call for the coming into being of spirits, and others for the duration of the heavens.
This is the knowledge to which Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī pointed when he said that the celestial sphere turns with the breaths of the cosmos. Even though they see all this, those who possess this knowledge differ in rank. Some are perfect, fully realized, and exact in their scrutiny, while others fall below them to varying degrees.
We have seen a number of practitioners of geomancy and people learned in the measures of the motions of the celestial spheres, the courses of their stars, the conjunctions and their measures, the stations in which the conjunctions occur, and the determinations that God brings about among His creatures at such times. These are like the customary causes familiar to ordinary people, of which no one is ignorant and for affirming which no one is deemed an unbeliever.
These things likewise follow familiar patterns for those who know them. According to the combination of their natures, they yield effects that they do not yield when unconjoined with others. The practitioners report particular events that then occur exactly as they described them. Yet from the observer’s point of view, the match can come about by coincidence. Even when it is knowledge as a matter of fact, the observer has no certainty about it, however firmly he decides the matter for himself, because it is so subtle.
If he is fair, he cannot be certain that no subtle point has escaped his own inquiry or escaped the person who paved the way for him before him, unless that person is a prophet reporting from God. For the later practitioner relies on the reckoning of his predecessor.
Notes
Translator’s note TN1319-1: The argument allows a prediction to match what happens while the practitioner lacks certainty that his method and reckoning were correct. The English distinguishes this contingent match from knowledge in the strong sense at issue in the chapter.
