his own sake, but he is
wanted that one may know from him the soundness of the
balance and the manner of weighing. But I have already known it,
as I have related and explained. So I can dispense from consulting
the one who set up the balance at [Fr 47] every weighing. For that
would take a long time and he would not be accessible at every
moment-in addition to my not needing him!

10 I said: Then if I bring you a balance for knowledge like

this [physical] balance, and even sounder than it, and I add to
that that I know [Ar 46] its institutor and its teacher and its user-
for its institutor is God Most High, and its teacher Gabriel, and its
user the Friend [Abraham] and Muhammad and all the other
Prophets-God’s blessings be on them all!-and God Most High has
born witness to their veracity in that-would you accept that from
me and believe it? He said: Yes, by God! How could I not believe
it, if it is as clear as what I recounted to you [about the physical
balance]?

12 I said: Now I see in you the good qualities of intelligence and

my hope has come true of putting you right and making you
understand the real meaning of your doctrine about your ta'līm
[authoritative teaching]. So I shall disclose to you the five
balances revealed in the Qur’ān that by it [the Qur’ān] you may
have no need of any Imam and may surpass the level of the blind.
And your Imam will be al-Muşţafā [the Elect, Muhammad] and
your leader [chief, director] the Qur’ān, and your norm [standard,
gauge] seeing with your own eyes. So know that the balances of
the Qur’ān are basically three: the balance of equivalence, and
the balance of concomitance, and the balance of opposition. But
the balance of equivalence is divided into three-the greater, the
middle, and the lesser: so the total is five.

[Ar 47] [CHAPTER TWO]

On the Greater Balance of Equivalence [Fr. 47- 53; Ar 47-54]

[First Figure of the Categorical Syllogism; Analytica Priora I, IV

25b, 26-6b, 34 M-P; S-M; S-P]

13 Then this intelligent companion from the associates of the

devotees of ta‘līm said: Explain to me in the first place the greater
balance of equivalence and explain to me the meanings of these
terms, viz. Equivalence and concomitance and opposition and the
greater and the middle and the lesser: for they are strange terms
and doubtless beneath them there are subtle meanings. I said: As
for the sense of these words, you will understand them only after
they have been explained and their meanings understood so that
you may, after that, grasp the aptness of their names for their
realities.

14 I tell you first of all that this balance [of equivalence]

resembles the [physical] balance of which you have given an
account in sense [notion, essence, “fond”], not in form. For it is a
spiritual [rūhānī] balance [Chelhot: une balance pour la pensèe]
and so is not equivalent to a physical balance. And why should it
be equivalent to it, when physical balances also differ? For the
qarasţūn [Chelhot: la balance romaine; cf. Dozy II, 335] is a
balance and the assay [coin] balance [Chelhot: le trèbuchet]
another. [Fr 48] Nay, but the astrolabe is a balance [measure] for
the amounts of the movements of the celestial body [orbit of
celestial bodies], and the ruler a balance [measure] for the
amounts of linear distances, and the plumbline a balance for
ascertaining straightness [perpendicularity] and deflection
[curvature]. These, though their forms differ, share in common
the fact that by them one knows excess from defect. Indeed,
prosody is a balance [measure] for poetry by which one knows
the metres of poetry so that dragging [or: faulty, i.e. verse] is
distinguishable from the correct [straight]. And this is more
spiritual than the material [three-dimensional] balances, but it is
not devoid of relations to bodies, because it is the balance
[measure] for sounds-and a sound is not separable from a body.
The most spiritual of [Ar 48] balances [measures] is the balance
of the Day of Judgment, since in it will be weighed actions and the
beliefs of creatures and their cognitions-and knowledge and belief
have no relation at all to bodies. Therefore this balance [measure]
is purely spiritual.

15 Similarly the balance [measure] of the Qur’ān for knowledge

is spiritual. But its definition in the visible world [ālam al-shahäda]
is bound up with a wrapper [envelope, covering] which itself has a
contact [adhesion] with [to] bodies, though it is not itself a body.
For in this world communicating something to another is possible
only orally, i.e. by sounds [voices]-and sound is corporeal-or in
writing, viz. signs [symbols] which moreover are a writing on the
surface of the paper and it is a body. This is the determination
[status] of its wrapper in which it occurs. But in itself it is purely
spiritual and has no connection at all with bodies. For by it is
weighed the knowledge of God which is outside the world of
sensation-[for God is] far removed from being involved with
directions and districts, to say nothing of bodies themselves.
Despite that it [the balance of the Qur’ān] has an arm and two
pans. The two pans are attached to the arm, and the arm is
common to the two pans because of the attachment of each of
them to it. This is the balance of equivalence. As for the balance
of concomitance, it is more like the steelyard [Chelhot: la balance
romaine], for it has one pan; but on the other side there
corresponds to it a spherical weight [knob] by which the
difference and evaluation become evident.

16 He said: A mighty booming, this! But where is the meaning? I

hear the clapping of the mill wheel, but I see no flour! I said to
him: Patience! “And hasten not with the Qur’ān ere its revelation
is accomplished unto thee; and say: 0 my Lord, increase me in
knowledge” [20.113/114]. Know that haste is from the devil and
deliberateness [slowness] is from God! [Ar 49]

17 Know that the Greater Balance is that which the Friend

[Abraham] used with Nimrod. So from him [Fr 49] we have
learned it, but by means of the Qur’ān Nimrod claimed divinity.
And “God,” by agreement, is a designation of “the one who can
do everything [is omnipotent].” So Abraham said: “God is my
God, because He it is who makes to live and causes to die: He can
do it and you cannot do it!” Nimrod replied: “I make to live and
cause to die,” meaning that he makes the semen live by coitus
and causes to die by killing. Then Abraham knew that it would be
difficult for him to understand his error. So he turned to what
would be clearer for Nimrod and said: “God brings the sun from
the east: do you bring it from the west”-and he who misbelieved
was astonished [2.260/258]. And God Most High praised Abraham,
saying: “And that was Our proof which We brought to Abraham
against his people” [6.83].

18 From this, then, I knew that the argument and apodeictic

proof were in the utterance and balance of Abraham. So I
considered how it weighs, as you considered the balance for gold
and silver. And I saw in this argument two principles which were
coupled, and from them was engendered a conclusion which was
the knowledge [cognition], since the Qur’ān is built on ellipsis and
concinnity. The full form of the balance is that we say:

Whoever can make the sun rise is God [one principle].

But my God can make the sun rise [a second principle].

[Therefore] my God is God-and not you, Nimrod.

[Darii: A-1-1]

19 Consider now whether one who admits the two principles can
then doubt about the conclusion. Or is it even conceivable that
anyone can doubt about these two principles? Not at all! For there
is no doubt about the statement “God is the one who can make
the sun rise,” because, for them [Ta‘līmites] and for everyone,
“God” is a designation for the omnipotent, and making the sun
rise belongs to the totality of those things [which he can do]. This
principle is known by convention and agreement. And our
statement “The one who can make the sun rise is not you” is
known by seeing [ocular vision]-[This is not exactly the premise
used, but the text is that of the Ms.]. For the impotence of Nimrod
[Ar 50] and of everyone except him who moves the sun is
attested by sensation. And by God we mean the mover of the sun
and the one who makes it rise. So we are compelled to conclude,
from the knowledge of the first principle, known by agreed-upon
convention, and of the second principle, known by seeing, that
Nimrod is not God, but the “God” is God Most High.

20 So consult yourself: do you think this clearer than the

empirical and sensible premise on which you built [based] the
soundness of the balance for gold? He said: This knowledge
follows from it of necessity. And I can doubt neither about the two
principles, nor about the entailment of this conclusion from them.
But this is useful to me only [Fr 50] in this instance and in the way
Abraham-Peace be upon him!-used it, viz. to deny the divinity of
Nimrod and to affirm the divinity of the one who alone can make
the sun rise. So how can I weigh by it the other cognitions
[ma‘arif: knowledges] which are a problem for me and in which I
need to distinguish the true from the false?

21 I said: Whoever weighs gold in a balance can weigh in it silver

and all the precious stones. For the balance makes known its
quantity, not because it is gold, but because it is a quantity.
Similarly, then, this proof [al-burhān] disclosed to us this
knowledge, not because of the knowledge itself, but because it is
a truth [haqīqa] among truths and a meaning [ma‘nan] among
meanings. So let us ponder why this conclusion necessarily
follows from it and take its spirit and divest it of this particular
example so that we may profit by it whenever we wish.

22 This necessarily followed simply because “the judgment

made regarding the attribute” [şifa] is of necessity a judgment
regarding the subject [mawşūf: “attributized” cf. Chelhot’s note
on varying terminological usage of grammarians, mutakallimūn,
jurisprudents, and logicians]. The explanation of this is that the
abridgment of this argument is:

My Lord is the one who makes the sun rise.

And the one who makes the sun rise is a god.

So it follows from it that my Lord is a god.

[This seems to violate the rule for the First Figure, viz. that the
minor must be affirmative and the major universal; also it does
not seem to be: M-P; S-M; S-P. ??? Should it rather be: The one
who makes the sun rise is a god; and my Lord is the one who
makes the sun rise; so it follows from it that my Lord is a god. ?]
Thus “the one who makes the sun rise” is an attribute of the Lord.
And we have judged regarding “the one who makes the sun rise”-
which is an attribute-that he has divinity. So there follows from it
the judgment regarding my Lord that He has divinity. And so in
every case in which I acquire a knowledge of the attribute of a
thing, and acquire [Ar 51] another knowledge of the certain
existence of a judgment about that attribute, there will be
engendered for me necessarily from it a third knowledge of the
certain existence of that judgment with reference to the thing
qualified [by the attribute].

23 He said: Grasping this is almost too subtle for my

understanding. If, then, I doubt, what should I do so that the
doubt may disappear? I said: Take its measure from the balance-
weight which is already known to you, as you did in the case of
the balance for gold and silver. He said: How shall I take its
measure? And where is the balance-weight known regarding this
sort of thing? I said: The known balance-weight consists of the
necessary [Chelhot here cites the Mustazhirī “The meaning of a
thing’s being necessary and in no need of reflection is the sharing
of the intelligent in perceiving it”] primary cognitions derived
either from sensation, or from experience, or from the nature of
the intellect.

24 Reflect, then, on the primary [cognitions]. Can you conceive

that a judgment regarding an attribute exists without its being
also applicable to the subject [qualified]? For example, if there
passes in front of you an animal with a swollen belly, and it is a
mule, and someone says: “This animal is pregnant,” and you say
to him: “Do you know that a mule is sterile and does not bear
offspring?” and he says: “Yes, I know this by experience,” and you
say: “Do you know that this is a mule?” and he looks, then says:
“Yes, I know that by sensation and sight,” and you say: “Now,
then, do you know that it is not [Fr 51] pregnant?”-he will be
unable to doubt it after knowing the two principles, one of them
empirical and the other a fact of sensation. On the contrary, the
knowledge that it is not pregnant will be a necessary knowledge
engendered by the two prior knowledges, just as your knowledge
about the balance is derived from the empirical knowledge that
the heavy sinks and the sensible knowledge that one of the two
pans is not sinking with reference to the other.

25 He said: I have understood this clearly. But it is not evident to

me that the cause of its entailment is that the judgment about the
quality [attribute] is a judgment about the qualified [subject]. I
said: Reflect! For your statement “This is a mule” is a qualifying
[description] and the qualification [quality; attribute] is the mule;
[Ar 52] and your statement “Every mule is sterile” is a judgment
about the mule which is a quality, of sterility. So there is entailed
the judgment of sterility about the animal which is described as
[is qualified by being] a mule.
26 Similarly, if it is evident to you, for example, that every
animal is sensitive [hassās: possessed of sensation, sensing], and
then it is evident to you about the worm that it is an animal, it is
impossible for you to doubt that it is sensitive. Its method
[minhāj], then, is that you say:

Every worm is an animal.

And every animal is sensitive.

Therefore, evcry worm is sensitive.

[Barbara: but better to invert the major and the minor ??I For your
statement “Every worm is an animal” is an attribution to the
worm of being an animal, and “animal” is its attribute [quality].
So when you judge of the animal that it is sensitive, or is a body,
or is something else, the worm undoubtedly falls under it. This is
necessary and cannot be doubted. To be sure the condition of this
is that the attribute be equal to the subject [the qualified], or
more general than it, so that the judgment about the qualified will
necessarily include that by which it is qualified.

27 Similarly, whoever admits, in legal reasoning, that every wine

is intoxicating, and that everything intoxicating is forbidden,
cannot doubt that every wine is prohibited. For “intoxicating” is a
qualification of the wine, and so the judgment of its being
forbidden includes the wine, since the qualified undoubtedly is
included in it. And so for all the areas [classes] of speculative
matters.

28 He said: I have understood necessarily that effecting the

union of the two principles in this way engenders a necessary
conclusion, and that the proof of Abraham-Peace be upon him!-is
a sound proof and his balance a true balance. I have also learned
its definition [haddahu: Chelhot-principe de dèduction] and its
reality [real meaning, essence] and I have known its measure
[norm, gauge] from the balance-weights known to me. But I wish
to know an example of the use of this balance in the problematic
areas of cognitions [or: the sciences]. For these examples are
clear in themselves and for them one does not need a balance or
a proof.

29 I said: Far from it! For some of these examples are not known
in themselves, but are engendered from the coupling of the two
principles. For only he knows that this animal is sterile who knows
through sensation that it is a mule, and knows empirically that a
mule does not bear offspring. Only a primary cognition [al-awaalī:
Chelhot-le premier] is clear in itself. But what is engendered from
two principles has a father and a mother: so it is [Fr 52] not clear
in itself but by reason of something else. But that something else,
i.e. the two principles, may be clear in some circumstances, biz.
after experience and seeing. Similarly, the fact [Ar 53] that wine
[al-nabīdh] is illicit is not clear in itself, but is known by two
principles: one is that it is intoxicating-and this is known
empirically; and the second is that everything intoxicating is illicit-
and this is known through the report whch has come down from
the lawgiver.

30 This informs you how to weigh with this balance and how to
use it. Should you desire an example obscurer than this, why we
have unlimited and endless such examples. Indeed, it is by this
balance that we come to know most of the obscure cases. But be
content with a single example of that.
31 Among the obscure cases is this: Man is either incipient by
himself, or he has a cause and a maker. The same is true of the
world. Now when we have recourse to this balance, we know that
man has a maker, and that his maker is knowing. For we say:

Every possible has a cause.

But the world’s, or man’s, being characterized by the quantity

peculiar to it [him] is something possible,

Therefore it necessarily follows from this that it [he] has a cause

[Darii]

No one who admits and recognizes the two principles can doubt
about this conclusion. But if he doubts about the two principles,
then let him deduce the knowledge of them from two other clear
principles until he finally reaches the primary cognitions about
which there can be no doubt. For the clear primary cognitions are
the principles [for knowing] of the obscure and hidden cognitions
and they are their seeds. But they are to be exploited by one who
is expert in exploiting by cultivation and producing [deduction,
inference] in bringing about coupling between them.

32 If you say: I doubt about both of the two principles. So why do

you affirm that every possible has a cause? And why do you say
that man’s being characterized by a specific quantity is possible,
and not necessary? I say: My affirmation “Every possible has a
cause” is clear if you understand the meaning of al-jā'īz [the
possible]. For I mean by “the possible” that which hesitates
[wavers: is between] two equal divisions [or: parts]. Now when
two things are equal, one of them is not specified [marked,
singled out for] by existence and nonexistence of itself-because
what is established for [affirmed of] a thing is of necessity
established for its like: and this is a primary truth. As for my
statement “Man’s being characterized by this quantity, for
example, is possible and not necessary,” it is like my saying that
the line written by the writer-and it has a specific quantity-is
possible. For the line, qua line, has no single determined quantity,
but conceivably may be longer and shorter. The cause of its being
characterized by its quantity, as against what is longer or shorter,
is undoubtedly the agent-since the relation of the quantities to
the line’s reception of them is equal [in all cases]: and this is
necessary [a necessary truth]. Similarly, the relation of the
quantities of man’s form and extremities is equal: so its
specification must undoubtedly be through an agent.

33 [Ar 54] Then I progress from this and say: Man’s agent is
knowing, because every well-ordered and well-done action is
based on the knowledge of an agent. But the structure [physical
constitution] of man is a well-ordered and well-made structure. So
undoubtedly [Fr 53] its ordering is based on the knowledge of an
agent. Here we have two principles: if we know them, we do not
doubt about the conclusion. One of them is that the structure of
man is well ordered: this is known through seeing the harmony of
man’s members and the disposition of each for a special purpose
[end], such as the hand for grasping [striking] and the leg for
walking; and knowledge of anatomy [the dissection of organs]
produces necessary knowledge of this. As for the need of what is
well organized and ordered for knowledge, it is also clear. No
intelligent man doubts that the well-ordered line of writing
proceeds only from one who knows how to write, even though it
be by means of the pen which does not have knowledge; and that
a construction suitable for the purpose of sheltering, such as a
house and a bath and a mill and so forth, proceeds only from one
who knows how to build.
34 If it were possible to doubt about any of this, our procedure
would be to progress to what is clearer until we come to the
primary truths. To explain that is not our purpose. Rather, our
purpose is to show that the coupling of primary truths, in the way
the Friend [Abraham] effected it-God’s blessings be upon him!-is
a true balance which gives knowledge of the truth. No one
declares this false, for it would be to declare false God’s teaching
of His Prophets and to deny what God praised-Glorious and
Exalted He!-when He said: “And that was Our proof which We
brought to Abraham against his people” [6.83]-and the
authoritative teaching [al-ta‘līm: i.e. brought by Muhammad] is
undoubtedly true, [even] if independent reasoning be not true;
and the denial of this involves the denial of both independent
reasoning and authoritative teaching-and no one at all holds this.

[Ar 55] [CHAPTER THREE]

Discussion of the Middle Balance [of Equivalence] [Ar 55-58; Fr

53-55]

[Second Figure of the Categorical Syllogism: Anal. Pr. I, V, 26b,

34-28a, 9]

35 He said: I have now understood the Greater Balance and its

definition and standard and ordinary use. so explain to me [now]
the Middle Balance-what is it, whence came the teaching of it,
who instituted it, and who used it?

36 I said: The Middle Balance is also the Friend’s [Abraham’s]-

Peace be upon him!-in the place where God Most High said: “I
love not the things which set” [6.76]. The full form of this scale is:
The moon is a thing which sets.

But God is not a thing which sets.

Therefore the moon is not a God.

But the Qur’ān is its foundation by way of concinnity and ellipsis.

However, knowledge of the denial of divinity of the moon
becomes necessary only by knowledge of these two principles,
viz. that the moon is a thing which sets and that God is not a
thing which sets. When the two principles are known, the
knowledge of the denial of the divinity of the moon becomes
necessary.

37 [Fr 54] Then he said: I do not doubt that the denial of the
divinity of the moon is engendered from the two principles, if both
are known. However, I know that the moon is a thing which sets-
and this is known by sensation; but that God is not a thing which
sets I know neither necessarily nor by sensation.

38 I said: My aim, in reporting this balance, is not to make you

know that the moon is not [Ar 56] a God. Rather it is to apprise
you that the balance is accurate [faithful] and that the knowledge
stemming from it by this way of weighing is necessary. From it
knowledge resulted in the case of the Friend-Peace be upon him!-
only because it was known to him that God is not a thing which
sets, though that knowledge was not primary for him, but rather
was derived from two other principles which give rise to the
knowledge that God is not a thing which changes [a changer].
And every changer is incipient: and setting is changing. So he
based the weighing on what was known to him. Do you, then,
take the balance and use it where there exists for you knowledge
of the two principles.
39 He said: I now understand of necessity that this balance is
accurate, and that this knowledge follows necessarily from the
two principles once the latter are known. But I want you to explain
to me the definition [logical principle; principe de dèduction] of
this balance and its real nature [haqīqatuhu: Chelhot-son
véritable mode d’emploi], and then to explain to me its standard
with reference to a weight [counterbalance] known to me, and
then [to give me] an example of its use in the area of the
obscure: for denying divinity of the moon is like what is clear to
me.

40 I said: Its definition [logical principle] is that any two things,

one of which is qualified by a quality which is denied of the other,
are different [distinct one from the other]-i.e. one of them is
denied of the other and is not qualified by it. And just as the
logical principle of the Greater Balance is that the judgment
applying to the more general is a judgment applying to the more
particular and is undoubtedly included

therein, so the logical principle of this balance is that that of

which is denied what is affirmed of another is different [distinct]
from that other. Now setting is denied of God and affirmed of the
moon: so this necessitates difference [distinction] between God
and the moon, viz. that the moon is not a God, nor is God a moon.

41 God Most High taught His Prophet Muhammad-Peace be upon

him!-to weigh by this balance in many places in the Qur’ān, to
follow the example of his father the Friend-Peace be upon him! Be
content with my calling attention to two places and seek the rest
in the verses of the Qur’ān.
42 One of the two is the Most High’s saying to His Prophet: “Say:
Why then does He chastise you for your sins? No, you are mortals,
of His creating” [5.21/18]. [Ar 57] That was because they claimed
to be the sons of God. So God Most High taught him how to
expose their error by means of the correct balance. [Fr 55] He
said: “Why then does He chastise you for your sins?” The full form
of this balance is:

Sons [of God1 are not chastised [by God].

But you are chastised [by God].

Therefore you are not sons [of God]. [Festino]

So they are two principles. That sons are not chastised is known
by experience; and that you are chastised is known by seeing.
From these two necessarily follows the denial of sonship.

43 The second place is the Most High’s saying: “Say: You of

Jewry, if you

assert that you are the friends of God, apart from other men, then
desire death, if you speak truly. But they will never desire it”
[62.6-7]. That was because they claimed friendship [with God].
Now it is a known fact that the friend desires to meet his friend;
and it was also known that they did not desire death, which is the
cause of the meeting. So it follows of necessity that they are not
the friends of God. The full form

of the balance is to say:

Every friend desires to meet his friend.

But the Jew does not desire to meet God.

Therefore [it follows necessarily from this that] he is not the friend
of God. [Camestres]

[This syllogism seems to me to involve four terms. Would it

perhaps be more correct to say: Every friend of God desires to
meet his friend God. But the Jew does not long to meet God.
Therefore the Jew is not a friend of God. ??]

And its logical principle is that desire is attributed to a friend but

denied of the Jew: so the friend and the Jew are different and one
of the two is denied of the other-so the friend [of God] is not a
Jew, nor is the Jew a friend of God.

44 Its standard with reference to a known weight is not, I think,

something you need, in view of its clarity. However, if you want a
clarification, then consider this: how it is that, when you know
that a stone is inanimate, and then know that man is not
inanimate, you necessarily know that man is not a stone. It is
because inertness is affirmed of the stone and denied of man:
surely, then, man will be denied of stone, and stone will be denied
of man-so man is not a stone, nor is a stone man. [In form: All
stones are inanimate. No man is inanimate. Therefore, no man is
a stone. Camestres.]

45 The place of usage of this balance in obscure cases is

frequent. One of the two divisions of knowledge [al-ma‘rifa: here
seems to mean the knowledge (gnosis) of God] is the knowledge
of declaring [God [ holy [ma'rifat al al-taqdīs, i.e. the negative
way, or, via remotionis, as opposed to the affirmative way, or, via
affirmationis], i.e. what the Lord [Exalted and Transcendent!] is
too holy to be associated with. All knowledges of God are to be
weighed in this balance. For the Friend [Abraham] Peace be upon
him!-used this balance in the case of proclaiming God’s holiness
and taught us how to weigh with it. For by this balance he knew
[Ar 58] the denial of corporeity of God Most High. Similarly, God is
not a localized substance, because God is not caused; but
everything localized is caused by reason of its being specified by
the locus peculiar to it; hence it follows necessarily from this that
God is not a [localized] substance. [Camestres] We also say: God
is not an accident, because an accident is not living and knowing;
but God is living and knowing; so He is not an accident. [Festino]
Similarly the knowledge of the other areas of declaring God holy
follow from the coupling of two principles in this fashion: one of
the two is a negative principle, its content [purport] negation, and
the second is an affirmative principle, its content [purport]
affirmation. And from the two of them results a knowledge by [or:
of ? ] negation and declaring holy [Chelhot: la connaissance de ce
quī est niè (de Dieu) et de sa sainteté].

[CHAPTER FOUR]

Discussion of the Lesser Balance [Ar 59; Fr 56]

[Third Figure of the Categorical Syllogism: Anal. Pr. I, VI, 28a, 10-
29a, 19]

46 He said: I have understood this clearly and of necessity. Now

explain to me the Lesser Balance along with its definition [logical
principle] and standard and its usage in obscure cases.

47 I said: The Lesser Balance we have learned from God Most

High where He taught it to Muhammad-Peace be upon him!-in the
Qur’ān, viz. in the Most High’s saying: “They measured not God
with His true measure when they said: God has not sent down
aught on any mortal. Say: Who sent down the Book that Moses
brought as a light and a guidance to men?” [6.91].

48 The way to deal with this [balance] is that we say: Their

declaring the denial of the sending down of revelation upon men
is a false declaration because of [read: lil-izdiwāj ??] the
productive coupling of two principles; or: a declaration devoid of
the productive coupling of two principles; [Chelhot: leur négation
de la révelation fait ā l’homme est une proposition qui ne résulte
pas de l’union de deux principes.] One of them is that Moses is a
man, and the second is that Moses is one upon whom the Book
was sent down: so there necessarily follows from this a particular
proposition, viz. some man has had sent down upon him the Book
[Scripture]-and by this is refuted the general claim that Scripture
is not sent down upon any man at all. The first principle, viz. our
statement “Moses is a man,” is known by sensation. The second,
viz. “Moses is one upon whom Scripture was sent down,” is known
by their own admission-since they used to conceal part of it and
manifest part of it, as the Most High said: “You reveal them
[parchments] and you hide [Ar 60] much” [6.91]. And He
mentioned this only in the form [manner] of disputing by what is
better [cf. 16.126/125: “and dispute with them in the better
way”]. A particular feature of disputing is that it suffices regarding
the subject [?] that the two principles be conceded by the
adversary and accepted by him, even though doubt about it be
possible for another; for the conclusion binds him if he admits it
[the coupling? the principles?]. Most of the proofs [adilla] of the
Qur’ān proceed in this fashion. So if you encounter in yourself the
possibility of doubting about some of their principles and
premises, know that their aim is disputing with one who does not
doubt about it [the Qur’ān ???] But the aim in your regard is that
you learn from it [the balance ?; or, the Qur’ān ?] how to weigh in
the other places. [In form: Moses is a man. Moses is one upon
whom Scripture was sent down. Some man has had Scripture sent
down upon him.-Darapti-if it is valid; Aristotle reminds us that all
the syllogisms of this Figure are imperfect.]

49 The standard [gauge] of this balance is that one who says: “It
is inconceivable that an animal walk without a leg” knows that
when you say: “The snake is an animal, and the [Fr 57] snake
walks [moves along] without a leg,” there necessarily follows from
this that some animal walks [moves along] without a leg, and
[knows also] that the affirmation of him who says: “An animal
walks [moves along] only by means of a leg” is a false and
nullified affirmation.

50 The obscure cases in which it is used are many. For someone

says: “Every lie is evil of itself.” Then we say: “When one sees a
friend [of God] who has hidden himself from a tyrant, and the
tyrant asks him where he is, and he conceals it [or: keeps him
hidden], is what he says a lie?” He says: “Yes.” We say: “Is it,
then, evil?” He says: “No, but the evil would be veracity leading to
his perdition.” So we say to him: “Look then to the balance. For
we say: His utterance in keeping his place hidden is a lie-this is a
known principle; but this utterance is not evil-and this is the
second principle; so it follows necessarily from this that every lie
is not evil [strictly: that some lie is not evil]. Reflect now: is doubt
about this conclusion conceivable after the admission of the two
principles? And is this clearer than the empirical and sensible
premise which I cited in the knowledge of the balance of
proclaiming [God] holy?”
51 The logical principle of this balance is that when any two
qualities[attributes] concur [agree] respecting one and the same
thing, then some [part, one] [Ar 61] of one of thc two qualities
must of necessity be qualified by the other, [cf. Anal. Pr. I ,6, 28a,
10] but it docs not necessarily follow that all of it be qualified by
it. As for the qualification of all of it, it does not follow in a
necessary way; rather it may be so in some cases, and may not
be in others-so one cannot rely on it. Don’t you see that in man
there concurs the quality of animal and of body-so it follows
necessarily from this that some body is an animal [Darapti], but it
docs not follow from this that every body is an animal? And be not
deceived by the possibility of describing every animal as a body!
For if the qualification of every attribute by the other be not
necessary in every case, the knowledge resulting by it is not
necessary.

52 Then my companion said: I have now understood these three

balances. But why have you specified the first by the name “The
Greater,” and the second by the name “The Middle,” antl the third
by “The Lesser”? I said: Because the Greater includes [is
applicable to] many things, whereas thc Lesser is its opposite and
the Middle lies between them. The first balance is the broadest
[widest] of the balances because by it knowledge can be derived
by general affirmation antl particular affirmation, and by general
negation and particular negation [Anal. Pr. I, 4, 26b, 29]-so it is
indeed possible to weigh by this balance four kinds of
knowledges. By the second balance one can weigh only negation
[Anal. Pr. I, 5, 28a, 8]: but one can weigh by it both general and
particular negation. By the third balance one can weigh [Fr 58]
only the particular [negation], as I have mentioned. But there
follows necessarily from it that a part of one of the two
descriptions [attributes] is described by the other because of their
concurring regarding one and the same thing. And that which
includes only the particular partial judgment is undoubtedly
“lesser” [Anal. Pr. I, 6, 29a, 16]. Certainly to weigh the universal
[general] judgment thereby is of the balances of Satan. And the
adherents of Ta‘līm have indeed weighed thereby some of their
knowledges; and Satan cast it into the aspiration of the Friend
[Abraham]-Peace be upon him!-in his saying: “This is my Lord:
this is greater!” [6.78]-and I shall recite to you his story hereafter.

[Ar 62] [CHAPTER FIVE]

Discussion of the Balance of Concomitance [Ar 62-64; Fr 58-60]

[The Conjunctive, or Hypothetical, Conditional Syllogism. Jadaane,

117 ff.]

53 He said: Explain to me the balance of concomitance

[inseparability] now that I have understood the three balances of
equivalence. I said: This balance is derived from the Most High’s
utterance: “Why, were there gods in them [earth and heaven]
other than God, they would surely go to ruin” [21.22], and from
the Most High’s utterance: “If there had been other gods with
Him, as they say, in that case assuredly they would have sought a
way unto the Lord of the Throne” [17.44/42], and from His
utterance: “If those had been gods, they would never have gone
down to it [Gehenna]” [21.99].

54 The effectuation of the form of this balance is that you say: If

the world has two gods, heaven and earth would have gone to
ruin.-This is one principle. But it is a known fact that they have
not gone to ruin.-And this is another principle. So there follows
from these two a necessary conclusion, viz. the denial of the two
gods. And If there had been with the Lord of the Throne other
gods, they assuredly would have sought a way to the Lord of the
Throne. But it is a known fact that they did not seek that. So there
follows necessarily the denial of gods other than the Lord of the
Throne.

55 The testing of the accuracy of this balance by a known weight

is your saying: If the sun has risen, the stars are hidden [invisible,
unseen]-and this is known empirically. Then you say: But it is a
known fact that the sun has risen-and this is known [Ar 63] by
sensation. So it follows necessarily that the stars are hidden. And
you also say: If so-and-so has eaten, he is sated-and this is known
empirically. Then you say: But it is known that he has eaten-and
this is known by sensation. So it follows necessarily from the
empirical principle and the sensation principle that he is sated.

56 [Fr59] The use of this balance in obscure cases is frequent, so

much so that the jurisprudent says: “If the sale of an absent thing
is valid, it is obligatory by reason of an explicit obligation
[obliging]; but it is known that it is not obligatory by reason of an
explicit obliging; so it follows necessarily from this that it is not
valid.” The first principle is known by legal induction which gives
probability [conjecture], though it does not give sure knowledge;
and the second is known by the concession and aid of the
adversary.

57 We also say regarding speculative matters: "If the

workmanship [şan'a: fabrication, making] of the world and the
structure [tarkīb: composition] of man are well ordered,
marvelous, and well done, then the maker of that is knowing-and
this is [something] primary in the intellect; but it is known that it
is marvelous and well ordered-and this is perceived by ocular
vision; hence it follows from this that its Maker is knowing.” Then
we ascend [progress] and say: “If its Maker is knowing, He is
living. But it is known that He is knowing by the preceding
balance; hence it follows that He is living.” Then we say: “If He is
living and knowing, then He is subsisting in Himself and is not an
accident; but it is known by the preceding two balances that He is
living and knowing; hence it follows from this that He is subsisting
in Himself.” Thus, then, we ascend from the quality of the
composition of man to the attribute of his Maker, viz. knowledge;
then we ascend from knowledge to life, then from it to the
essence. This is the spiritual ascension, and these balances are
the steps [stairs, ladders] of the ascension to heaven, or rather to
the Creator of heaven, and these principles are the steps [rungs]
of the stairs [ladders]. AS for bodily ascension, no power can
effect it, but that is peculiar to the power of prophethood [or: the
prophetic mission].

58 The logical principle of this balance is that everything which

is a necessary concomitant [lāzim] of a thing follows it in every
circumstance: hence the denial of the conditioning [al-lāzim] of
necessity entails the denial of the conditioned [al malzŭm], and
the existence of the conditioned necessarily entails the existence
of the conditioning. But the denial of the conditioned and the
existence of the conditioning leads to no conclusion: rather they
belong to the balances of Satan, and by this one of the devotees
of ta‘līm may weigh his knowledge. [On lāzim Chelhot writes: ce
qui est nécessaire ă une chose et lui est indispensable d’une
façon telle qu’il la conditionne; on malzūm: ce qui est accompagé
et dépend, pour être ce qu’il est, d’un autre au point qu’il en est
conditionnê.]
59 [Ar 64] Do you not see that the validity of the prayer must
have as a necessary concomitant [yalzamuhā lā mahāata] that
the one praying be in a state of ritual purity? Certainly it is correct
for you to say: "If Zayd’s prayer is valid, he is in a state of ritual
purity; but [Fr 60] it is known that he is not in a state of ritual
purity”-and this is the denial of the conditioning; hence it follows
from this that his prayer is invalid-and this is the denial of the
conditioned. And you say: “But it is known that his prayer is
valid”-and this is the existence of the conditioned; hence it follows
from this that he is in a state of ritual purity-and this is the
existence of the conditioning. But if you say: “But it is known that
he is in a state of ritual purity; hence it follows from this that his
prayer is valid,” this is an error, because his prayer may be invalid
for another reason. This is the existence of the conditioning, and
it does not denote the existence of the conditioned. Similarly if
you say: “But it is known that his prayer is invalid; hence he is not
in a state of ritual purity,” this is an error which is not necessary,
because it is possible that the nonvalidity is due to the absence of
a condition other than that of being in a state of ritual purity. This
is the denial of the conditioning and it does not denote the denial
of the conditioned. [Chelhot: Mais cela n’est pas nécessairement
une erreur, parce qu’il est possible que la non validité découle de
l’absence d’une condition autre que celle de la purification. Cela
est la négation du conditionné et ne dénote pas celle du
conditionnant.]

[CHAPTER SIX]

Discussion of the Balance of Opposition

[The Disjunctive (Conditional) Syllogism]

60 Then he said: Explain to me now the Balance of Opposition,
and mention its place in the Qur’ān and its gauge and the place of
its use. I said:: Its place in the Qur’ān is the Most High’s utterance,
in instructing His Prophet-Peace be upon him!-“Say: ‘Who
provides for you out of the heavens and the earth?’ Say: ‘God.’
Surely, either we or you are upon right guidance, or in manifest
error” [34.23/24]. For He did not mention His utterance “or you”
in the form of equalization or inducement of doubt, but rather it
contains the concealment of another principle, viz. We are not in
error in Our utterance “Surely God provides for you out of the
heaven and the earth.” For it is He who provides from the heaven
by sending down water, and from the earth by causing plants to
germinate; therefore you are in error by [your] denial of that. The
full form of the balance is: “We or you are in manifest error”-and
this is one principle. Then we say: “But it is known that We are
not in error’’-and this is a second principle. So there follows from
their coupling a necessary conclusion, viz. that you are in error.

61 Its gauge among the known weights is that if one enters a

house which has only two rooms, then we enter one of the two
rooms and do not see him, we know with necessary knowledge
that he is in the second room. This is because of the coupling of
the two [Fr 61] principles, [Ar 66] one of them his saying that he
is definitely in one of the two rooms, and the second that he is in
no wise in this room: hence it follows from them that he is in the
second room. Hence we know that he is in the second room, at
one time because we see him in it, and at another because we
see the other room empty of him. If we know it [‘alimnāhu] by our
seeing him in it, this is ocular knowledge; but if we know it
[arafnāhu] by not seeing him in the other room, this is balance-
knowledge-and this balance-knowledge is peremptory like the
ocular.
62 The logical principle of this balance is that when anything is
limited to two divisions, the existence [thubūt: certainty] of one of
them entails the denial of the other, and from the denial of one of
them follows the existence of the other-but on condition that the
division be restricted [i.e. a complete disjunction], not diffuse
[unrestricted, incomplete disjunction]. Weighing with the
unrestricted division is the weighing of Satan. With it certain
devotees of ta‘līm have weighed their discourse [kalālmahum] in
many places which we have mentioned [cited] in al-Qawāşim [The
Mortal] Blows] and in the Jawāb mifşal al-khilāf [The Answer to the
Detailed Exposition (or: Crux, Decisive Point) of Disagreement; or:
controversy; cf. Bouyges: Essai, p. 32, no. 23] and in my book al-
Mustazhirī and in other books [of mine].

63 The place of the use of this balance in obscure cases is

limitless, and perhaps most speculative matters revolve around it.
Thus when one denies an eternal being, we say to him: Beings are
either all incipient, or some [one] of them are [is] eternal. This is
restrictive [all-embracing] because it revolves between negation
and affirmation. If he says: And why do you say that all of them
are not incipient? We say: Because if all of them were incipient,
their incipience would be through themselves without a cause, or
among them would be an incipient without a cause; but it is false
that the incipience of an incipient [takes place] at a particular
time without a cause; hence it is false that all of them are
incipient, and so it is certain that among them is an eternal being.
And similar cases of the use of this balance are unlimited.

64 Then he said: I have truly understood the correctness of

these five balances. However, I desire to know the significance of
their names, and why you have designated the first by “The
Balance of Equivalence,” and the second by “Concomitance,” and
the third by “Opposition.” [Ar 67] I said: I called the first the
Balance of Equivalence because in it are two principles in
equilibrium as though they were two parallel pans. And I called
the second the Balance of Concomitance because one of the two
principles contains two parts, one of them a conditioning and the
other a conditioned, like your saying: “If there were gods in the
two of them [other than God], they would surely go to ruin”
[21.22]. For your saying “they would surely go to ruin” is a
conditioning [lāzim], and the conditioned [malzūm] is your saying
“If there were gods in the two of them”-and the conclusion
necessarily follows from the denial of the conditioning. And I
called the third [Fr 62] the Balance of Opposition because it
comes down to the restricting of two parts between denial and
affirmation [so that] there follows from the existence [thubūt: or,
certainty] of one of them the denial of the other, and from the
denial of one of them the existence of the other: thus between
the two divisions there is contradiction and opposition.

65 Then he said: Did you invent these names, and are you the
only one who has deduced them [from the Qur’ān], or were you
preceded in that? I said: As for these names, I invented them. And
as for the balances, I deduced them from the Qur’ān, and I do not
think that I was preceded by anyone in deducing them from the
Qur’ān. But I was preceded in the deduction of the principles of
the balances. Among their deducers from the later [philosophers]
they have names other than those which I have mentioned. And
among some of the past nations, prior to the mission of
Muhammad and Jesus-God’s blessings on them both!-they had
other names which they had learned from the books [şuhuf] of
Abraham and Moses-Peace be upon them both!
66 But what induced me to change their dress for other names
was my knowledge of your weak natural disposition [ability] and
your soul’s submissiveness to illusions [awhām: caprices,
delusions, wild fancies]. For I have remarked that you are so
deceived by appearances that, were you to be offered red honey
[mie] rosat, honey of roses] to drink in the glass of a cupper, you
would be unable to accept it because of your natural aversion to
the cupping-glass, and because your mind is too feeble to apprise
you that honey is pure in whatever glass it may be. Nay more,
you see a Turk wearing a patched garment and a loose outer
garment slit in front and you judge that he is a sufi or a
jurisprudent; but if a sufi were to put on a caftan [qabā: outer
garment with full sleeves] and a high cap, your fancy would judge
him to be a Turk. [Ar 68] Thus your fancy always seeks to draw
you to regard the cover [outside] of things and not their
quintessence [kernel, marrow, pith]. Because of that you do not
look at an utterance with reference to its being an utterance, but
with reference to the elegance of its formulation or to your good
opinion of him who says it. So if its expression is loathed by you
or its utterer is in a shameful state in your belief, you reject the
utterance, even though in itself it is true. And if someone were to
say to you: “Say: There is no god other than God, Jesus is the
Apostle of God,” your nature would recoil from that and you would
say: “This is what the Christians say: how, then, can I say it?” You
would not have brains enough to know that this utterance is in
itself true, and that the Christian is odious, not because of this
utterance, nor because of the others, but rather because of two
assertions only. One of the two is his statement: Muhammad is
not an apostle; and the second is his statement: God is the third
of three. His other statements, apart from that, are true.

67 So when I saw you and your Ta‘līmite companions so feeble

of mind and deceived by appearances only, I descended to your
level and gave you the remedy to drink in a. water jug and I led
you thereby to the cure, and I was gentle with you as a physician
is with his sick patient. But had I told you it was a remedy and
presented it to you in a medicine glass your nature would have
shrunk from accepting it-and even if you had accepted it you
would have gulped it and scarcely have been able to swallow it.
This, then, is my excuse for changing those names and inventing
these: he will acknowledge this who knows it, and he who is
ignorant of it will reject it.

[Fr 63] 68 Then h e said: I have understood all that: but where is
what you promised, viz. that the balance has two pans and a
single beam from which the pans are suspended? I do not see, in
these balances [Chelhot has singular “règle”], the pan and the
beam! And where are the balances you mentioned which
resemble the steelyard [la balance romaine]?

69 I said: Did I not derive these cognitions from two principles?

So each principle is a pan, and the part common to the two
principles, which enters into the two of them, is a beam [middle
term]. I shall give you an example of it from legal matters and
perhaps you will more readily understand it. So I say: Our
statement “Every intoxicant is illicit” is a pan. And our statement
“Every nabīdh [a wine made by allowing dates or grapes to
ferment in water] is an intoxicant.” And the conclusion is that
every nabīdh is illicit. Now we have here in the two principles only
three things: "nabīdh" and “intoxicant” and “illicit.” "Nabīdh" is
present in only one of the two principles, and it is a pan, And
“illicit” is present in the second principle only, which is the second
pan. But “intoxicant” is mentioned in both of the principles, and is
repeated in both, common to both: so it is the beam [middle
term]. And the two pans are suspended from it, because [Ar 69]
one of them is attached to it as the subject [al-mawşūf] is
attached to the attribute [al-şifa], viz. your saying “Every nabīdh
is an intoxicant’’-for nabīdh is qualified by “intoxicant”; and the
other is attached to it as the attribute is attached to the subject,
viz. your saying “But every intoxicant is illicit.” Reflect on that so
that you may know it. So the weakness [fasād: incorrectness,
falseness] of this balance comes at one time from the pan, and at
another from the beam, and at another from the suspension of
the pan from the beam, as I shall call your attention to a simple
example of that in [the case of] Satan’s balance.

70 The balance which resembles the steelyard is the balance of

concomitance, for one of its sides is much longer than the other.
For you say: “If the sale of an absent thing were valid, it would be
binding because of an explicit obliging’’-and this is a long
principle containing two parts: a conditioning and a conditioned.
The second is your saying: “It is not binding because of an explicit
obliging”-and this is another principle shorter than the former:
thus it is like the short spherical weight corresponding to the pan
of the steelyard.

71 In the balance of equivalence two pans are in equilibrium,

and one of the two [sides] is not longer than the other, but each
of them contains only an attribute and a subject. So undestand
this along with what I explained to you, viz. that the spiritual
balance is not [exactly] like the material balance, but has a
certain correspondence to it. Similarly it can be compared [with it]
because of the conclusion’s being engendered from the coupling
of the two principles. For something of one of the two principles
must enter into the other, viz. the “intoxicant” present in the two
principles, so that the conclusion may be engendered. For if
nothing of one of the two principles enters into the other, no
conclusion at all is engendered from your saying “Every intoxicant
is illicit” and “Everything despoiled is guaranteed.” These two are
also two principles, but no marriage and coupling takes place
between them, since a part [Fr 64] of one of the two does not
enter into the other. The conclusion is engendered only from the
common part which enters from one of the two into the other-and
it is this which we called the beam of the balance.

72 If there were opened for you the door of the comparison

between the sensible and the intelligible, there would be opened
for you a great door regarding the knowledge of the comparison
between this material and visible world and the invisible and
spiritual world. This domain contains great mysteries and he who
does not come to know [Ar 70] it is deprived of learning from the
lights of the Qur’ān and deriving instruction from it and will have
attained only the husks of its lore. And just as in the Qur’ān there
are the balances of all the sciences, so also in it are the keys of all
the sciences-as I have indicated in [my] book Jawādhir al- Qur’ān
[The Jewels of the Qur’ān] so seek it there. The secret of the
comparison between this visible world and the invisible [spiritual]
world is revealed in dreaming by spiritual realities in imaginative
examples-because the [true] vision [in dreams] is a part of
prophethood, and in the world of prophethood the material and
spiritual worlds are perfectly manifested.

73 An example of it from sleep is that a man saw in his dream as

though he had in his hand a seal by which he sealed up the
mouths of men and the vulvas of women. Then he related his
vision to Ibn Sīrin. The latter said: “You are a muezzin, and you
give your call to prayer in Ramadān [the month of fasting] before
daybreak.” He replied: “That is so.” Consider now why his state
was made evident to him from the invisible world in this example,
and seek the comparison [parallelism] between this example and
the call to prayer before daybreak in Ramadān [which call was the
signal for abstention from eating and from sexual relations].
Perhaps this muezzin sees himself on the Day of Resurrection,
and in his hand a seal of fire, and it is said to him: “This is the seal
wherewith you used to seal up the mouths of men and the vulvas
of women.”Then he says: “By God, I did not do this!” And it is said
to him: “Yes, you used to do it, but you were ignorant of it-
because this is the spirit [profound meaning] of your action.” And
the real meanings of things and their inner senses are manifest
only in the world of spirits. But the spirit [inner meaning] is in an
envelope of the image in the world of deception, the world of the
imagination. But now “We have removed from thee thy covering,
and so thy sight today is piercing” [50.21/22]. And in like manner
will be known everyone who forsakes one of the prescriptions of
the revealed Law [al-shar'] . And if you wish a confirmation of it,
seek it in the chapter on the real meaning of death in [my] [Ar 71]
book Jawādhir al- Qur’ān [The Jewels of the Qur’ān] that you may
see the wonders therein and prolong [your] reflection on it and
there may be opened for you an aperture to the spiritual world
through which you may eavesdrop.

74 But I do not see its door being opened to you while you
simply await knowledge of the truths [or: realities] from an absent
teacher whom you do not see: and if you were to see him, you
would find him much weaker than you in knowledge. So take it
from him who has traveled, investigated and become acquainted:
for according to the expert it has descended into such [?]

75 Then he said: This is now another question and insisting on it

would occupy us both for a long time. For this absent teacher,
though I have not seen his appearance, I have heard the report of
him-like the lion: though I have not seen it, I have seen its trace.
And my mother, until she died, and our master, the lord of the
stronghold of Alamut [i.e. Hasan al-şabbāh-cf.EI(2) under Hasan-i
şabbāh, III, 253], used to praise him lavishly, even to saying that
he is aware of everything that takes place in the world-even at a
distance of a thousand parasangs. Shall I then impute lying to my
mother, that chaste and modest old lady, or to our master, that
leader of good life and conscience? Certainly not! Rather they are
two veracious witnesses. How [could they be otherwise] when
there agree with them on that all of my comrades of the people of
Dāmghān and Isfahan, who possess authority and in their control
are the inhabitants of the fortresses? Do you think they are
deceived, and they are intelligent people, or that they are
deceitful, and they are pious folk? Far from it! Far from it! Forsake
slander-for our master is undoubtedly aware of what is taking
place between us, for “not so much as an atom’s weight escapes
him” on earth or in heaven [cf. 34.3]. So 1 am afraid of exposing
myself to his hatred by simply listening and hearkening. So roll up
the scroll of drivel and return to discussing the balance, and
explain to me the balance of Satan.

[Ar 72] [CHAPTER SEVEN]

Discussion of the Balances of Satan and

How the Devotees of Ta‘līm weigh with Them

76 Then I said: Hear now, poor man, the explanation of the

balance of your comrades, for you have greatly exaggerated.
Know that Satan has, beside each balance 1 have mentioned of
the balances of the Qur’ān, a balance attached to it, which he
likens to the true balance so that one may weigh with it and
commit an error. But Satan enters only through places where
there are gaps. So one who closes the gaps and strengthens them
is safe from Satan. Now the places of his gaps are ten in number,
and I have collected them and explained them in [my] book
Mihakk al-nazar [The touchstone of Speculation] and in [my] book
Mi’yār al-‘ilm [The Criterion (Norm, Standard, Gauge) of
Knowledge], with other fine points concerning the conditions of
the balance which I have not mentioned now because of the
inability of your mind to grasp them. But if you want the knotty
points of their summaries [their cruces in general] you will find
them in the Mihakk; and if you want the explanation of their
details you will find them in the Mi’yār.

77 But I now offer a single example, that which Satan cast into
the mind [thought] of the Friend [Abraham]-Peace be upon him!-
[Fr 66] when God Most High said: “We sent not ever any
Messenger or Prophet before thee, but that Satan cast into his
fancy, when he was fancying; but God annuls what Satan casts,
[then God confirms His signs-surely God is All-knowing, All-wise]”-
[22.51/52]. And that was only regarding his hastening to the sun
and his saying: “This is my Lord; this is greater!” [6.78]. Because
it is greater he wished to deceive him thereby.

78 [Ar 79] The way to weigh with it is that: God is the greatest-
and this is a principle known by agreement: but the sun is the
greatest of the stars-and this a second principle known by
sensation: so it follows from this that the sun is a god-and this is
the conclusion. Now this is a balance which Satan has attached to
the Lesser Balance of the balances of equivalence [i.e. of the
Third Figure]. For “the greatest” is an attribute found in God and
found in the sun, and so this leads one to suppose that one of the
two is qualified by the other. But this is the opposite of the Lesser
Balance, since the logical principle of that balance is that two
things be present in one thing, not that one thing be present in
two things. For if two things are present in one thing, a part of
one of them is qualified by the other, as we have mentioned
previously [cf. Para. 51].But when one thing is present in two
things, one of the two things is not qualified by the other. See,
then how Satan creates confusion by the opposite.

79 The gauge of this false balance is found in a weight which is

patently false, viz. color. For this is present in both black and
white, but it does not necessarily follow that white is qualified by
black, or black by white. On the contrary, were one to say: “White
is a color: and black is a color; so it follows from this that black is
white,” it would be an absurd error. Similarly, then, with his
saying: “God is greater [akbar]; and the sun is greater: so the sun
is a god”-this is an error, since two contradictories may be
qualified by a single attribute. Thus two things’ being qualified by
a single attribute does not necessitate any union between the
two: but a single thing’s being qualified by two things does
necessitate a union between the two attributes. However, a dim-
witted person does not perceive the difference between one
thing’s having two attributes and two things’ having one attribute.

80 Then he said: The falsity of this balance has become clear to

me; but when have the devotees of ta‘līm weighed what they say
[kalāmahūm: or, their argument, or, discourse] by it? I said: They
have weighed there-with many of their utterances-but I am too
stingy with my time to waste it in recounting those instances.
However, I shall show you one specimen.You have certainly heard
their affirmation: “The true is with oneness and the false is with
multiplicity; but the doctrine of individual reasoning [al-ra'y] leads
to multiplicity, and that of tal’līm leads to oneness: so it follows
necessarily that the true is in the doctrine of ta‘līm” [Ar 74] He
said: Yes, I have heard this often and believed it, and I know it to
be a decisive apodeictic proof about which I do not doubt. [Fr 67] I
said: This is the balance of Satan. See how your comrades have
relapsed [or: fallen headlong]: they have used the analogy
[syllogism] and balance of Satan to nullify [falsify, refute] the
balance of the Friend [Abraham]-Peace be upon him!-and the
other balances.

81 He said: And how can it be brought out [elucidated] against

him [Satan]? I said: Satan creates confusion regarding the
balances only by multiplying speech about it and so muddling it
that one cannot know just where it is deceptive. This is a frequent
argument the substance of which is that the true is qualified by
oneness-and this is a principle; and that the doctrine of ta‘līm is
qualified by oneness-and this is another principle: so he affirms:
“So it follows necessarily from this that the doctrine of ta‘līm is
qualified by ‘the true.’ ” For oneness is in one thing, and two
things are qualified by it: so one of the two things must be
qualified by the other. It is like one’s saying: “Color is a single
attribute by which both white and black are qualified-so it follows
necessarily from this that white is qualified by black.” It is also
like Satan’s saying: “The greatest is a single attribute by which
God and the sun are qualified-so it follows necessarily from this
that the sun is qualified by God.” There is no difference between
these balances-I mean the presence of color in black and white,
and the presence of “the greatest” in God and the sun, and the
presence of oneness in ta‘līm and the true. Reflect, then, that you
may understand that.

82 Then he said: I have definitely understood this, but I am not

content with a single example. So cite for me another example of
the balance of my comrades that my heart may have increased
assurance of their being deceived by the balances of Satan. I said:
Haven’t you heard their saying: “The true is known either by pure
individual reasoning or by pure ta‘līm , and if one of the two is
false, the other is certain; but it is false that it is known by pure
intellectual individual reasoning-because of the mutual opposition
of [men’s] minds and doctrines; so it is certain that it is known by
ta‘līm"? Then he said: Yes, by God, I have often heard that, and it
is the key of their propaganda [mission, claim] and their leading
argument. I said: This is a weighing with the balance of Satan
which he has attached to the balance of opposition. For the denial
of one [Ar 75] of the two divisions results in the certainty of the
other-but on condition that the division be restricted and not
incomplete. But Satan confounds the incomplete with the
restricted. And this [division] is incomplete, because it does not
turn between negation and affirmation: on the contrary, there can
be between them a third division, viz. that the true be perceived
by reason and ta‘līm together.

83 Its gauge from among the weights known to be false is the

utterance of one saying: “Colors are not perceived by the eye, but
rather by the light of the sun.” We say: “Why?” He replies: “They
must be perceived either by the eye or by the light of the sun; but
it is false [Fr 68] that they are perceived by the eye-because it
does not perceive them at night: so it is certain that they are
perceived by the light of the sun.”Then one should say to him:
“Poor man1 There is a third division between them, viz. that they
are perceived by the eye, but in the light of the sun.”

84 Then he said: I would like you to add to the explanation of the

error occurring in the first example, viz. the discussion of the true
and oneness, for understanding the place of the error in it is a
very subtle matter. I said: The way the error occurs is what I have
mentioned, viz. the confusion [ambiguity] of one thing’s being
qualified by two things with two things’ being qualified by one
thing. But the origin of the error is the illusion induced by the
reversal; for he who knows that every true [thing] is one may
suppose that every one [single thing] is true. But this conversion
is not necessary: rather what necessarily follows from it is a
particular conversion, viz. that part of the one is true. For your
saying “Every man is an animal” does not entail a universal
contrary, viz. that every animal is a man: rather what is entailed
is that some animal is a man.

85 By his ruses Satan does not overwhelm the feeble more

effectively and more often than by inducing supposition of the
universal conversion, even to the extent of sensibles. Thus one
who sees a long parti-colored rope is frightened by it because of
its resemblance to a snake. The reason for this is his knowledge
that every snake is long and parti-colored; so his fancy rushes
ahead to its universal conversion and he judges that everything
long and parti-colored is a snake. What is entailed by it is a
particular conversion, viz. that some long and parti-colored thing
is a snake-not that all of it is such. In the case of conversion and
contradictory there are many fine points which you will
understand only from [my] book Mihakk al-nazar [The Touchstone
of Reasoning] and [my] Mi’yār al-‘ilm [The Norm of Knowledge].

86 [Ar 76] Then he said: In every example you cite I find another
reassurance of the knowledge of Satan’s balances. So do not
niggardly withhold from me another example of the balances of
Satan. I said: The faultiness of the balance sometimes comes
from the bad composition [mounting, structure] because the
suspension of the two pans from the beam is not a straight
suspension, and sometimes it comes from the pan itself and the
weakness of the material from which it is taken. For it is taken
either from iron or from copper or from an animal’s skin. But if it
were taken from snow or cotton, one could not weigh it. A sword
may sometimes be defective in shape, by being in the form of a
rod [staff] neither flat nor sharp, and sometimes it will be because
of the weakness of its substance and matter from which it is
made, by reason of its being made from wood or clay.

87 Similarly the falsity of the balance of Satan may be due to the

wrongness of [Fr 69] its structure, as I have mentioned in the
example of the greatness of the sun and the oneness of the true:
for their form is defective and converted, as in the case of one
who would put the pans above the beam and would want to weigh
with it. And sometimes it is due to the weakness of the material,
as in the case of Iblis’s saying: “I am better than he; Thou
createdst me of fire, and him Thou createdst of clay,” in reply to
the Most High’s utterance: “What prevented thee to bow thyself
before that I created with My own hands?” [38.77/76 and 75/74].
And in this Iblis introduced two balances, because he justified the
prevention of bowing by his being better, and then confirmed the
“betterness” by the fact that he was created from fire. And when
one explicitates all the parts of his argument, one finds that his
balance is correct in structure, but false in matter. Its full form is
that he say: “I am better than he; but the better does not bow;
therefore I do not bow.” Each of the two principles of this
syllogism [analogy: qiyās] is to be denied, because it is not
known: but hidden knowledge is weighed by clear cognitions. And
what he cited is unclear and inadmissible: because we say: “We
do not admit that you are better-and this invalidates the first
principle; and the other: we do not admit that the better is not
obliged to bow-because obligation and merit are by command,
not by betterness.” But Iblis forsook proving the second principle,
viz. that obligation is by command, not by betterness, and busied
himself with establishing the proof that “I am better because I
was created from fire’”-which is the claim of betterness because
of relationship [affinity, origin].

88 [Ar 77] The full form of his proof and his balance is that he
say: “The related to [originated from] the better is better; but I
am related to the better; therefore I am better.” And each of
these two pans is also unsound [false]. For we do not admit that
“The related to the better is better”-rather, betterness is because
of essential qualities, not because of relationship [origin]. Thus it
is possible that iron is better than glass: then there is made from
glass by excellent craftsmanship something which is better than
what is made from iron. Similarly we say: Abraham-Peace be upon
him!-was better than the children of Noah-Peace be upon him! Yet
Abraham was created from Azar, an unbeliever, [cf. 6.74] and the
children of Noah [were born of] a Prophet. As for his second
principle, viz. that “I have been created from something better-
because fire is better than clay”-this also is inadmissible. On the
contrary, clay is from earth and water, and one may say that by
their mingling comes about the subsistence of animals and plants,
and by reason of them generation and growth come about; but
fire spoils and destroys everything. So his assertion that fire is
better is false.

89 [Fr 70] So these balances are correct in their forms, but

unsound in matter, like the sword made of wood-or rather like the
mirage of a woody place [a place full of roots] which the thirsty
man reckons to be water until, when he comes to it, he does not
find it to be anything-but he finds God there and He gives him his
full reckoning. And just so the devotees of ta‘līm will see their
states on the Day of the Resurrection when the real natures of
their balances will be revealed to them. This also is one of the
ingresses of Satan-so it must be blocked up.

90 The correct matter which is used in reasoning is any principle

decisively known either by sensation, or by experience, or by
perfect, uninterrupted transmission, or by primary rational truths,
or by inference [deduction] from this ensemble. But what is used
in debate and disputation [dialectically] is that which the
adversary admits and concedes, even though it be not known in
itself: for it [matter ? his argument?] becomes an argument
against him. That is the way certain proofs of the Qur’ān proceed-
and you must not deny the proofs of the Qur’ān, when
[but,though] it is possible for you to doubt about their principles,
because they were adduced against groups who admitted them.

[Ar 78] [CHAPTER EIGHT]

Discussion of One’s Being Dispensed

by Muhammad [Peace Be Upon Him!]

and by the Ulema of the Community from Any Other Imam;

and the Explanation of the Knowledge

of the Veracity of Muhammad [Peace Be Upon Him!]

by a Way Clearer and Surer

Than the Consideration of Apologetic Miracles,

viz. the Way of the Knowers

91 Then he said: You have perfected the cure and removed the
veil and have skillfully corroborated. But you have built a castle
and destroyed a metropolis. For up to now I have been expecting
to learn from you how to weigh with the balance and to get along,
thanks to you and the Qur’ān, without the infallible Imam. But
now that you have mentioned these subtleties about the
ingresses of error, I despair of getting along by myself with that.
For I would not feel safe from erring were I to busy myself with
weighing-and I indeed know now why [Fr 71] men disagree in
doctrines. It is because they have not understood these subtleties
as you have [Chelhot has “as I have”; the Arabic is ambiguous]:,
so some have erred, and some have been right. The readiest way
for me, therefore, is to rely on the Imam so that I may be saved
from these subtleties.

92 Then I said: Poor man! Your knowledge of the true Imam is

not “necessary.” For it is either servile conformism to parents, or
it is weighed by one of these balances. For every cognition which
is not primary necessarily comes to be in its possessor through
the existence of these balances in his soul, even though he is not
conscious of it. [Ar 79] For you know the correctness of the
balance of assessment [al-taqdīr: valuation] because of the order
[systematic arrangement] in your mind of the two principles, the
empirical and the sensible. It is also so for other persons without
their being conscious of it. One who knows that this animal, for
example, does not bear offspring because it is a mule, knows
[this] by the arrangement of two principles, even though he is not
conscious of the source of his knowledge. Similarly every
cognition in the world which comes to be in a man is like that. So
if you have accepted the belief of infallibility in the true Imam, or
even in Muhammad-Peace be upon him!-from parents and
comrades by servile conformism, you are no different from the
Jews [Ch adds: and the Christians] and the Magians
[Zoroastrians]: for so they have done. But if you have accepted
[it] from weighing with one of these balances, you may have
erred in one of the fine points, and so you ought not to trust
therein.

93 Then he said: You’re right! But where, then, is the way? For
you have blocked up both the ways of the ta'līm and of weighing.
I said: Far from it! Consult the Qur’ān For it has taught you the
way, where [the Most High] said: “The godfearing, when a
visitation of Satan troubles them, remember, and then see
clearly” [7.200/201]. He did not say: “They travel, and then see
clearly.” You know that cognitions are numerous. So, if you were
to begin travelling to the Imam, infallible according to your claim,
in every difficulty, your trouble would be long and your knowledge
little [you would toil much for little knowledge]. But your way is to
learn from me how to weigh and to fulfill its conditions. Then, if
something causes difficulty for you, you submit it to the balance
and “remember” its conditions with serene mind and full
diligence, and “then you will see clearly.”

94 It is like when you reckon what you owe the greengrocer or

what he owes you, or when you settle a question touching
religious obligations, and you doubt about being right or wrong. I t
would take you too long to travel to the Imam. But you learn
arithmetic well [lege: ‘ilm al-hishāb] and remember it and keep
repeating it [the reckoning] until you are absolutely certain that
you have not erred in one of its [Fr 72] fine points. This is known
by him who is familiar with arithmetic. Likewise one who knows
weighing as I do is finally brought by remembrance and reflection
and repeating time after time to the necessary certainty [sure
knowledge] that he has not erred. But if you do not follow this
way you will never be successful, and you will doubt because of
“perhaps” and “it may be.” And perhaps you have erred in your
servile conformism to your Imam, nay even to the Prophet in
whom you have believed-for knowledge of the veracity of the
Prophet is not “necessary.”

95 [Ar 80] Then he said: You have helped me to [understand]

that the ta'līm [of Muhammad] is true, for the [true] Imam is the
Prophet-Peace be upon him! And you [or: I?] have acknowledged
tnat no one can receive knowledge from the Prophet-Peace be
upon him!-without knowing the balance, and that he can know the
balance perfectly only through you. So it is as though you claim
the Imamate for yourself in particular: what, then, is your
apodeictic proof and your apologetic miracle? For my Imam either
works an apologetic miracle or argues from successive explicit
designation from his forefathers down to himself: where, then, is
your explicit designation or your apologetic miracle?

96 Then I said: Your saying “You claim the Imamate for yourself
in particular” is not true. For I allow that another may share this
knowledge with me, and it can be known from him just as it can
be learned from me: so I do not make ta'līm my personal
monopoly [lit. mortmain, endowment]. As for your saying: “ you
claim the Imamate for yourself,” know that by “the Imam” may be
meant he who learns from God by means of Gabriel-and this I do
not claim for myself; and there may be meant by it he who learns
from God, and not from Gabriel [lege: walā min Jibrīl], by means
of the Apostle. In this sense ‘Ali-God be pleased with him!-is
called an Imam-because he learned from the Apostle, not from
Gabriel. In this sense I [also] claim the Imamate for myself.
97 As for my apodeictic proof of this, it is clearer than the
explicit designation and than what you believe to be an
apologetic miracle. For if three persons were to claim in your
presence that they know the Qur’ān by heart, and you were to
say: “What is your apodeictic proof?” and one of them were to
say: “My proof is that al-Kisā’ī, the master of reciters, has
authorized me, because he authorized the master of my master,
and my master authorized me-so it is as though al-Kisā’ī
authorized me”; and the second were to say: “My proof is that I
will change this stick into a snake”-and he changes the stick into
a snake; and the third were to say: “My proof is that I shall recite
the whole of the Qur’ān before you without a copy of the Qur’ān
”-and he recites: I would like to know which of these proofs is
clearest, and to which of them your mind assents most strongly!

98 Then he said: To him who recites the Qur’ān. For this is the
ultimate proof, since no doubt about it troubles my mind. But his
master’s authorizing him, and al-Kisā’ī’s authorizing his master,
may conceivably be subject to errors, especially when the chain
[of authorizers] is long [Ch: reads al-asfār (voyages) in place of al-
isnād]. As for his changing the stick into a snake, he may have
effected that by a trick of deception; and if it be not [Ar 81] a
deception, it is at most a remarkable feat. But whence does it
follow that one who can effect a remarkable feat must be a hāfiz
[memorizer] of the Qur’ān?

99 [Fr 73] Then I said: And my proof also is that just as I have
known these balances I made them known and understood and
removed from your mind doubt about their [?] correctness. So you
are bound to believe in my Imamate. It is like when you learn
arithmetic and its science from a master. For when he teaches
you arithmetic, you come to have a knowledge of arithmetic and
another necessary knowledge that your teacher is an
arithmetician versed in arithmetic. Thus you have known from his
instruction [ta‘līm] his knowledge and also the correctness of his
claim “I am an arithmetician.”

100 Similarly I have believed in the veracity of Muhammad-

Peace be upon him!-and in the veracity of Moses-Peace be upon
him!-not by reason of the splitting of the moon and the changing
of the staff into a serpent: for that way is open to ambiguity, and
one may not rely on it; nay, one who believes in the changing of
the staff into a serpent may disbelieve in the lowing of the calf
with the disbelief of the Samaritan [or: may disbelieve because of
the lowing of the calf; cf. 20.85-97/87-97 and 7.146/148] because
there is a very great deal of mutual contradiction regarding the
sensible, visible world. But I learned the balances from the
Qur’ān, then weighed with them all cognitions about God, and
even the circumstances of the afterlife and the punishment of the
iniquitous and the reward of the obedient, as I have mentioned in
my book Jawāhir al- Qur’ān [The Jewels of the Qur’ān]. And I found
them all conformed to what is in the Qur’ān and what is in the
Traditions. Thus I knew for sure that Muhammad-Peace be upon
him!-was veracious and that the Qur’ān is true. I did as ‘Ali-God
be pleased with him!-said, when he declared: “Do not know
[measure] the truth by men: know the truth and you will know its
possessors [adherents].”

101 So my knowledge of the veracity of the Prophet was

necessary, like your knowledge when you see a stranger [Ch un
arabe; he read ‘arabiyyan in place of gharīban] disputing about a
legal problem and excelling therein and presenting sound and
clear legal argument: for you do not doubt about his being a faqīh
[jurisprudent], and your conviction resulting thereby is clearer
than the conviction resulting regarding his fiqh [jurisprudence]
were he to change a thousand sticks into [Ar 82] snakes, for the
latter is open to the possibility of magic and deception and a
charm and so forth until it is uncovered-and thereby results a
feeble faith which is the faith of the masses and of the
mutakallimūn. But the faith of those who possess vision and who
see from [through] the niche [lamp] of Lordship [divinity], that is
the way it comes to be [lit.: comes to be in the former manner,
i.e. by seeing].

102 Then he said: I also desire to know the Prophet as you have
known him. But you have mentioned that that can be known only
by the weighing of all the cognitions of God with this balance, and
it is not clear to me that all the religious cognitions can be
weighed with these balances. So by what can I know that? I said:
Far from it! I do not claim to weigh with them the religious
cognitions only, but I also weigh with them arithmetical and
geometrical and medical and legal and kalām cognitions, and
every science [cognition] which is true and not positive
[conventional, based on authority]-for by these balances I [Fr 74]
distinguish its true from its false. How could it not be so, when it
is the Correct Balance and the balance which is the companion of
the Book and the Qur’ān in God’s utterance: “Indeed, We sent
Our Messengers with the clear signs, and We sent down with
them the Book and the Balance” [57.25]. But your knowledge of
my power to do this will not come through an explicit text, nor
because of the changing of a stick into a snake, but by your
seeking to discover that through experience and examination
[trial, testing]. The veracity of one who claims horsemanship is
not disclosed until he mounts a horse and races in the race
course. So ask me what you will about the religious cognitions,
that I may lift for you the veil from what is true in it one by one,
and I may weigh it with this balance in a way that will result for
you in a necessary knowledge that the weighing is correct and
that the knowledge derived from it is certain. But so long as you
do not try it, you will not know.

103 Then he said: Can you apprise all people of all the truths
and cognitions pertaining to God and thus put an end to the
disagreements which have occurred among them? I said: Far
from it! I cannot do it. And it is as though your infallible Imam up
to now has put an end to the disagreement among men and has
removed difficulties from [their] minds!! Nay more, when did the
Prophets-Peace be upon them!-[Ar 83] put an end to
disagreement, and when were they able to do it? On the contrary,
the disagreement of men is a necessary and everlasting law: “But
they continue in their differences excepting those on whom thy
Lord has mercy. T o that end He created them” [11.120/118-19].
Shall I, then, claim to contradict the judgment of God which He
made in eternity? Or can your Imam claim that? And if he did
claim it, why has he saved it until now, and the world is
overflowing with disagreements? I would like to know whether the
Chief of the Community, ‘Ali bin Abi Tālib, was the cause of
putting an end to disagreement among men, or [rather] was the
cause of the setting up of disagreements which will never, never
come to an end!

[Ar 84]

[CHAPTER NINE]

Discussion of the Way to Deliver Men

from the Darknesses of Disagreements

104 Then he said: How deliver men from these disagreements? I
said: If they would listen to me, I would put an end to the
disagreement among them by means of the Book of God Most
High. But there is no artifice to assure their listening. They did not
all listen to the Prophets and to your Imam-how, then, will they
listen to me, and how will they agree on listening when it has
been eternally judged of them that they “continue in their
difference.. . . [Fr 75] To that end He created them” [11.120/118-
19]? That the existence of disagreement among them is
necessary you [will] know from [my] book Jawāb mifsal [Ar. text
has mufaşşal] al-khilāf [The Answer to the Crux-or: Detailed
Exposition-of Disagreement], which contains the twelve chapters
[or: with its twelve chapters].

105 Then he said: And were they to listen, how would you do
[it]? I said: I would deal with them by a single verse from the Book
of God Most High, where He said: “Indeed. .. We sent down with
them the Book and the Balance so that men might practice
justice, And We sent down iron, etc.” [57.25]. Now He sent down
these three simply because people are three classes, and each
one-the Book, the iron, and the Balance-is a treatment of a people
[group, class]. He said: Who, then, are they, and how are they to
be treated? [Ar 85] I said: common people, who are the safe
[sound] people, the dull-witted, the people of the Garden; and the
elite [privileged], who are the men of insight and special
intelligence; and there is formed between them a group who are
the contentious wranglers-“they follow the ambiguous part [of the
Book], desiring dissension” (8.517].

106 As for the elite, I would treat them by teaching them the
just balances and how to weigh with them, and thus the
disagreement among them would be removed in short order.
These are people in whom three qualities [traits] are united. One
of them is a penetrating natural intelligence [disposition] and a
powerful acumen [perspicacity]-and this is an innate, instinctive,
natural gift which cannot be acquired. And the second is the
freedom of their interior from servile conformism and fanatical
enthusiasm for an inherited, orally transmitted doctrine. For the
servile conformist does not listen, and the stupid man, even
though he listens, does not understand. And the third is that he
believes of me that I am a man of discernment in [the use of] the
balance-for there is no guidance except after belief, and one who
does not believe that you know arithmetic will not be able to learn
from you.

107 The second class, the simple, are all the common people.
These are men who do not have [enough] intelligence to
understand realities [truths]. And if they possess natural
intelligence, they do not have a motive for seeking [knowledge],
but rather their preoccupation is with arts and crafts [or: crafts
and trades]. They also have no reason for disputation and for
making a show of the skillfulness of those who pretend to be
clever in delving into knowledge, in view of their inability to
understand it. So these do not disagree, but they choose among
the disagreeing Imams. Therefore I would summon these to God
by preaching, as I would summon the men of insight by wisdom
[al-hikma: philosophy], and I would summon the wranglers by
disputation. Now God has indeed united these three in a single
verse, as I have previously recited it to you-and it is the Most
High’s saying: “Call thou to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and
good admonition (and dispute with them in the better way)”
[16.126/125].
108 So I would say to them what the Apostle of God-God bless
him!- said to the desert Arab who came to him and said “Teach
me some of the curiosities [marvels] of knowledge [al-‘ilm].” The
Apostle of God-God bless him!-knew that he was not fit for that,
so he said: “What have you done regarding the beginning [ra’s:
head, main part] of knowledge, viz. faith and piety and
preparation for the afterlife? Go and master the beginning of
knowledge, [Ar 85] then come back to me that I may teach you
some of its curiosities.” So I would say to the common man:
Delving into the differences [al-ikhtilāfāt: i.e. differences in legal
and dogmatic views] is not a part of your nest [i.e. not your
concern, or business]-so leave [it]. Beware of delving into it or
listening to it lest you perish! For if you have spent your life in the
craft of goldsmithing, you are not a weaver; but you have spent
your life in other than knowledge-how,then, can you be fit to
delve into it? Beware, beware of losing your soul! For every grave
sin committed by a common man is less important than his
delving into knowledge with the result that he misbelieves
without knowing how! If he says: I must have a religion to believe
in and act by so that I may thereby attain pardon: but men are
different in religions- so which religion do you command me to
adopt? I say: Religion has roots [uşūl: primary dogmas,
fundamentals] and branches [furū’: secondary beliefs,
applications]: and disagreement occurs in both of them.

109 As for the roots, you are bound to believe only what is in the
Qur’ān. For God Most High has not hidden from His servants His
attributes and names. So you must believe that there is no god
but God, and that God is living, knowing, powerful, hearing,
seeing, mighty, magnificent, all-holy, “there is nothing like Him”
[42.9/11], and so on of all that has come down in the Qur’ān and
that the Community is agreed upon: that is sufficient for
soundness [authenticity] of religion. And if anything is unclear to
you, say: “We believe in God: everything is from our Lord” [cf.
3.5/7], and believe everything which has come down concerning
the affirmation and the negation of the attributes with a view to
magnifying and sanctifying [God], along with the denial of
resemblance and the belief that “there is nothing like Him”
[42.9/11]. And after this pay no attention to discussions [al-qīl
wa’l-qāl: lit. the “it was said” and the “he said”], for that is not
enjoined on you, nor is it commensurate with your ability.

110 If he begins to feign cleverness and says: “I have indeed

known from the Qur’ān that God is knowing: but I do not know
whether He is knowing by His essence or by a knowledge
superadded to Him-and the Ash'arites and the Mu‘tazilites have
disagreed about this,” then by this he goes beyond the level of
the simple folk, because [Fr 77] the heart [mind] of the simple
man does not advert to such as this unless it be moved by the
demon of dialectic [or: the devil of dispute]. For God Most High
makes a people perish only by bringing discussion [dialectic] to
them: thus it has come down in the Tradition. And if he is
attached to the wranglers, why I shall mention their treatment.
This is what I preach [exhort to] regarding the roots, viz. to refer
to the Book of God. [Ch Fr adds: For God sent down the Book and
the Balance and the Iron-and these (i.e. the wranglers) are men of
reference to the Book].

111 [Ar 87] As for the branches, I say: Don’t busy your heart
[mind] with the places of disagreement so long as you have not
finished with all that is agreed upon. For the Community is agreed
that the provisions [viaticum] for the afterlife are piety and
godfearing, and that illicit gain and forbidden wealth and slander
and calumny and adultery and theft and treachery and other
prohibited things are illicit, and all religious duties are obligatory.
So if you finish with all of these, I shall teach you how
disagreement [occurs]. And if he demands [it] of me before
finishing with all of that, then he is a wrangler and not a common
man: for when would a common man finish with these [to occupy
himself] with the places of disagreement? Have you seen your
comrades finish with all that, and then the problem of
disagreement seized them by the throat? Far from it! Their feeble
minds, in this error, are simply like the mind of a sick man who
has an illness which has brought him to death’s door, and there is
for it a treatment agreed upon among the physicians, but he says
to the physicians: “Physicians have disagreed about a certain
remedy, whether it is hot or cold, and I may have need of it some
day: so I shall not have myself treated until I find someone who
will teach me how to put an end to the disagreement about it.”

112 Certainly, if you were to see a just man who had

accomplished all the prescriptions of piety, and he were to say:
“Here now I have certain problems: for I do not know if I should
perform the ablution because of touching and contact and
vomiting and nosebleed, and make my intention to fast at night in
Ramadān or in the daytime [cf. Faris: The Mysteries of Fasting,
pp. 9 and 14], and so in other cases,” I would say to him: “If you
are seeking safety in the way to the afterlife, then follow the path
of precaution and adopt what all agree on. So perform the
ablution because of anything which is a subject of disagreement,
for he who does not enjoin it deems it recommendable
[preferable, desirable], and make your intention at night in
Ramadān, for he who does not enjoin it deems it preferable.”

113 If he says: Look here: it is hard for me to observe

precaution when I am confronted by problems revolving between
negation and affirmation, for I do not know whether to stand long
in prayer in the morning or not, and whether to raise my voice or
not in the tasrniya [in saying bismillāh], [Fr 78] I say to him: Now
form an independent judgment for yourself and consider which of
the Imams is better in your view and who is more generally right
in your mind. It is as though you were sick and there were several
physicians in the town. For you would consult one of the
physicians by reason of your personal judgment, not by reason of
your caprice and natural temper; and the like of that personal
effort will suffice you [in religious matters]. So whoever you think
it more likely that he is the best, follow him. Then if he is right in
God’s view in what he says, you and he will have two
recompenses; but if he errs in God’s view, then he and you will
have one recompense.

114 And thus said [the Prophet]-Peace be upon him!-when he

declared: “Whoso exercises personal judgment and is right will
have two recompenses, and whoso exercises personal judgment
[Ar 88] and is wrong will have one recompense.” And [God]
returned the matter to the practitioners of personal effort, and He
said: “those of them whose task it is to investigate would have
known the matter” [4.85/83]. And [Muhammad] approved of
personal effort by its practitioners when he said to Mu‘ādh: “By
what will you judge?” He replied: “By the Book of God.” Then
Muhammad said: “If you do not find [a basis in the Qur’ān ]?” He
replied: “By the sunna [custom] of the Apostle of God.” Then
Muhammad said: “If you do not find [a basis in the sunna]?” He
replied: “I shall exercise my individual reasoning.” He said that
before Muhammad ordered him to do it and allowed him to do it.
Then Muhammad-Peace be upon him!-said: “Praise be to God
Who has graciously guided the apostle of the Apostle of God to
what the Apostle of God approves.” From that it is understood
that it was approved by the Apostle of God-God bless him!-on the
part of Mu‘ādh and of others. Just as the desert Arab said: “I have
perished and caused to perish, because I had intercourse with my
wife during the daytime in Ramadān!” Then [Muhammad] said:
“Free a slave.” And it was understood that a Turk or an Indian, in
a similar case, is bound to manumit.

115 This is because men are not enjoined to do what is [de

facto] right in God’s view-for that is something impossible, and
there is no imposition of what cannot be done-but rather they are
enjoined to do what they deem to be right. It is just as they are
not enjoined to pray in a pure [clean] garment, but rather in a
garment they deem to be pure. And if they were to remember its
impurity, they would not be bound to perform the Prayer again
[i.e. to start over], because the Apostle of God-God bless him and
grant him peace-took off his sandal during the Prayer when
Gabriel informed him that there was some dirt on it, but he did
not repeat or recommence the Prayer. Similarly the traveller is
not enjoined to pray towards the qibla [the direction of Mecca],
but rather towards the direction he deems to be the qibla by
inference from mountains, stars and the sun. If he is right, he will
have two recompenses, otherwise he will have one recompense.
And men are not enjoined to give the zakāt [alms tax] to a poor
man, but rather to one they deem to be poor-because the latter’s
interior cannot be known. And judges are not enjoined, in cases of
bloodshed and rape, to seek witnesses whose veracity they know,
but rather those they deem to be veracious. Now if it is allowable
to shed blood [i.e. to inflict capital punishment] by a supposition
which may be wrong, viz. the supposition of the veracity of the
witnesses, then why is it not allowable by the supposition of the
testimony of the proofs in the exercise of personal judgment? [Ch:
pourquoi la prière ne serait-elle permise en se basant sur le
témoignage des preuves produites par la rèflexion personnelle?-
But “la prière” is not in the Arabic text.]
116 [Fr 79] I would like to know what your comrades would have
to say about thisl Would they say that, if one has a difficulty about
the qibla, he should put off [Ar 89] the Prayer until he travels to
the Imam and asks about it? Or would he [sic] enjoin upon him
being right, which is beyond his power? Or would he say:
“Exercise personal judgment and follow it” [to] one who cannot
exercise personal judgment, because he does not know the proofs
of the qibla and how to infer from the stars and the mountains
and the winds?

117 He said: I do not doubt that he would permit him to use

personal effort, and then would not impute sin to him if he
expended his best effort, even though he were to err and to pray
in a direction other than that of Mecca. I said: If one who makes
the direction of Mecca behind him is excused and recompensed,
then it is not farfetched that one who errs in other exercises of
personal effort will be excused. So those who exercise personal
effort, and those who imitate them, are all excused: some of them
attaining what is right in God’s view, and some sharing with the
attainers in one of the two recompenses. Hence their positions
are near one another and they have no reason to stubbornly
oppose one another and to form fanatical cliques with one
another, especially since the one right is not specified, and every
one of them thinks that he is right. It is as though two travellers
were to exercise personal effort about the qibla and were to differ
in personal judgment: each would have the right to pray in the
direction he thought most probable, and to refrain from
disapproving of and objecting to his companion, because he is
enjoined only to follow what his own supposition enjoins. As for
facing the precise direction of Mecca [as it is] in God’s view, he
cannot do it. Similarly, in the Yaman, Mu‘ādh used to exercise
personal effort, not in the belief that error on his part was
inconceivable, but in the belief that, if he erred, he would be
excused.

118 This is because, in the positive legal matters about which it

is conceivable that religious laws [al-sharā'i'] may disagree, one
thing is close to [approximates] its contrary provided it be an
object of supposition in the secret [mystery] of preparation [for
the afterlife]. [The passage is not clear; Ch: une chose se
rapproche de son contraire après avoir été objet de conjecture
dans le secret de la recherche; or: read al-istibşār in place of al-
isti’dād and drop “for the afterlife,” giving: in the secret (mystery)
of acting reasonably, or, pondering, reflecting.] But there is no
disagreement about that on which the religious laws do not differ.
And the real nature of this disagreement you will know from The
Secrets of the Followers of the Sunna [Asrār atbā‘ al-sunna],
which I have mentioned in the tenth principle [or: basis,
fundament] of external actions [al-a‘māl al-zāhira] of [my] book
Jawāhir al- Qur’ān [The Jewels of the Qur’ān ]. [Chelhot reads
Asrār atbā‘ as-sunna; It seems to me that it should be: Asrār
ittibā' al-sunna-The Secrets, or Mysteries, of Following the Sunna.]

119 As for the third class, viz. the wranglers, I would summon
them to the truth with gentleness. And I mean [Ar 90] by
“gentleness” that I would not be fanatical against them or scold
them, but I would be friendly [kind, courteous] and I would
“dispute with them in the better way” [cf. 16.126/125]: God Most
High enjoined that on His Apostle.

120 The meaning of “disputing in the better way” is that I accept

the principles admitted by the wrangler, and I deduce from them [
minhā seems better than Ch’s minhu] the truth by means of the
verified [or: sure] balance in the way I presented in [my] book al-
Iqtişād [fi’l-i’tiqād: The Golden Mean in Belief] and to that degree
[extent]. If that did not convince him because of his desiring, in
virtue of his intelligence, an additional clarification, I would raise .
[promote] him to learning the balances. And if it did not convince
him, because of his stupidity and his perseverance [Fr 80] in his
fanaticism and his obstinacy and his pigheadedness, I would treat
him with the Iron. For God Most High made the Iron and the
Balance the associates of the Book to make known thereby that
all creatures accomplish justice only by these three: thus the
Book is for the simple; and the Balance is for the elite [privileged];
and the Iron, which has a terrible strength [power, harm; cf. 57.25
“wherein is great might”; Blachère: qui contient danger terrible] is
for those who follow what is unclear in the Book “desiring
dissension and desiring its interpretation” [3.5/7] and who do not
know that that is no business of theirs and that its interpretation
is known only by God and by those firmly rooted in knowledge [cf.
3.5/7], not by the wranglers.

121 And I mean by “the wranglers” a group who possess a

certain cleverness by which they have risen above the simple
folk: but their cleverness is imperfect-or in their original
constitution it was perfect, but in their interior is a malice and a
stubbornness and a fanaticism and a servile conformism. That
prevents them from perceiving the truth, and these qualities are
“veils upon their hearts lest they understand” [57.25 and 3.5/7],
and only their imperfect cleverness destroys [damns] them. For a
faulty constitution and an imperfect cleverness are much worse
than simple-mindedness. Moreover, in the Tradition [it is said]
that the majority of the denizens of the Garden are the simple-
minded, and that the uppermost heaven is for the possessors of
minds [the intelligent], and excluded from the totality of the two
groups are those who wrangle about the signs of God: and they,
they are “the followers of the Fire”-and God curbs by the power of
the Sultan [Ch: par le bras séculier] what He does not curb by the
Qur’ān.

122 These must be prevented from wrangling by the sword and

the lance, as ‘Umar did when a man asked him about two
ambiguous verses in the Qur’ān, and he struck him with a whip;
and as Mālik replied when he was asked about God’s seating
Himself firmly on the Throne: “The being firmly seated is a truth,
and faith in it is obligatory, and the manner is unknown, and
asking about it is an innovation [bid‘a: or, heresy]”-[Ar 91] and by
that he cut off the way to [shut the door] wrangling; and thus did
all [our] pious forbears. But there is great harm for the servants of
God in the opening of the door to wrangling.

123 This, then, is my procedure in summoning men to the truth

and bringing them forth from the darknesses of error to the light
of the truth. And that is that I summon the elite by wisdom, viz.
by teaching the balance, with the result that when one of them
learns the just balance he is master, not of one knowledge, but of
many knowledges. For one who has with him a balance knows
thereby the quantities of substances without limit. Similarly, one
who has with him the Correct Balance has with him the wisdom
which, whoso is given it is not given one good, but is given much
good without limit [cf. 2.272/269]. And were it not for the Qur’ān
containing the balances it would not be correct to call the Qur’ān
“Light” [cf. 4.174; 5.18/15], for light is not seen in itself but by it
other things are seen, and this is the quality of the balance; nor
would God’s utterance be true: “not a thing, [Fr 81] fresh or
withered, but it is in a Book Manifest” [6.59]: for all knowledges
are not present in the Qur’ān explicitly, but they are present in it
potentially because of what it contains of the just balances by
means of which the doors of limitless wisdom are opened. By this,
then, I summon the elite [privileged].

124 And I summon the simple man by “good admonition”

[16.126/125] by referring him to the Book and restricting myself
to the attributes of God Most High contained therein. And I
summon the disputatious by the disputation which is better [cf.
16.126/125]. And if he refuses it I give up talking to him and stop
his harm by the power of the Sultan and the Iron revealed with
the Balance [cf. 57.25].

125 I would like to know now, my companion, how your Imam

treats these three classes! Does he teach the simple folk and
enjoin on them what they do not understand-and [thus] contradict
the Apostle of God-God bless him!? Or does he expel wrangling
from the brain of the wranglers by means of argument-when that
could not be done by the Apostle of God-God bless him!-despite
God’s frequent debate with the unbelievers in the Qur’ān? How
great, then, is the power of your Imam, since he has become
more powerful than God Most High and His Apostle! Or does he
summon men of insight to follow him blindly, when they would
not accept the utterance of the Apostle by servile conformism,
nor would they be convinced by the changing of a stick into a
snake? Rather would they say: “This is an unusual feat-but
whence does it follow from it [Ar 92] that its doer [or: claimant] is
veracious? Among the marvels of magic and talismans [charms]
in the world is that by which men’s minds are baffled, and only he
can distinguish an apologetic miracle from magic and talisman
who is familiar with all of them and with their multiple kinds, so
that he can know that the apologetic miracle is outside them, just
as [the] magicians [of Pharaoh] recognized the feat of Moses
because they were among the masters of magic. And who is
capable of that?” Rather they would wish to know his veracity
from his words [what he says], as the learner of arithmetic knows,
from arithmetic itself, the veracity of his teacher in his saying: ‘’I
am an arithmetician.”

126 This, then, is the sure and certain knowledge by which the
possessors of intelligence and men of insight are convinced, and
they are in no wise convinced by anything else. Such men, when
they know by the like of this method the veracity of the Apostle
and the truth of the Qur’ān, and understand the balances of the
Qur’ān , as I have mentioned to you, and take from it the keys of
all the sciences along with the balances, as I have mentioned in
[my] book jawāhir al-qur'ān [The Jewels of the Qur’ān -whence
have they any need of your Imam and what could they learn from
him? I would like to know what you have learned, up to now, from
your infallible Imam, and what religious problems he has solved,
and what obscure things he has unveiled! God Most High said:
“This is God’s creation: now show me what thosc have created
that are apart from Him!” [31.10/11].

127 But this is my method regarding the balances of

knowledges-so show me what you have learned of the obscurities
of the sciences from your Imam up to now. [Ch adds: and what
your friends learn from him. O how I would like to know what you
have learned from your infallible Imam! Show me what you have
seen.. . . Not in the Arabic.] [Fr 82] The aim of an invitation to a
meal is not the bare invitation without eating and taking food
from the table! Now I see you invite people to the Imam, then I
see that one who accepts the invitation is just as ignorant after it
as he was before: the Imam has not loosened any knot for him,
but rather has made knotty for him what was untied! And his
acceptance of the invitation has brought him no knowledge, but
rather he has thereby become more overbearing and more
ignorant.

128 Then he said: I have had a long association with my

comrades: but I have learned from them nothing except that they
say: You must follow the doctrine of ta'līm and beware of
personal opinion and analogy [reasoning], for that is contradictory
antl varying. I said : One of the curious things is that they invite
to ta'līm hut do not busy themselves with ta‘līm. So say to them:
You have invited me to ta‘līm, and I have accepted the invitation-
so teach me some of what you possess! [Ar 93] Then he said: I
do not see them adding anything to this.

129 I said: I advocate ta‘līm and the Imam, and I hold the futility
[falsity] of personal opinion and analogy. But I add for you to this-
if you could give up servile conformism-the teeching [ta‘līm] of
the marvels of the sciences ant1 the mysteries of the Qur’ān, and
I deduce from it [Qur’ān] for you the keys of all the sciences, as I
have deduced from it the balances of all the sciences, according
to my indication of the manner of the branching of the sciences
from it in [my] book Jawāhir al-qur'ān. But I do not summon to any
Imam save Muhammad-Peace be upon him!-and to any Book save
the Qur’ān, and from it I deduce all the secrets of the sciences.
My apodeictic proof of that is what I say and my clear
explanation. If you doubt, you ought to try me and test me: do
you, or do you not, consider me better suited for your learning
from me than your comrades?

[Ar 94]

[CHAPTER TEN]
Discussion of the Formation

of Analogy and Personal Opinion

and the Showing of Their Futility

130 Then he said: Breaking with [my] comrades and learning

from you might prevent me from what I related to you, viz. the
injunction of my mother when she was dying. But I would like you
to disclose to me how peisonal opinion [al-ra’y] and analogy [al-
qiyās] also, syllogism, reasoning] are wrong [weak]. For I think
that you deem me weak in mind and you deceive me [make
things complicated for me]: thus you call qiyās and ra'y a
“balance,” and you recite to me, in accordance with that, a
Qur’ān [i.e. a verse of the Qur’ān -but I think it [the “balance”] is
precisely the qiyās claimed by your associates. I said: Far from it!
And now I shall explain to you what I and they mean by al-ra’y
and al-qiyās.

131 As for al-ra’y, an example of it is the assertion of the

Mu‘tazilites: “God Most High must arrange [contrive, observe]
what is best [Fr 83] for His servants.” When they are requested to
substantiate this, they refer to nothing save that it is an opinion
[ra’y] of which their minds have approved on the basis of
comparing the Creator with creatures, and likening His wisdom to
their wisdom. The things approved by men’s minds are the ra'y
which I do not regard as reliable: for it produces conclusions the
falseness of which is testified to by the balances of the Qur’ān -
like this doctrine [of the Mu‘tazilites]. For when I weigh it with the
balance of concomitance, I say: “If the best were obligatory on
God, He would do it. But it is known that He has not done it; so
[that] proves that it is not obligatory-for He does not omit the
obligatory.” Then if someone says: “We concede that if it were
obligatory, He would do it; but we do not concede that He has not
done it,” I say: “Had He done the ‘best,’ He would have created
them in the Garden and left them there-for this would have been
better for them; but it is known that He has not done that; so
[that] proves that He has not done the best.” This also is a
conclusion from the balance of concomitance.

132 Now the adversary [is caught] between [two alternatives]-

that he say: He left them in the Garden-and his lie is seen; or that
he say: “The best for them was to be expelled into the world, the
abode of tribulations, [Ar 95] and [that] He expose them to sins,
then say to Adam on the day the hidden things will be disclosed:
Bring forth, 0 Adam, the delegation [to be sent to] the Fire. Then
he will say: How many? And God will say: From every thousand
nine hundred and ninety-nine.”-as has come down in the sound
Tradition [cf. Bukhārī: VI, 122 sūrat al-hajj]. And [the adversary]
claims that this is better than creating them in the Garden and
leaving them there, because their felicity in that case would not
be because of their effort and merit, and thus the [divine] favor
would have been great [oppressive ?] for them-and [divine] favor
is weighty [burdensome]. But if they hear and obey, what they
receive is a recompense and a wage containing no favor. I make it
easy for your hearing and my tongue [by refraining] from the
report of such discourse and consider them [hearing and tongue]
above it [too good for it], to say nothing of replying to it!

133 Consider it, then: do you see the abominations of the

conclusion of ra’y-[how great] they are?! Now you know that God
Most High leaves children, when they die, in a place in the Garden
below the places of obedient adults. So if they [children] said: “O
our God! You are not stingy with what is better for us: but it is
better for us that You make us attain their rank,” then according
to the Mu‘tazilites God would say: “How could I make you attain
their rank, when they have grown up, toiled and obeyed, and you
have died as children?” Then they would say: “It is You Who
caused us to die and deprived us of a long sojourn in this life and
of noble ranks in the afterlife. So the best for US was that YOU not
cause us to die-why, then, did You cause us to die?” Then God
Most High would say: “I knew that if you grew up you would
misbelieve and merit the Fire forever: so I knew that the best for
you was to die in

childhood.”

134 Thereupon the grown up unbelievers would call out from the
lowest levels of the Fire, shouting [for help] and saying: “Did You
not know that we, if we grew up, would misbelieve? So why did
You not cause us to die in childhood? For we would be content
with a hundredth part of the ranks of the children!” At this [Fr 96]
point there remains for the Mu‘tazilite no reply to give on God’s
part, and so the argument would be in favor of the unbelievers
against God-Exalted He above what the liars assert! To be sure
the doing of the “best” involves a mystery derived from the
knowledge of the secret of God Most High concerning al-qadar
[the divine decree]. But the Mu‘tazilite does not reflect [on it]
starting from that principle, for he does not get to know that
secret by the resources of Kalām. Consequently he gropes after it
at random and opinions are for him confused. This, then, is the
example of the false ra’y [opinion].

135 The example of the [false] qiyās [analogy] is affirming a

judgment regarding something by analogy [comparison] with
something else, like the assertion of the Corporealizers: [Ar 96]
“God is-Exalted God above what they say!-a body.” We say:
“Why?” They reply: “Because He is an agent-maker: so He is a
body, by analogy with all the other artisans and agents.” Now this
is the false qiyās, because we say: “Why do you say that an agent
is a body because he is an agent?” That cannot be shown when it
is weighed in the balance of the Qur’iin. For its balance is the
Greater Balance of the balances of equivalence. The form of
weighing it is to say: Every agent is a body; but the Creator is an
agent; therefore He is a body. Then we say: We concede that the
Creator is an agent; but we do not concede the first principle, viz.
that every agent is a body. So whence do you know that? At this
there remains only resort to induction and extended division [Ch:
la division indéterminée]: but neither contains a proof.

136 Induction is that one says: “I have scrutinized the agents,

viz. weaver, cupper, shoemaker, tailor, carpenter, etc., etc., and I
have found them to be bodies: so I know that every agent is a
body.” One should say to him: “Have you scrutinized all the
agents, or has an agent eluded you?” “ I have scrutinized a part
of them”-there does not follow from that the judgment regarding
all. And if he says: “I have scrutinized all”--wc do not concede
[this] to him, for all the agents are not known to him. How? Has
he scrutinized in that ensemble the Creator of the heavens and
the earth? If he has not, then he has not scrutinized all, but a
part; and if he has, did he find Him to be a body? If he says:
“Yes,” then one should say to him: “If you have found that in the
premise of your analogy [syllogism], how have you made it a
principle by which you infer it?” Thus you have made your very
feeling the proof of what you felt-and this is an error [i.e. a petitio
principii].

137 On the contrary, he in his scrutiny is simply like one who

scrutinizes the horse and the camel and the elephant and the
insects and the birds, and sees that they walk with a foot [leg],
but he has not seen the snake and the worm. So he judges that
every animal walks with a foot. And he is like one who scrutinizes
the animals and sees that in [Fr 85] masticating they all move the
lower jaw: so he judges that every animal in masticating moves
the lower jaw; but he has not seen the crocodile, and that it
moves the upper jaw. This is because it is possible for a thousand
individuals of a single genus to be the object of a judgment and
for one to be different from the thousand. So this does not give
serene certainty: this, then, is [the example] of the false qiyās.

138 [Ar 97] As for his resorting to extended [indeterminate,

inadequate] division, it is like his saying: “I have examined the
qualities of agents. and they are bodies. So they are bodies either
because they are agents, or because they are existent, or
because they are such and such.” Then he refutes all the
divisions, and so it follows from this that they are bodies because
they are agents. This is the indeterminate [inadequate] division
by which Satan weighs his gauges [criteria, analogies]-and we
have already mentioned its falsity [Paras. 76 ff.].

139 Then he said: I think that, when the other divisions are false,
there is imposed [specified] the division which you want. And I
consider this a powerful [apodeictic] proof on which most of the
mutakallimūn rely regarding their beliefs. For they say regarding
the question of the ocular vision [of God]: “The Creator is visible
because the world is visible [read: because He is existent ?].” It is
false that it [He ?] be said to be visible because it [?] has
whiteness, because black is visible; and it is false that it [?] be
said to be visible because it is a substance, because an accident
is visible; and it is false that it is visible because it is an accident,
because a substance is visible. And when the divisions are
refuted, it remains that it [He] is visible because it is existent. So I
want you to unveil to me the weakness [wrongness] of this
balance in a clear way about which I cannot doubt. [This Para. is a
bit unclear; cf. my Theology of Al-Ash‘ari, Ch. IV, and my edition
of Bāqillānī’s Tamhīd , 266 ff.]

140 I said: I shall present you with a true example deduced from
a false analogy [qiyās], and I shall remove the veil from it. So I
say: Our assertion “The world is incipient” is true. But the
assertion of one saying: “It is incipient because it is formed
[muşawwar: shaped, molded; Ch: has a form], by analogy with
the house and other formed structures” is false and does not give
[sure] knowledge of the incipience of the world. For you say: its
true balance is that it be said: “Everything formed is incipient; but
the world is formed; so it follows that it is incipient”-and the
second principle is conceded, but your assertion “Everything
formed is incipient” is not conceded by the adversary.

141 At this he turns to induction and says: “I have examined

every formed thing and found it to be incipient, like the house and
the glass and shirt and such and such.” Now you already know
the falsity of that [i.e. this induction, from the preceding]. He may
come back to examining and say: “A house is an incipient: so let
us examine its qualities. It is a body, subsisting in itself, existent,
and formed. These, then, are four qualities. Now it is certainly
false to explain [its being an incipient] by its being a body, and its
subsisting in itself, and its being existent:so it is certain that it is
explained by its being formed-i.e. the fourth [of its qualities].” [Ar
98] One should say to him: ‘This is false in many ways, of which I
shall mention four.
142 The first is that, if one concedes to you the falsity of the
[first] three [qualities], the cause you [Fr 86] seek is not
established, for perhaps the judgment [that it is incipient] is
explained by a limited cause which is neither general nor
transitive [i.e. outside itself], like, for example, its being a house.
For if it is certain that something other than a house is an
inceptum [muhdath], then perhaps the judgment is explained by
a notion limited to what is patently an incipient-since it is possible
to suppose a particular quality which unites [includes] all and is
not transitive [outside itself, i.e. . the house. Chelhot remarks “Ce
passage est obscure.”].

143 The second is that it would be correct only if the

examination were effected so exhaustively that it would be
inconceivable that any part [division] could*escape. But if it is not
restrictive, and does not revolve between negation and
affirmation, it is conceivable that a part might escape-and
restrictive exhaustive examination is not an easy matter.
Generally the mutakallimūn and the jurisprudents are not
concerned about it, but rather they say: “If it contains another
part, then show it.”And the other may say: “I am not obliged to
show it.” And they continue in this for a long time. And maybe the
“inductor” [Ch: logicien] may seek to prove the analogy and say:
“If there were another part, we would know it and you would
know it: so the nonexistence of our knowledge proves the
negation of another part; for the nonexistence of our seeing an
elephant in our gathering proves the negation of the elephant.”
This poor man does not know that we have never known an
elephant to be present which we did not see, and then have seen
him. But how many ideas have we seen to be present, which we
were all incapable of perceiving, then we became aware of them
after a while! So perhaps there is in it a part which eludes us,
which we are not aware of now-and perhaps we will not be aware
of it all our life long.

144 The third is that, even if we concede the restriction [i.e. the
complete disjunction], the certainty of the fourth does not follow
necessarily from the elimination of three. On the contrary, the
combinations resulting from four are more than ten and twenty.
For it is possible that the cause be the units of these four, or two
of them, or three of them; then the two and the three are not
specified [determined]. On the contrary, it is conceivable that the
cause is its being existent and a body, or existent and subsisting
in itself, or existent and house, or house and formed, or house
and subsisting in itself, or house and body, or body and formed,
or body and subsisting in itself, or body and existent, or subsisting
in itself and existent. These are some of the combinations of two-
and so for the combinations starting with three. And know that
most frequently judgments depend on many causes united. This a
thing is not seen because the seer has an eye-for it is not seen at
night; nor because the thing seen is illuminated by the sun-
because the blind man does not see; nor because of the two
together-because the air [wind] is not seen; but because of the
totality of that plus [Ar 99] the fact that the thing seen is colored
and other factors. This is the judgment of what exists: but the
judgment of the ocular vision [of God] in the afterlife is another
judgment.

145 [Fr 87] The fourth is that, if the exhaustive examination is

conceded, and combination is left aside, then the refutation of
three in no wise entails the attachment of the judgment to the
fourth, but rather [entails] the judgment’s being restricted to the
fourth. But the fourth may be divisible into two parts, and the
judgment may be linked to one of them. Surely you see that, were
one first to divide and to say: “either its being a body, or existent,
or subsisting in itself, or formed, for example in a square form, or
formed in a circular form,” then were to refute the [first] three
divisions, the judgment would absolutely not be attached to the
form, but perhaps would be relevant to [have to do with] a
particular form.

146 So because of [their] neglect of such fine points as these,

the mutakallimūn have acted rashly and their contention has
multiplied, since they held fast to ra’y and qiyās. But that does
not give serene certainty: rather it is suitable for legal, conjectural
analogies [syllogisms] and for inclining men’s hearts in the
direction of the right and the true. For their thought [reasoning]
does not extend to remote probabilities, but rather their belief is
decided by weak reasons.

147 Surely you see that when somebody says to a simple man
who has a headache: “Use rose water, for I, when I have a
headache, use it and benefit from it,” it is as though he were to
say: “This is a headache, so rose water will lessen it by analogy
with my headache.” So the heart of the sick man inclines to it and
he uses it, and he does not say to him: “First establish that rose
water is good for every headache, be it due to cold or heat or the
vapors of the stomach-for the kinds of headaches are many; and
prove that my headache is like yours, and my humors
[temperament, complexion] like yours, and my age and
occupation and my circumstances like yours-for the treatment will
vary because of all that.”

148 For the endeavor to verify these things is not the concern of
the simple folk, because they do not note these things. Nor is it
the concern of the mutakallimūn, for they-even though they note
them, contrary to the common folk-do not find the ways which
produce serene certainty. These are simply the practice of men
who have learned them from Ahmad-God’s blessings be upon
him!-viz. men who have been guided by the light of God to the
brightness of the Qur’ān , and have learned from it the just scale
and the Correct Balance, and have become guardians for God of
justice [or: energetic executors of justice for God; Ch: ils sont
devenus des gens équitables envers Dieu].

149 [Ar 100] Then he said: Now indeed the signs and tidings of
the truth appear to me from your discourse. Will you, then, permit
me to follow you on the condition that you teach me some of
what you know to be proper conduct? I said: By no means! You
will never be able to be patient with me. And how could you be
patient with what you have not understood through report
[khabar: tradition]?

150 He said: God willing you will find me patient and I shall not
refuse you obedience in anything. [Fr 88] I said: Do you think I
have forgotten your learning a lesson from the counsel of your
companions and your mother and your throbbing conformism [i.e.
your deeply ingrained, or, felt conformism]? So you are not suited
to be my companion, nor am I suited to be yours. So leave me!
This is a parting between us. For I am too busy with correcting
myself to correct you, and too preoccupied with instruction
[received] from the Qur’ān to instruct you. So you will not see me
hereafter, because I shall not see you. I do not have leisure for
more than this to reform the evil and to beat the air [take futile
steps; lit. to hammer cold iron]. I have indeed “advised you
sincerely; but you do not love sincere advisers” [7.77/79].
And praise to God, the Lord of the Worlds!

And God’s blessing upon the Prince of Messengers!

[Ar 101] [Conclusion]

151 So there you have, my brothers, my story with my

companion, which I have recited to you with its obvious and its
hidden shortcomings [with all its defects], that you might be full
of amazement at it and find profit in the contents of these
conversations by the comprehension of things more sublime than
the correction of the doctrine of the devotees of ta‘līm. That then,
was not my aim, but: “You I mean [intend], but listen O
neighbor!” [A proverb still popular: something is said to A, but is
really meant for the listening B.]

152 And I request the sincere to accept my excuse, when they

read these conversations, for what I have preferred, regarding the
doctrine, of synthesis and analogies, and what I have introduced,
regarding names, of change and substitution, and what I have
contrived, regarding meanings [notions], of imagery and
comparison. For under each one I had a sound aim and a secret
plain to men of insight [those with understandings].

153 Beware of changing this order, and of stripping these ideas

of this apparel! I have indeed taught you how the “intelligible” is
to be weighed [Ar has “adorned,” but the reading adopted here is
preferable and has manuscript authority] by using the support of
the traditional that hearts may be quicker to accept. Beware also
of making the “intelligible” a principle and the traditional a
consequent and following! For this is abominable and repellent,
and God Most High has commanded you to give up the
abominable and to dispute in the better way [cf. 16.126/125]. So
beware of transgressing this command lest you perish and cause
to perish, and go astray and lead astray!

154 But of what use is my injunction when the truth has been
obliterated and the flood gates have been broken and turpitude
has become widcspread [Ar 102] and has taken wing to all
countries and has become a subject of pleasantry in all cities? For
some people have considered this Qur’ān to be something
obsolete [antiquated, uncouth] and they have taken the prophetic
directives to be airy nothings. All that comes from the meddling
[officiousness] of the ignorant and their claiming, in the defense
of religion, the rank of the savants [al-'ārifīn : the “knowers”].
“But surely many lead astray by their caprices, without any
knowledge; thy Lord knows very well the transgressors” [6.119].

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