Who is Ibn Khaldun? #

Abū Zayd ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad Ibn Khaldūn al-Ḥaḍramī (1332–1406), known simply as Ibn Khaldūn, was one of the most profound thinkers of the medieval Islamic world—and a figure whose ideas would echo across centuries and civilizations. Born in Tunis during a time of political turmoil and intellectual flourishing, he would go on to become not only a master historian and statesman, but the founder of sociology, a philosopher of history, and a sharp-eyed analyst of the human condition.

Ibn Khaldūn was born into an elite Andalusian Arab family of scholars and administrators who had fled Seville after the Christian Reconquista. Raised in an environment steeped in classical Arabic education, he memorized the Qur’an and studied grammar, jurisprudence, logic, mathematics, and philosophy from a young age. His early training was shaped by the legacy of Islamic scholarship, but he was equally marked by the political instability of North Africa in the 14th century.

By his twenties, Ibn Khaldūn was already serving as a court secretary and diplomat in the often-volatile courts of Fez, Tlemcen, and later Granada. Throughout his career, he was frequently caught in the crosscurrents of shifting alliances, betrayals, and dynastic intrigue. At various points, he was imprisoned, exiled, or forced into retreat. These experiences—particularly his time among Berber tribes and in the rural Maghrib—profoundly influenced his thinking about power, society, and the rise and fall of civilizations.

In 1375, while in political retirement in a remote Berber fortress in Algeria, Ibn Khaldūn composed his masterpiece: al-Muqaddima, or “Prolegomena,” the monumental introduction to his planned Book of Lessons (Kitāb al-ʿIbar). What began as a preface to a universal history turned into one of the most original and far-reaching works in world intellectual history.

In al-Muqaddima, Ibn Khaldūn lays out a new science: ʿilm al-ʿumrān, the science of civilization. He explored how human societies develop, decline, and regenerate through patterns of economic life, social cohesion (ʿasabiyya), political authority, and cultural production. He combined insights from history, sociology, economics, anthropology, and even psychology—centuries before those disciplines formally existed.

Far ahead of his time, Ibn Khaldūn insisted that history must be studied critically, using reason to detect bias and uncover the underlying causes of events. He critiqued blind imitation of ancient authorities, promoted empirical observation, and questioned the value of abstract speculation without real-world grounding.

In the later stages of his life, Ibn Khaldūn traveled to Cairo, where he was appointed as a professor at al-Azhar and later served as Chief Judge (qāḍī) of the Mālikī rite—one of the highest legal positions in Egypt. Despite the prestige, he continued to face political intrigue and personal loss, including the tragic deaths of his family during a shipwreck en route from North Africa.

In 1401, he famously met Tamerlane (Timur) outside the gates of Damascus and held a long conversation with the conqueror, leaving behind a unique first-person account of their encounter.

Ibn Khaldūn died in 1406 in Cairo. Though largely unrecognized in Europe during his lifetime, his work was rediscovered centuries later and has since been hailed as a precursor to modern sociology, historiography, economics, and political science.

Ibn Khaldūn’s genius lay in his ability to see the patterns behind the noise of politics and war. He understood that history was not just a chronicle of kings and battles, but a science of human behavior and social transformation. In a world wracked by collapse and renewal, he sought the deeper rhythms that shaped civilizations.

Today, Ibn Khaldūn stands as one of the towering figures of world intellectual history—a thinker whose insights continue to challenge and inspire. Whether in his reflections on tribal solidarity, his theory of the cyclical nature of empires, or his understanding of labor, education, and the professions, his voice remains startlingly relevant. He did not merely record the past—he gave us tools to understand society itself.

Ibn Ibn Khaldūn’s Muqaddima #

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The first section of the introduction is about the merits of the science of history, the verification of its doctrines, and the allusion to the fallacies that historians encounter, and mentioning some of their causes #

 

Know that the art of history is an art of noble doctrine, great benefits, and noble purpose, as it informs us of the conditions of past nations in their morals, the prophets in their biographies, and the kings in their states and politics. In order for the benefit of following this example to be complete for those who seek it in matters of religion and the world, it needs multiple sources, diverse knowledge, good insight and verification that lead their owner to the truth and turn him away from slips and fallacies, because if the news is based on mere transmission and does not govern the principles of custom and the rules of politics and the nature of civilization and conditions in human society, and does not compare the absent from it with the present and the present with the past, then perhaps it is not safe from stumbling and slipping and deviating from the path of truth. And historians, commentators and imams of transmission have often fallen into fallacies in stories and events because they depended on mere transmission, whether good or bad, and did not present them to their origins, nor did they compare them to their likes, nor did they probe them with the standard of wisdom and standing on the natures of beings and the arbitration of insight and insight in the news, so they strayed from the truth and wandered in the wilderness of illusion and error, especially in counting the numbers of money and armies if they are presented in stories, since they are a source of falsehood and a vehicle for nonsense, and it is necessary to return them to the origins and present them to the rules. This is as Al-Masudi and many historians have reported in the armies of the Children of Israel, that Moses, peace be upon him, counted them in the wilderness after he had permitted those who could bear arms, especially those twenty years old and above, and they were six hundred thousand or more. It is astonishing in this regard that Egypt and the Levant estimated and expanded such a number of armies, for each kingdom had a share of the garrison that would be large enough for it and carry out its functions, and it was narrow for those above it. This is attested to by the known customs and familiar conditions. Then, such armies that reached such a number are unlikely to have a march or fight between them due to the small area of the land and its distance if they were lined up beyond the reach of sight twice or three times or more. So how could these two groups fight or would one of the two ranks prevail and something on its sides not be aware of the other side? The present attests to this, for the past is more like the future than water is like water.

The Persian kingdom and their state were much greater than the kingdom of the Children of Israel, as evidenced by their conquest of them, their devouring of their lands, their seizure of their affairs, and the destruction of the Holy House, the base of their religion and their authority. He was one of the workers of the Persian kingdom. It is said that he was the Marzban of the Maghreb from its borders. Their kingdoms in Iraq, Khorasan, Transoxiana, and the gates were much larger than the kingdoms of the Children of Israel. However, the armies of the Persians never reached such a number or even close to it. The greatest of their numbers at al-Qadisiya was one hundred and twenty thousand, all of them followed, according to what Saif reported. He said: And among their followers were more than two hundred thousand. And from Aisha and Al-Zuhri, the numbers of Rustam, with whom Saad marched at al-Qadisiya, were only sixty thousand, all of them followed. And also, Ibn Israel reached such a number that the scope of their kingdom and the extent of their state expanded, for the provinces and kingdoms in the states are in proportion to the garrison and the tribe that resides in them in terms of their killing and their number, as we explain in the merits of the kingdoms in the first book, and the people’s kingdoms did not expand beyond Jordan and Palestine in the Levant and the lands of Yathrib and Khaybar in the Hijaz, as is well known. Also, what is between Moses and Israel is only in four fathers, according to what the investigators have mentioned, for he is Moses, son of Imran, son of Yizhar, son of Qaht, with the ha’ open and broken, son of Lari, with the waw open and broken, son of Jacob, and he is Israel of God. This is his lineage in the Torah, and the period between them, according to what Al-Mas’udi reported, he said: Israel entered Egypt with his sons, the tribes, and their sons when they came to Joseph, seventy souls, and their stay in Egypt until they went out with Moses, peace be upon him, to the wilderness was two hundred and twenty years, and the Coptic kings of the Pharaohs took turns with them. It is far-fetched that the lineage would branch out in four generations to such a number, even if they claimed that the number of those armies was only in the time of Solomon and after him, then it is also far-fetched, for there are only eleven fathers between Solomon and Israel, for he is Solomon, son of David, son of Jesha, son of Opheid, and it is said son of Opheid, son of Baaz, and it is said Boaz, son of Salmon, son of Nahshon, son of Amminadeb, and it is said Haminadab, son of Ram, son of Hezron, and it is said Hezron, son of Bars, and it is said Bars, son of Judah, son of Jacob, and the lineage does not branch out in eleven. From the boy to the same number they claimed, God willing, to two hundred and thousands, perhaps it will be. As for it going beyond them to decades of numbers, then it is far-fetched. Consider that in the present, seen, and known, recent times, and you will find their claim to be false and their transmission to be lying.

And what is established in the Israelite stories is that the soldiers of Solomon were twelve thousand in particular, and that his close ones were one thousand and four hundred horses tied to his gates. This is the correct account of their news, and no attention should be paid to the superstitions of the common people among them. In the days of Solomon, peace be upon him, and his reign, their state was at its peak and their kingdom expanded. We may find that all the people of Egypt, if they elaborate on the armies of the states that were in their era or close to it, and they negotiated the news about the armies of the Muslims or Christians, or they began to count the money of the taxes and the tax of the sultan and the expenses of the luxurious and the goods of the wealthy, they delved into the number and exceeded the limits of customs and obeyed the whispers of the Arabs. So if the owners of the offices investigated their armies and deduced the conditions of the wealthy in their goods and benefits and clarified the customs of the luxurious in their expenses, you would not find a tenth of what they count. This is only due to the soul’s fondness for strange things and the ease of transgression on the tongue and the negligence of the tracker and critic so that he does not hold himself accountable for a mistake or intent and does not demand moderation or justice in the news and does not refer it to research. And he searches and sends his reins and makes his tongue wander in the pastures of lies and takes the verses of God in ridicule and buys idle talk to turn away from the path of God. And that is enough for you as a losing deal.

Among the weak news of historians is what they all transmit in the news of the Tubba’a, the kings of Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula, that they used to invade from their villages in Yemen to Africa and the Berbers from the Maghreb, and that Afriqish bin Qais bin Saifi was one of their greatest kings, and during the time of Moses, peace be upon him, or a little before, he invaded Africa and dealt a heavy blow to the Berbers, and that he was the one who called them by this name when he heard their gibberish and said, “What is this Berberism?” So he took this name from him and they were called by it from then on, and that when he returned from the Maghreb, he stopped there tribes of Himyar and settled there and mixed with its people, including Sanhaja and Ketama. From this, al-Tabari, al-Jurjani, al-Mas’udi, Ibn al-Kalbi, and al-Bayli went to the fact that Sanhaja and Ketama were from Himyar, and Tubba is the genealogist of the Berbers, and this is correct. Al-Mas’udi also mentioned that Dhu al-Idh’ar was one of their kings before Afriqish, and during the time of Solomon, peace be upon him, he invaded the Maghreb and subdued it. He also mentioned something similar about his son Yasser after him, and that he reached Wadi al-Raml in the Maghreb and did not find a path in it due to the abundance of sand, so he returned. And they say the same about Tubba’. The other, As`ad Abu Karb, was during the reign of the Persian kings of Kayan, that he ruled Mosul and Azerbaijan, and he met the Turks and defeated them and inflicted heavy casualties, then he invaded them a second and a third time as well, and after that he invaded three of his sons in the land of Persia and in the land of Safad from the land of the Turkic nations beyond the river and in the land of the Romans, so the first ruled the land to Samarkand and crossed the desert to China, and he found that his second brother who had invaded Samarkand had preceded him to it, then they inflicted heavy casualties in the land of China and they all returned with the spoils and left in the land of China tribes of Himyar, which they are concerned with until this time, and the third reached Constantinople and destroyed it and subdued the land of the Romans and returned.

 

 

All of these reports are far from the truth, rooted in illusion and error, and more like fabricated stories. The kingdom of the Tubba’a was in the Arabian Peninsula, and their settlement and seat was in Sana’a, Yemen. The Arabian Peninsula is surrounded by the sea on three sides: the Indian Ocean to the south, the Persian Gulf descending from it to Basra from the east, and the Suez Sea descending from it to Suez in Egypt from the west, as you see in the image of geography. Those traveling from Yemen to Morocco will not find a way other than Suez, and the path there between the Suez Sea and the Levant Sea is the distance of two stages or less, and it is unlikely that a great king would pass by this path with abundant armies without his actions being usually impossible. In those areas there were the Amalekites and Canaan in the Levant and the Copts in Egypt, then the Amalekites ruled Egypt and the Children of Israel ruled the Levant. It has never been reported that the Tubba’a fought any of these nations. Nor did they own any of those works, and also the part from the sea to the west is far, and the provisions and fodder for the armies are many, so if they traveled in other than their work, they would need to plunder crops and livestock and plunder the country in what they pass by, and that is not usually enough for provisions and fodder, and if they transported their sufficiency from that from their work, then the camels would not be enough for them to transport it, so they must pass on their way through all of the works that they owned and subdued so that the provisions would be from them, and if we say that those armies pass by these nations without agitating them, so that they obtain provisions through peace, then that is more remote and more impossible, so it indicates that these reports are weak or fabricated. As for Wadi al-Raml, which the traveler is unable to do, it has never been heard of being mentioned in the west, despite the large number of its travelers and those who travel its roads from riders and villages in every age and every direction, and despite what they mentioned of strangeness, the motives for transmitting it are abundant. As for their invasion of the lands of the East and the land of the Turks, even though its path was wider than the Suez routes, the gap here is further and the nations of Persia and Rome are obstructing it without the Turks. We have never said that the Tubba’s ruled the lands of Persia or the lands of Rome. Rather, they were fighting the people of Persia on the borders of the lands of Iraq and between Bahrain, Al-Hirah, and Al-Jazirah between the Tigris and the Euphrates and what is between them in the works. This occurred between Dhi Al-Idh’ar among them and Kaykaus from the kings of the Kayaniya and between Tubba’ Al-Asghar Abu Karb and Yastasaf with them also and with the kings of the sects after the Kayaniya and the Sassanids in those after them by going beyond the land of Persia by invading the lands of the Turks and Tibet, which is usually impossible after them due to the nations obstructing them and the need for provisions and fodder with the distance of the gap as mentioned above. The reports about that are weak and fabricated. If they were authentically transmitted, that would be a flaw in them, so how is it that they were not transmitted from a sound source? And the statement of Ibn Ishaq in the report of Yathrib, the Aws, and the Khazraj that the other Tubba’ marched to the East carried by Iraq and the lands of Persia. As for the lands of the Turks and Tibet, their invasion of them is not correct in any way for what has been established, so do not trust what It is presented to you from that, and contemplate the news and present it to the correct laws, and you will be able to scrutinize it in the best way, and God is the guide to the truth.

 

Chapter – The second section of the introduction on the merits of the science of history and the verification of its doctrines and the allusion to the fallacies that historians are exposed to and mentioning some of their causes #

 

Further than that and more deeply rooted in delusion is what the commentators transmit in the interpretation of Surat Al-Fajr in the Almighty’s saying: “Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with ‘Ad, Iram, who had pillars?” They make the word Iram the name of a city described as having pillars, meaning pillars, and they transmit that ‘Ad bin ‘Aws bin Iram had two sons, Shadid and Shaddad, who ruled after him, and Shadid perished, so the kingdom was given to Shaddad and their kings submitted to him, and he heard the description of Paradise and said to his two sons the same, so he built the city of Iram in the deserts of Aden in a period of three hundred years, and his age was nine hundred years, and that it was a great city, its palaces were of gold and its pillars were of emerald and ruby, and in it were various kinds of trees and flowing rivers. When it was completed, he marched to it with the people of his kingdom until he was a day and a night’s journey from it, then God sent upon them a cry from the sky and they all perished. Al-Tabari, Al-Tha’alibi, Al-Zamakhshari and other commentators mentioned this and they quote from Abdullah bin Qilabah, one of the Companions, that he went out in search of his camels and came across them and carried as much of them as he could. News of this reached Mu’awiyah, so he brought him and told him about it. He searched for Ka’b’s news and asked him about it. He said: It is Iram of the Pillars. Who will enter it? A man from the Muslims, red, blond, short, with a mole on his eyebrow and a mole on his neck. He goes out in search of his camels. Then he turned and saw Ibn Qilabah and said: This is, by God, that man. This city has not been heard of since that day in any part of the earth and the deserts of Aden, which they claimed was built in, are in the middle of Yemen and its construction continues, and guides are telling its paths from every direction. No news has been transmitted about this city, nor has any of the historians or nations mentioned it. If they had said that it was forgotten in what was forgotten of the antiquities, it would have been more appropriate, except that the apparent meaning of their words is that it exists, and some of them say that it is Damascus, based on the fact that the people of Ad owned it. Some of them may end up delirium that it is absent, and only those who are skilled in sports and magic find it. All of these claims are more like superstitions. What led the commentators to do that is what the art of grammar required in the word Dhat al-Imad, that it is an attribute of Iram, and they attributed the pillars to the columns, so it was necessary that it be a building, and that suggested to them the reading of Ibn al-Zubayr, Ad Iram, with the addition without a tanween. Then they stopped at those stories, which are more like fabricated tales that are closer to lies transmitted in the number of laughter. Otherwise, the pillars are the pillars of the tents, or rather the tents, and if what is meant by them is the pillars, then there is no wonder in describing them as people of construction and pillars in general. Because of their famous strength, because it is a special construction in a certain city or other, and if it is added as in the reading of Ibn al-Zubayr, then it is on the addition of the faction to the tribe, as Quraysh says Kinanah, Elias Mudar, and Rabi’ah Nizar, that is, there is no need for this distant interpretation that was contrived to direct it to such weak stories that the Book of God is free from such as them due to their distance from the truth.

Among the fabricated tales of historians is what they all transmit about the reason for Rashid’s disaster of the Barmakids, from the story of his sister Abbasa with Ja’far ibn Yahya ibn Khalid, his freedman, and that he asked him to take their place from their drinking of wine, and he permitted them to conclude the marriage contract without being alone, out of concern for their meeting in his council, and that Abbasa tricked him into seeking to be alone with him because he was so passionate about her that he had intercourse with her, they claim, while she was drunk, and she became pregnant, and this was slandered to Rashid, so he became angry, and that is far from the position of Abbasa in her religion, her parents, and her majesty, and that she is the daughter of Abdullah ibn Abbas, and there are only four men between her and him, who are the nobles of the religion and the greats of the nation after him. And Al-Abbasa, daughter of Muhammad Al-Mahdi, son of Abdullah Abu Jaafar Al-Mansur, son of Muhammad Al-Sajjad, son of Ali Abu Al-Khulafa, son of Abdullah, the interpreter of the Qur’an, son of Al-Abbas, the uncle of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, the daughter of a caliph, the sister of a caliph, surrounded by the mighty kingdom, the prophetic caliphate, the companionship of the Messenger, his paternal uncles, the establishment of the religion, the light of revelation, and the descent of angels from all sides, close to the Bedouin Arabism and the naivety of those far from the customs of luxury and the pastures of obscenities. So where can chastity and purity be sought if they are gone from her, or where can purity and intelligence be found if they are lost from her home, or how can her lineage be joined to Jaafar Ibn Yahya and her Arab honor be defiled by a client of the clients of the Persians, by the kingdom of his grandfather from the Persians, or by the loyalty of her grandfather from the uncles of the Messenger and the nobles of Quraysh, and his goal was that their state attracted him with his hyena and the hyena of his father, and extracted them and their tenderness to the homes of the nobles, and how can it be permissible for Al-Rashid to marry into the clients of the Persians despite his great ambition and the greatness of his fathers? If the contemplative person looked at that with the view of the fair-minded and compared Al-Abbasa to the daughter of a king from The great kings of his time were reluctant to do the same to her with a client of her state and in the authority of her people, and he denounced him and persisted in denying him, and Ibn Qadr al-Abbas and al-Rashid were among the people.

 

The Barmakids’ misfortune was their tyranny over the state and their withholding of tax revenues, until Rashid would seek a small amount of money but would not receive it. They overpowered him in his affairs and shared his authority with him, and he had no control over the affairs of his kingdom from them. Their influence was great and their fame spread, and they filled the ranks of the state and its plans with leaders from their descendants and their craftsmen, and they seized it from those other than them, from the ministry, the scribe, the leadership, the chamberlains, the sword, and the pen. It is said that in the house of Rashid, from the descendants of Yahya bin Khalid, there were twenty-five chiefs, among them the owner of the sword and the owner of the pen, who crowded the people of the state with their shoulders and pushed them away from it with their palms because of the position of their father Yahya bin Kafala Harun, the crown prince and caliph, until he grew up in his lap and ascended from his nest and prevailed over his affairs. He used to call him, “O father.” So the sultan’s self-sacrifice turned to them, their influence grew, their prestige expanded, faces turned towards them, necks submitted to them, hopes fell short on them, gifts from kings and presents from princes were sent to them from the farthest borders, and the money of taxation was leaked to their treasuries for the sake of flattery and attraction. They lavished gifts on the men of the Shiites and the great relatives, and bestowed favors on them. They gained from the houses of the nobles the destitute, freed the suffering, and praised them with what their caliph had not been praised for. They bestowed awards and connections on their chastity, and they seized the villages and estates of the suburbs and cities in all the kingdoms until they regretted unemployment, incited hatred from the elite, and choked the people of the state, so the faces of competition were revealed to them. And envy and the scorpions of slander crept into their comfortable bed of the state until the sons of Khattaba, the maternal uncles of Ja’far, were among the greatest slanderers against them. The feelings of kinship did not sympathize with them because of the envy that was rooted in their souls, nor did the ties of kinship divide them. And compared to that with their master, the beginnings of jealousy and disdain for the stone and the haughtiness that aroused from them were the small sins of the slander. And the insistence on their affair ended with the major sins of disobedience like their story of Yahya bin Abdullah bin Hassan bin Hassan bin Ali bin Abi Talib, the brother of Muhammad al-Mahdi, nicknamed al-Nafs al-Zakiyya, who rebelled against al-Mansur. This Yahya is the one whom al-Fadl bin Yahya brought down from the land of Daylam on the security of al-Rashid with his handwriting and offered them a million thousand dirhams for him according to what al-Tabari mentioned. And al-Rashid handed him over to Ja’far and made his detention in his house and under his supervision, so he imprisoned him for a period, then the slander led him to release him and to tyranny by untying his shackles, in order to sanctify the blood of the people of the house, according to his claim, and to slander the sultan in his rule. Al-Rashid asked him about him when he was slandered against him, so he understood and said, “I have released him.” He showed him a face of approval and kept it to himself, so he found a way for himself and his people until their throne was brought down and their sky was cast upon them and the earth swallowed them and their home and their days were gone as a precedent and an example for others. Whoever contemplates their news and investigates the course of the state and their conduct will find that it is the realization of captivity and the preparation of causes. Look at what Ibn Abd Rabbih transmitted in the negotiation of Al-Rashid with his grandfather’s uncle Dawud ibn Ali regarding their calamity and what he mentioned in the chapter on poets in the book Al-Aqd in which Al-Asma’i’s dialogue with Al-Rashid and Al-Fadl ibn Yahya in their evening gatherings, and you will understand that they were killed only by jealousy and competition in tyranny from the Caliph and those below him. Likewise, what their enemies from the entourage plotted with in what they insinuated to the singers of poetry to trick him into hearing the Caliph and stirring his feelings for them, which is his saying:

If only Hind had fulfilled what she promised us and cured our souls of what we find.

And she had been a tyrant once, for the weak is he who does not become a tyrant.

And when Al-Rashid heard her, he said, “By God, I am weak until they sent people like me, because of his hidden jealousy and unleashed upon them the severity of his revenge. We seek refuge in God from the dominance of men and the evil of the situation.”

 

As for what they deceived him with, about Al-Rashid drinking wine and his drunkenness being combined with the drunkenness of companions, God forbid, what we know of his evil. How far is this from Al-Rashid’s situation and his performance of what is required of the position of the Caliphate in terms of religion and justice, and what he was like among the companions of scholars and saints, and his dialogues with Al-Fudayl ibn Iyad, Ibn Al-Samak, and Al-Umari, and his correspondence with Sufyan Al-Thawri, and his crying over their sermons, and his supplication in Mecca during his circumambulation, and what he was like in terms of worship and observing the times of prayers and witnessing the dawn prayer at its first time. Al-Tabari and others narrated that he used to pray one hundred voluntary rak’ahs every day, and he used to go on a military campaign one year and perform Hajj the next. Ibn Abi Maryam rebuked him in a joke during his evening conversation when he addressed him with something similar in prayer when he heard him recite: “Why should I not worship He who created me and to whom you will be returned?” He said: “By God, I do not know why?” Al-Rashid could not control himself from laughing, then turned to him angrily and said: “O son of Abi Maryam, even in prayer, beware, beware of the Qur’an and religion, and you may have whatever you wish after them.” He was also knowledgeable and naive, because he was close to his predecessors who claimed that, and there was not much time between him and his grandfather Abu Ja`far, but he was succeeded by a young boy. Abu Ja`far was knowledgeable and religious before and after the caliphate, and he is the one who said to Malik when he suggested that he compose Al-Muwatta’: “O Abu Abdullah, there remains on the face of the earth no one more knowledgeable than you and I, and the caliphate has occupied me, so write a book for the people that they will benefit from, in which you avoid the leniencies of Ibn Abbas and the hardships of Ibn `Umar and his introduction to the people.” Malik said: “By God, He taught me the classification that day, and his son Al-Mahdi Abu Al-Rashid caught up with him while he was refusing to provide new clothing for his family from the public treasury. He entered upon him one day while he was in his council, supervising the tailors in patching the old clothes of his family. Al-Mahdi was reluctant to do so and said, “O Commander of the Faithful, this is from my stipend for clothing these families this year.” He said to him, “You may do so.” He did not stop him from it, nor did he allow spending on it from the money of the Muslims. How could it be appropriate for Al-Rashid, who was so close to this caliph and his fatherhood, and what he was raised on of such behaviors in his family and the characterization of it, to drink wine or openly drink it, while the condition of the nobles of the pre-Islamic Arabs in avoiding wine was well known, and generosity was not their tree, and drinking it was reprehensible to many of them, and Al-Rashid and his fathers were proud of avoiding reprehensible things in their religion and their worldly life, and of adopting praiseworthy qualities and descriptions of perfection and the tendencies of the Arabs. And see what Al-Tabari and Al-Masoudi narrated in the story of Gabriel bin Bukhtishu the doctor when he brought him fish for his table and he protected it from him and then ordered the host of the table to carry it to his house and Al-Rashid became aware and became suspicious of him and sent his servant until he saw him eating it so Ibn Bukhtishu prepared three pieces of fish in three cups as an excuse, mixing one of them with meat treated with spices, legumes, spices and sweets and poured ice water on the second and pure wine on the third and said about the first and second this is the food of the Commander of the Faithful whether he mixes the fish with something else or not and said about the third this is the food of Ibn Bukhtishu and gave it to the host of the table until Al-Rashid woke up and brought him to be reprimanded, he brought the three cups and found that the host of the wine had mixed and dissolved and disintegrated and found that the others had spoiled and their smell had changed so he had an excuse for that and it became clear from that that Al-Rashid’s condition in avoiding wine was known to his entourage and the people at his table and it was proven that he ordered the imprisonment of Abu Nuwas when he heard of his preoccupation with drinking until he repented and stopped but it was Al-Rashid drank date wine according to the doctrine of the people of Iraq and their fatwas on it are well-known. As for pure wine, there is no way to accuse him of it or to imitate weak reports on it. The man was not such that he would engage in something forbidden, which is one of the greatest major sins according to the people of the religion. All of those people were prone to committing extravagance and luxury in their clothing, adornment and all their consumption because of the roughness of the Bedouin and the simplicity of the religion that they had not yet departed from. So what do you think of what goes from permissibility to prohibition and from permissibility to sanctity? The historians al-Tabari, al-Masudi and others have agreed that all of the previous caliphs of the Umayyads and Abbasids rode with light silver ornaments on belts, swords, bridles and saddles. The first caliph to introduce riding with gold ornaments was al-Mu’tazz ibn al-Mutawakkil, the eighth caliph after al-Rashid. This was also their case in their clothing. So what do you think of their drinks? This becomes clearer than this if you understand the nature of the state in its beginnings from Bedouinism and youthfulness as we will explain in the issues of the first book, God willing. And God is the guide to the truth. This or something similar to it is consistent with what they all transmit about Yahya bin Aktham, the judge and companion of Al-Ma’mun, that he used to drink alcohol and that he got drunk one night while drinking it, so he was buried in basil until he came to, and they recite on his tongue:

O my master and the prince of all people, he who gave me drink has been unjust in his judgment. I neglected the cupbearer, so I became, as you see, deprived of reason and religion. The condition of Ibn Aktham and al-Ma’mun in that was like that of al-Rashid, and their drink was only wine, and it was not forbidden to them. As for drunkenness, it was not their affair, and his companionship with al-Ma’mun was only a defect in religion. It has been proven that he used to sleep with him in the house, and it has been reported in the virtues of al-Ma’mun and his good companionship that he woke up one night thirsty, so he got up, feeling and groping for the vessel, fearing that he would wake Yahya ibn Aktham. It has been proven that they used to pray the dawn prayer together, for this is from drinking. Also, Yahya ibn Aktham was one of the elite of the people of hadith, and Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Ismail al-Qadi praised him, and al-Tizmidhi wrote his book al-Jami’ from him, and al-Muzani al-Hafiz mentioned that al-Bukhari narrated from him in other than al-Jami’, so the criticism in it is a criticism of all of them, and likewise what the licentious accuse of inclination towards boys is a slander against God and a lie against the scholars, and they rely on the news of storytellers in that. The weak story that may be a fabrication of his enemies, for he was envied for his perfection, his friendship with the Sultan, and his position in knowledge and religion was far removed from such things. Ibn Hanbal was told what people were accusing him of, so he said, “Glory be to God, glory be to God, and who says this?” He strongly denied it, and Ismail the judge praised him, so he was asked what was being said about him, so he said, “God forbid that the justice of someone like him should be lost because of the denial of a rebel and an envious person.” Yahya bin Aktham also said, “I declare before God that there was anything in him that was being accused of regarding the matter of the boys. I used to examine his secrets and find him very fearful of God, but he had a sense of humor and good character, so he accused him of what Ibn Hayyan accused him of among the trustworthy people, and he said, “Do not be concerned with what is being told about him, because most of it is not authentic.” Among the examples of these stories is what Ibn Abd Rabbih, the author of Al-Aqd, transmitted from the hadith of the basket regarding the reason for Al-Ma’mun’s marriage to Al-Hasan bin Sahl in his daughter Buran, and that he stumbled on some nights while he was wandering in the streets of Baghdad in a basket hanging from some of the… The roofs were covered with spoons and the braid of the cave of silk, so he believed it and took the spoons and they shook and he went with it up to a council of such and such status and he described from the adornment of its furniture and the beauty of his daughter and the beauty of his vision what stops the eye and takes possession of the soul and that a woman appeared to him from between the curtains in that council, the most beautiful and charming of beauties, so she greeted him and invited him to drink wine and he did not stop drinking wine with her until morning and returned to his companions in their place of waiting for him and she was overwhelmed with love that prompted him to marry her father and where is all this in comparison to the well-known state of Al-Ma’mun in his religion and knowledge and his following the ways of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs from his fathers and his taking the conduct of the four caliphs, the pillars of the religion and his debates with the scholars and his preservation of the limits of God Almighty in his prayers and his rulings so how can the conditions of the wicked and reckless in wandering at night and visiting homes and frequenting the evening gatherings like the way of the lovers of the Arabs be correct from him and where is that in comparison to the position of the daughter of Al-Hasan bin Sahl and her honor and what was in her father’s house of chastity and purity and similar stories are many and in the books of historians and only prompts to put them down and talk about them Preoccupation with forbidden pleasures and the removal of the mask of drugs, and they make excuses by imitating the people in what they do of obedience to their egos. That is why you see them often babbling on similar news and clicking on it when they browse the papers of the offices. If they imitated them in other than this of their conditions and the attributes of perfection that befit them and are famous about them, it would have been better for them if they only knew. I once rebuked some princes, sons of kings, for his eagerness to learn singing and his passion for strings, and I said to him, this is not your business and does not befit your position. He said to me, do you not see how Ibrahim bin Al-Mahdi was the leader of this industry and the chief singer of his time? I said to him, Glory be to God, why did you not imitate his father or brother? Or did you not see how that kept Ibrahim from their positions? So he was deaf to my rebuke and turned away. And God guides whom He wills.

Among the weak news is what many historians and scholars believe about the Ubaydis, the Shiite caliphs in Kairouan and Cairo, of denying them from the people of the house, may God’s prayers be upon them, and casting doubt on their lineage to Ismail, Imam Ibn Jaafar al-Sadiq. They rely on hadiths that were fabricated for the weak among the Abbasid caliphs, in order to curry favor with them by casting aspersions on those who opposed them and to be creative in gloating over their enemy, as some of these hadiths mention in their news. They neglect to notice the evidence of the events and the proofs of the circumstances that necessitated the opposite of that, of denying their claim and responding to them. They agree in their talk about the principle of the Shiite state that when Abu Abdullah al-Muhtasib was called to Kutama to please the family of Muhammad and his news became well known and he was known to be hovering over Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi and his son Abu al-Qasim, they feared for their lives so they fled from the East, the seat of the Caliphate, and passed through Egypt. They left Alexandria in the garb of merchants and news of them reached Isa al-Nushari, the governor of Egypt and Alexandria, so he sent out cavalry in pursuit of them. When they caught up with them, their condition was hidden from their followers because of the badges and garb they wore, so they escaped to the West. And that al-Mu’tadid instructed the Aghlabids, the princes of Africa in Kairouan, and the Banu Midrar, the princes of Sijilmasa, to take the horizons upon them and to set spies in pursuit of them. So Elisha, the ruler of Sijilmasa from the Banu Midrar family, found out about their location in his country and arrested them to please the Caliph.

 

The third section of the introduction is on the merits of the science of history and the verification of its doctrines and the allusion to the fallacies that historians are exposed to and mentioning some of their causes #

 

This was before the Shiites appeared over the Aghlabids in Kairouan. Then after that came the appearance of their call in Morocco and Africa, then in Yemen, then in Alexandria, then in Egypt, the Levant and the Hijaz. They shared with the Abbasids in the kingdoms of Islam the split of the Ablamah and almost entered their homelands and were separated from their rule. Their call was revealed in Baghdad and its Iraq by the Emir al-Basasiri, one of the loyalists of the Daylamites who had overcome the Abbasid caliphs in a dispute that took place between him and the princes of the Persians. He preached to them from its pulpits for a full year, and the Abbasids continued to choke on their place and their state, while the Umayyad kings beyond the sea were calling for woe and war from them. How could all this happen to a pretender in lineage who lies in assuming authority? Consider the case of the Qarmati, who was a pretender in lineage, how his call faded and his followers dispersed. Their evil and deceit quickly became apparent, so their end was bad and they tasted the consequences of their matter. And if the matter of the slaves had been clear like this, it would have been known, even after a while:

And whatever a man has of character, even if he thought it was hidden from the people, it would be known

Their state continued for about two hundred and sixty years, and they owned the station of Abraham, peace be upon him, and his place of prayer, and the place of the Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, and his burial place, and the place of the pilgrims’ station, and the place of the descent of the angels, then their matter and their followers in all of that were extinct, despite what they were upon of complete obedience to them and love for them and their belief in the lineage of Imam Ismail bin Jaafar al-Sadiq. And they came out repeatedly after the state was gone and its effect was lost, calling for their innovation, calling out the names of boys from their descendants, claiming their entitlement to the caliphate, and going to appoint them by the will of those who came before them from the imams. And if they had doubted their lineage, they would not have taken the risk of defending them, so the owner of innovation is not confused in his matter, nor is he similar in his innovation, nor does he lie to himself in what he claims. It is surprising that Judge Abu Bakr al-Baqillani, the Sheikh of the theologians, inclined towards this weak article and held this weak opinion. If that was because of their atheism in religion and their deep-rooted Shiite faith, then that was not a motive at the beginning of their call, and proving their affiliation was not something that would suffice them in their disbelief. God Almighty said to Noah, peace be upon him, regarding his son, “He is not of your family. He has done something that is not righteous. So do not ask about that of which you have no knowledge.” And he, may God bless him and grant him peace, said to Fatima, admonishing her, “O Fatima, work, for I will not suffice you in the face of God.” Whenever a person knows a matter and is certain of a matter, it is obligatory for him to proclaim it, and God speaks the truth and guides to the path. The people were in the realm of suspicion among states and under the control of tyrants due to the abundance of their followers and their spread in the farthest reaches with their call, and their repeated emergence time after time, so their men took refuge in hiding and were hardly known, as was said:

If you ask the days what my name is, you will not know, and where my place is, you will not know where it is. Even Muhammad bin Ismail, the Imam, grandfather of Abdullah al-Mahdi, was called the hidden one. His Shiites named him thus because they agreed to hide him, out of caution from those who would overcome them. Thus, the Shiites of the Abbasids reached the point of attacking their lineage when they appeared, and they approached this opinion, which speaks for the weak among their caliphs. Their guardians and the princes of their state who were in charge of their wars with the enemies admired it, defending themselves and their authority from the disgrace of inability to resist and defend those who had overcome them in Syria, Egypt, and the Hijaz from the hidden Berbers, the Shiites of the Ubaids and the people of their call. Even the judges in Baghdad recorded their denial of this lineage, and a group of prominent people testified to that, including al-Sharif al-Radi, the brothers of al-Murtada, Ibn al-Batahawi, and among the scholars Abu Hamid al-Isfarayini, al-Qudduri, al-Saymari, Ibn al-Akfani, al-Abiwardi, Abu Abdullah bin al-Nu’man, the jurist of the Shiites, and other prominent figures of the nation in Baghdad on a famous day, and that was in the year 460 in the days of al-Qadir. Their testimony in this is based on hearing what became famous and known among the people of Baghdad, most of whom are the Shiites of the Abbasids who challenge this lineage, so the historians transmitted it as they heard it and narrated it as they understood it, and the truth is behind it. In the book of Al-Mu’tadid regarding Ubayd Allah to Ibn al-Aghlab in Kairouan and Ibn Madrar in Sijilmasa, there is the most truthful witness and clearest evidence of the authenticity of their lineage, for Al-Mu’tadid was more devoted to the lineage of the people of the house than anyone else, and the state and the sultanate are a market for the world to which the goods of science and crafts are brought, sought in the misguidance of the rule, challenged by the mounts of narrations and news, and what is spent in it is spent by everyone, so if the state is free from oppression, bias, corruption and sophistry and follows the path of nations and does not deviate from the intended path, then pure gold and refined silver will be spent in its market, and if it goes with the purposes and spites and raging with the brokers of the Arabs, injustice and falsehood, then dazzle and falsehood will be spent, and the discerning critic is the balance of his sight and the scale of his research and his seeker. And like this and much more than that is what those who defame the lineage of Idris bin Idris bin Abdullah bin Hassan bin Hassan bin Ali bin Abi Talib, may God be pleased with them, the Imam after his father in the far west, whisper about, and they expose the imposition of the limit by suspecting that the pregnancy left behind by Idris the elder is Rashid, their master, may God curse them and make them distant, how ignorant they are. Do they not know that Idris the elder was married to the Berbers and that from the time he entered the Maghreb until God Almighty took him, he was deeply rooted in the Bedouins and that the condition of the Bedouins in such a case is not hidden, they have no ambushes in which suspicion can arise, and the conditions of their entire sanctuary are in full view of their neighbors and in the hearing of their neighbors due to the closeness of the walls and the surrounding of the buildings and the lack of separations between the dwellings, and Rashid was in charge of serving the entire sanctuary after his master in the presence of their guardians and followers and the monitoring of all of them, and the Berbers of the far west agreed in general to pledge allegiance to Idris the younger after his father and gave him their obedience with satisfaction and applause and pledged allegiance to him to the red death and crossed the seas of death for him in his wars and conquests, even if They thought of such suspicions, or their ears were ringing, even if it was from a slanderous enemy or a suspicious hypocrite, they would have refrained from doing so, even some of them. No, by God, these words only came from the Abbasids, their leaders, and from the Aghlabids, their workers who were in Africa and their governors.

When Idris the Great fled to Morocco from the Battle of Balkh, al-Hadi ordered the Aghlabids to set up watchtowers for him and to spy on him, but they could not find him. He reached Morocco, and his matter was completed and his call became apparent. Al-Rashid appeared after that, despite what was clear from their master and their agent in Alexandria, of the plot of Shi’ism for the Alawites and his trickery in saving Idris to Morocco, so he killed him. Al-Shamakh, one of the loyalists of his father al-Mahdi, plotted to kill Idris, so he appeared to join him and disavow the Abbasids, his loyalists. Idris embraced him and mixed with him himself, and Al-Shamakh gave him poison in some of his private moments with which he consumed him. The news of his death fell on the Abbasids in the best of places, as they had hoped to cut off the causes of the Alawite call in Morocco and uproot its germ. When the news of Idris’s miscarriage reached them, they had nothing but failure and nothing. The call had returned, the Shi’ites in Morocco had appeared, and their state under Idris ibn Idris had been renewed. That was more painful for them than the fall of a meteor, and failure and decrepitude had descended upon the state of the Arabs. They ascended to the farthest, so the limit of Rashid’s power over Idris the Great, with his position in the farthest part of Morocco and the Berbers’ control over him, was not except by tricking him into killing him with poisons. Then they turned to their Aghlabids in Africa to close that gap from their side and to end the disease expected in the state from them and to uproot those veins before they broke out from them. Al-Ma’mun and his successors after him addressed them with this. The Aghlabids were more helpless than the Berbers of the far Maghreb, and like them, the clients of their kings were more in need of what the Caliphate had approached, from seizing the kingdoms of the Persians to their leadership and riding the back of domination over them and disposing of their rulings according to their purposes in their men and their taxes and the people of their plans and all their violations and conclusions, as their poet said: A Caliph in a cage between a servant and a parrot. He will not believe what they said to him, as a parrot says. So these Aghlabids princes feared the beginnings of the slander and recited excuses, at first by despising Morocco and its people and at other times by terrorizing the outgoing Idris. And he and those who took his place from his descendants address him for exceeding the boundaries of his work and they implement his coin in their gifts and presents and the height of their taxes, exposing his encroachment and intimidating the strength of his power and magnifying what they pushed him to demand and correspondence and threatening to overthrow the call if they resorted to him and sometimes they attack the lineage of Idris with such false attack to diminish his status, not caring about his truthfulness or his lie due to the great distance and the minds of those behind the sons of the Abbasids and their Persian kingdoms in accepting every speaker and listening to every croaker and this continued their habit until the matter of the Aghlabids came to an end and this heinous word struck the ears of the mob and some of the attackers listened to it and considered it a pretext to attack their successors when competing. And what is wrong with them, may God curse them, and the deviation from the objectives of the Sharia, for there is no contradiction in it between the certain and the suspected, and Idris was born on his father’s bed and the child belongs to the bed. It is a belief of the people of faith to exonerate the people of the house from such a thing, for God Almighty has removed from them impurity and purified them thoroughly, so the bed of Idris is pure from filth and free from impurity according to the ruling of the Qur’an. Whoever believes otherwise has incurred his sin and entered disbelief through its door. I have only elaborated on this response to close the doors of doubt and to repel from the heart of the envious one what my ears have heard from its speaker who is aggressive towards them and who casts doubt on their lineage with his slander and who allegedly quotes it from some historians of Morocco who have deviated from the people of the house and doubted the belief in their predecessors. Otherwise, the place is free from that and is infallible from it, and denying the defect where it is impossible for a defect is a defect. However, I argued on their behalf in this worldly life and I hope that they will argue on my behalf on the Day of Resurrection. And know that most of those who cast doubt on their lineage are envious of the descendants of Idris, because of their favor to the people of the house or an intruder among them, for claiming this noble lineage is a broad claim of honor for nations and generations from the people of the horizons, so accusations are exposed in it.

 

And since the lineage of these Banu Idris in their homelands in Persia and the rest of the lands of the Maghreb has reached a level of fame and clarity that is almost unmatched and no one can hope to attain, since it is the transmission of the nation and generation from the successor to the nation and generation from the predecessor, and the house of their grandfather Idris is the founder of Fez and its founder from their houses and his mosque is adjacent to their neighborhood and their paths and his sword is drawn at the top of the great minaret in the heart of their country and other than that of his traces whose news has exceeded the limits of mutawatir many times and almost reached the eye, then if others of this lineage look at what God has given them of the likes of it and what has strengthened their prophetic honor from the majesty of the kingdom that their predecessors had in the Maghreb and are certain that he is isolated from that and that none of them can reach the extent of it or half of it, and that the ultimate matter of those belonging to the noble house who have not obtained such evidence is that their situation is accepted because people are believed in their lineages and there is a distance between knowledge and suspicion and certainty and submission, so if he knows that about himself, his luster will be choked and many of them would like to turn them back from their honor, that they are commoners and lowly. Out of envy from themselves, they return to stubbornness and committing obstinacy and slander with such a slanderous accusation and false statement, claiming equality in suspicion and similarity in the possibility of possibility. They are unlikely to do so, for there is no one in Morocco, as far as we know, from the people of this noble house who reaches the level of clarity and frankness of his lineage as the descendants of this Idris from the family of Al-Hassan. And their leaders in this era are the Banu Imran in Fez, from the descendants of Yahya al-Khawti ibn Muhammad ibn Yahya al-Awam ibn al-Qasim ibn Idris ibn Idris, and they are the leaders of the people of the House there and the residents of the house of their grandfather Idris, and they have sovereignty over all the people of Morocco, as we will mention when mentioning the Idrisis, God willing. And to these corrupt articles and deviant doctrines is attached what the weak-minded among the jurists of Morocco are discussing of slandering the Imam al-Mahdi, the founder of the Almohad state, and attributing to him sorcery and deception in what he did in establishing true monotheism and criticizing the people of rebellion before him and their denial of all his claims in that, even in what the Almohads, his followers, claim of his affiliation to the people of the House. And the jurists were only driven to deny him by what was hidden in their souls of envy of him for his status, for when they saw in themselves his opposition in knowledge and fatwa and in religion, according to their claim, and then he was distinguished from them in that his opinion was followed, his speech was heard, and his heels were trodden, they took that upon himself and diminished it by slandering his doctrines and denial. And also, they were comforted by the kings of the Mutuna, his enemies, with a reverence and dignity that they did not have from others because of their naivety and their impersonation of religion. So the bearers of knowledge of their state had a place of prestige and standing up for consultation, each in his country and according to his ability among his people. Thus, they became their followers and at war with their enemy. They resented the Mahdi for what he brought of disagreement with them and reproach against them and opposition, for them, out of resentment of the Mutuna and fanaticism for their state. The place of the man is not their place and his condition is not according to their beliefs. What do you think of a man who resented the people of the state as he resented their conditions and his ijtihad differed from their jurists? So he called out to his people and called for jihad against them himself, so he uprooted the state from its roots and made its top down, the greatest of all, the most powerful, the most powerful, the most honorable of supporters and protectors. And in that, souls fell from his followers, whose number is only counted by their Creator, and they pledged allegiance to him on death and protected him with their souls from destruction and drew closer to God Almighty by wasting their lives in showing that call and fanaticism. For that word until it rose above words and was directed by the two enemies of the countries and he was in a state of austerity and confinement and patience in the face of hardships and belittling the world until God took him and he did not have anything of the fortune and enjoyment in his world even a child that souls may incline towards and be deceived from wishing for it, so I wonder what he intended by that if it was not for the sake of God and he did not obtain a fortune from the world in his immediate life and with this if his intention was not good his matter would not have been completed and his call would not have been expanded according to the law of God that has passed in His servants and as for their denial of his lineage in the people of the house it is not supported by an argument for them even though if it is proven that he claimed it and was affiliated with it then there is no evidence that stands to prove its invalidity because people are believed in their lineages even if they said that the presidency is not for a people who are not from their skin as is correct according to what will come in the first chapter of this book and the man led all the Masmuda and they pledged to follow him and submit to him and to his gang from Hargha until the matter of God in his call was completed so know that this Fatimid lineage was not the matter of the Mahdi depended on it nor did the people follow him because of it but rather their following of him was by fanaticism Al-Hariga and Al-Masmoudiyya and his place in it and the depth of his tree in it. That Fatimid lineage was hidden and forgotten by the people, so that it remained with him and his clan, who would pass it on among themselves. Thus, the first lineage was as if it had been stripped from him and donned the skin of these people and appeared in them. The first lineage did not harm him in his clan, since it was unknown to the people of the clan. Something like this often happens if the first lineage was hidden.

And look at the story of Urfajah and Jarir in the leadership of Bajila and how Urfajah was from Azd and wore the skin of Bajila until he disputed with Jarir their leadership in the presence of Omar, may God be pleased with him, as mentioned, you will understand from him the face of the truth and God is the guide to the right and we almost went beyond the purpose of the book by going into detail about these fallacies, for the feet of many of the trustworthy and the historians of the preservation of such hadiths and opinions slipped and their ideas were stuck and transmitted from them by all of the weak-sighted and heedless of analogy and they also received them likewise without research or contemplation and they were included in their archives until the art of history became weak and mixed and its observer confused and considered one of the general trends. So the master of this art needs knowledge of the rules of politics and the natures of the existing and the differences between nations and regions and ages in conduct and morals and customs and sects and doctrines and all conditions and the comprehension of the present of that and the similarity between it and the absent of the agreement or the distance between them of disagreement and the explanation of what is agreed upon and what is different and the establishment of the foundations of states and religions and the principles of their emergence and the reasons for their occurrence and the reasons for their being And the conditions of those who are in charge of it and their news until he is comprehensive of the reasons for each of his news, and then he presents the news of the transmitted to what he has of rules and principles, if it agrees with them and proceeds according to their requirements, it is correct, otherwise he falsifies it and does not need it. The ancients did not disdain the science of history except for that, until al-Tabari, al-Bukhari, and Ibn Ishaq before them and their likes from the scholars of the nation assumed it. Many were unaware of this secret in it until assuming it became unknown, and the common people and those who do not have a firm foundation in knowledge took lightly its reading and carrying it and delving into it and intruding upon it, so the pasture was mixed with the neglected and the core with the shell and the truthful with the liar, and to God is the outcome of matters. Among the hidden mistakes in history is the ignorance of the change of conditions in nations and generations with the change of eras and the passage of days, and this is a very hidden resounding noise, as it does not occur except after long eras, so hardly anyone among the people of creation is aware of it, and that is because the conditions of the world and nations and their customs and their sects do not remain at one pace and a stable method, but rather it is a difference over days and times and a transition from one state to another, and as that happens in individuals, times and countries. Likewise, in the horizons, regions, times and countries, the law of God that has passed among His servants occurs. There were in the world the first nations of the Persians, the Syrians, the Nabataeans, the Tubba’a, the Children of Israel and the Copts, and they were in conditions specific to them in their countries, kingdoms, politics, industries, languages, terminology and all their participation with their fellows and the conditions of their habitation of the world, as their traces bear witness. Then came after them the second groups, the Romans and the Arabs, and those conditions changed and the customs were reversed with them to what is similar to them or similar to them and to what is different from them or distances them. Then Islam came with the state of Mudar, and those conditions were reversed and completely reversed and became what is most of them, so this era became known by taking it from the predecessors. Then the state of the Arabs and their days were destroyed and the ancestors who built their resolve and paved their kingdom were gone and the matter fell into the hands of others from the Persians, such as the Turks in the East, the Berbers in the West and the Franks in the North. With their departure, nations went and conditions and customs were reversed, their affairs were forgotten and their matter was ignored. The common reason for the change in conditions and customs is that customs Every generation is subject to the customs of its sultan, as is said in the proverbs of wisdom: “People follow the religion of the king and the people of the king and the sultan. If they seize the state and the matter, they must resort to the customs of those before them and take many of them, and they must not neglect the customs of their generation. However, some differences occur in the customs of the state from the customs of the first generation. If another state comes after them and mixes their customs with its customs, it also differs somewhat and is more severe in its difference to the first. Then the gradual difference continues until it ends in total dissent. As long as nations and generations succeed one another in kingship and authority, differences in customs and conditions continue to occur.”

And the analogy and imitation of man is a known nature and from error is not safe, it takes him out with astonishment and negligence from his intention and deviates from his goal. Perhaps the listener hears a lot of news of the past and does not notice the change and reversal of conditions that occurred, so he applies it at first glance to what he knows and measures it with what he witnessed. And the difference between them may be great, so he falls into an abyss of error. From this chapter is what historians transmit about the conditions of Al-Hajjaj and that his father was one of the teachers, although teaching in this era is among the livelihood crafts far from the pride of the people of tribalism. And the teacher is a weak, poor, and disconnected person, so many of the weak people of crafts and livelihood crafts aspire to attain ranks that they are not worthy of and consider them among the possibilities for them, so the whispers of ambitions take them and perhaps its rope is cut from their hands, so they fall into the abyss of destruction and ruin, and they do not know its impossibility for them and that they are people of crafts and industries for livelihood, and that education in the early days of Islam and the two states was not like that, and knowledge in general was not a craft, but rather it was the transmission of what was heard from the Lawgiver and the teaching of what was ignorant of those on the side of communication, so the people of lineages were The group who established the religion, then those who teach the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, in the sense of informative communication, not in the manner of technical education, since it is their book revealed to the Messenger from among them and through it they are guided, and Islam is their religion, for which they fought and were killed, and they were distinguished by it from among the nations and were honored, so they are keen to convey that and make it understood by the nation, and the blamers of arrogance do not turn them away from it, nor do the critics of haughtiness deviate them. And the witness to that is the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, who sent his senior companions with the delegations of the Arabs to teach them the limits of Islam and what it brought of the laws of religion. He sent for that ten of his companions and those after them, and Islam was not established and the roots of the religion were intertwined until the distant nations took it from the hands of its people, and with the passage of time its conditions changed, and the derivation of the legal rulings from the texts increased due to the multiplicity of events and their succession, so that needed a law to protect it from error, and knowledge became a skill that needed learning, so it became one of the crafts and professions, as will be mentioned in the chapter on knowledge and education, and the people of the group were busy with establishing the kingdom and authority, so the knowledge of those who established it from among them was given, and it became a profession for livelihood, and noses were raised. The affluent and the people of authority were prevented from undertaking education, and its adoption was restricted to the weak, and its adopter became despised by the people of tribalism and kingship, and Al-Hajjaj bin Yusuf, his father was one of the leaders of Thaqif and their nobles, and their position in the tribalism of the Arabs and opposition to the Quraysh in honor, as I know, and his teaching of the Qur’an was not as it is in this era, that it is a profession for livelihood, but rather it was as we described from the first matter in Islam, and from this chapter also what those who browse history books imagine if they hear about the conditions of the judges and what they were like in leadership in wars and fuel for armies, so the whispers of ambitions rush to them to such ranks, they think that the matter is the plan of the judiciary in this era as it was before, and they think about Ibn Abi Amir, the companion of Hisham who was tyrannized over him, and Ibn Abbas, one of the kings of the sects in Seville, if they hear that their fathers were judges, that they are like the judges of this era, and they do not realize what happened in the rank of the judiciary in violation of customs, as we explain in the chapter on the judiciary in the first book, and Ibn Abi Amir and Ibn Abbad were from the Arab tribes that established the Umayyad state in Andalusia And the people of its clan and their place in it was known and they did not attain what they attained of leadership and kingship through the plan of the judiciary as it is in this era, but rather the judiciary in the old matter was for the people of clan from the type of the state and its loyalists as is the ministry in our era in Morocco. And look at their going out with the armies in the strange and their imposition of the great matters that are not imitated except for one who has wealth in it through clan, so the listener makes a mistake in that and interprets the conditions other than what they are, and most of what falls into this mistake are the weak-sighted people of Andalusia in this era due to the loss of clan in their homelands since ancient times with the demise of the Arabs and their state in it and their departure from the kingdom of the people of clans from the Berbers, so their Arab lineages remained preserved and the pretext for glory from clan and support was lost, but rather they became among the group of the cowardly subjects who from their worship of oppression and they yearned for humiliation.

They think that their lineage, combined with their intermingling with the state, is what will enable them to prevail and control, so you will find the craftsmen and tradesmen among them confronting this and striving to achieve it. As for those who deal with the affairs of the tribes, the clans and their states on the western side and how dominance occurs among nations and clans, they rarely make mistakes in this and err in their consideration. And from this chapter also is what historians follow when mentioning states and the order of their kings, so they mention his name, lineage, father, mother, women, title, seal, judge, chamberlain, and minister. All of this is an imitation of the historians of the two states without being aware of their intentions. The historians of that era were writing their histories for the people of the state and its sons, eager to see the lives of their ancestors and know their circumstances in order to follow in their footsteps and weave on their model, even in making men from behind their state and imitating plans and ranks for the sons of their craftsmen and relatives. The judges were also from the people of the state’s clan and among the ministers, as we mentioned to you, so they needed to mention all of that. But when the states differed and the eras became distant and the purpose was limited to knowing the kings themselves in particular and the lineage of the states from one another in their strength and dominance and who was opposing them from the nations or falling short of them, then what is the benefit for the author in this era in mentioning the news, women, and the inscription of the seal, title, judge, minister, and chamberlain from an ancient state in which their origins, lineages, and positions are not known? Rather, they were driven to that. Imitation and neglect of the aims of the ancient authors and oblivion from investigating the purposes of history, except for mentioning the ministers whose influence was great and whose news was widespread among the kings, such as Al-Hajjaj, the Banu Al-Muhallab, the Barmakids, the Banu Sahl ibn Nawbakht, Kafur Al-Ikhshid, Ibn Abi Amir and their likes. So other than the denunciation of the allusion to their fathers and the reference to their conditions, because they were included among the kings. Let us mention here a benefit with which we conclude our talk in this chapter, which is that history is only the mention of news specific to an era or generation. As for mentioning the general conditions of horizons, generations, and eras, it is a foundation for the historian upon which most of his purposes are built and through which his news is clarified. People used to single him out for writing, as al-Mas’udi did in his book Muruj al-Dhahab, in which he explained the conditions of nations and horizons during his era in the era of the 330s and 300s, west and east, and mentioned their sects and customs, and described countries, mountains, seas, kingdoms, states, and the divisions of the Arab and Persian peoples. He became an imam for historians who refer to him and a foundation upon which they rely in verifying much of their news. Then al-Bakri came after him and did the same in the paths and kingdoms specifically, not in other conditions, because the nations and generations during his era did not undergo much transition or great change. As for this era, which is the end of the eighth century, the conditions of the Maghreb that we witnessed were reversed and changed in general, and the generations of the Berbers replaced its people in antiquity with what happened in it from the fifth century of the generations of the Arabs, when they defeated them and overcame them and took from them most of the homelands and shared with them what remained of the countries. This is their kingdom, to what befell the civilization of the East and the West in the middle of this eighth century of the sweeping plague that wronged the nations and took away the people of the generation and folded up many of the beauties of civilization and erased them and came to the nations at a time when they were old and reached the end of their range, so it reduced their shadows and diminished their edge and weakened their authority and their wealth collapsed and decayed and the civilization of the earth was destroyed by the collapse of people so the cities and factories were destroyed and the paths and landmarks were obliterated and the homes and houses were empty and the nations and tribes weakened and the inhabitants changed and it is as if the East had been afflicted with what befell the West but in proportion and the extent of its civilization and it is as if the tongue of the universe called in the world for inactivity and contraction so it hastened to answer and God is the inheritor of the earth and those on it and if conditions change altogether it is as if creation changed from its origin and the entire world was transformed as if it were a new creation and a renewed origin and a modern world so this era needed someone to record the conditions of creation and horizons and its generations and the customs and sects that changed for its people and to follow the path of al-Masudi for his era to be a principle to be followed And whoever comes from the historians after him, and I mention in this book of mine what I was able to in this Moroccan country, either explicitly or included in its news and as an allusion to the specialization of my intention in writing about Morocco and the conditions of its generations and nations and mentioning its kingdoms and states without other countries due to my lack of knowledge of the conditions of the East and its nations and that the transmitted news does not fulfill the essence of what I want from it and Al-Masoudi only completed that due to the length of his journey and his moving around in the countries as he mentioned in his book, although when he mentioned Morocco he fell short in completing its conditions and above every knowledgeable person is the All-Knowing and all knowledge is returned to God and mankind is helpless and deficient and recognition is necessary and obligatory and whoever God is in his aid, the doctrines will be made easy for him and the efforts and demands will be successful for him and we are taking God’s aid in what we sought from the purposes of writing and God is the guide and the helper and upon Him we rely and it remains for us to provide an introduction on how to place the letters that are not from the languages of the Arabs if they are presented in this book of ours.

Know that the letters in pronunciation, as will be explained later, are the qualities of the sounds coming out of the larynx, which are exposed to the cutting of the sound by striking the uvula and the edges of the tongue with the palate, throat and molars, or by striking the lips also, so the qualities of the sounds change with the difference in that striking, and the letters come distinct in the hearing and from them are composed the words that indicate what is in the pronouns, and not all nations are equal in pronunciation of those letters, for one nation may have letters that another nation does not, and the letters that the Arabs pronounced are twenty-eight letters, as you know, and we find that the Hebrews have letters that are not in our language, and in our language also letters that are not in their language, and so are the Franks, the Turks, the Berbers and others from the Persians. Then the People of the Book from the Arabs agreed in indicating their audible letters with the positions of written letters distinguished by their persons, such as the position of Alif, Ba, Jim, Ra, Ta, and so on until the end of the twenty-eight. And if a letter that is not from the letters of their language is presented to them, it remains neglected from the written indication and ignored from the explanation, and perhaps some writers draw it in the form of the letter that surrounds it from our language before or after it, and not It is not a Kaf in meaning, but rather it is a change of the letter from its original. Since our book contains news of the Berbers and some of the Persians, and we were presented with letters in their names or some of their words that are not from the language of our book, nor a convention or a lost one, we were forced to explain it and we were not satisfied with the writing of the letter that follows it as we said because for us it is not sufficient to indicate it, so I agreed in this book of mine to place that Persian letter in what indicates the two letters that surround it so that the reader may mediate in pronouncing it between the points of articulation of those two letters and thus its performance is achieved. I only took that from the writing of the people of the Qur’an, the letters of ishmām, such as al-sirat in the recitation of Khalaf, for the pronunciation of its sad in it is a dictionary between the sad and the zay, so they placed the sad and drew inside it the shape of the zay, and that indicated to them the mediation between the two letters. Likewise, I wrote the kaf, a letter that mediates between two of our letters, like the kaf that is mediated among the Berbers between the explicit kaf in our case and the jim or qaf, like the name Balkin, so I put it as a kaf and dotted it with one dot on the jim from below or with one dot on the qaf from above or twice, and that indicates that it is The middle letter between the Kaf and the Jeem or the Qaf. This letter occurs most often in the Berber language and what comes from others. So based on this analogy, I place the middle letter between two letters from our language with both letters together so that the reader knows that it is middle and pronounces it like that. Thus, we have indicated it. If we had placed it with the drawing of the single letter on its side, we would have changed it from its point of articulation to the point of articulation of the letter from our language and other than the language of the people. So know that, and God is the guide to what is right, by His grace and favor.

 

 

 

The first book on the nature of civilization in creation and what occurs in it of nomadism, urbanization, domination, earnings, livelihood, industries, sciences, and the like, and the causes and reasons for that #

 

Know that since the reality of history is that it is a report of human society, which is the civilization of the world, and what is exposed to the nature of that civilization of conditions such as savagery, domestication, fanaticism, and various kinds of domination of people over one another, and what results from that of kingship, states and their ranks, and what people assume through their actions and endeavors of earning and living, sciences and industries, and all the other conditions that occur from that civilization by its nature of conditions. And since lying is inherent in news and has causes that require it, including following opinions and doctrines, for if the soul is in a state of moderation in accepting news, it gives it its due scrutiny and examination until its truth is distinguished from its falsehood. And if it is overcome by following an opinion or doctrine, it accepts whatever news agrees with it at first glance. And that inclination and following is a cover over the eye of its insight from criticism and scrutiny, so it falls into accepting and transmitting lies. Among the causes that require lying in news is also trust in the transmitters, and the scrutiny of that goes back to modification and disparagement. Among them is forgetting the intentions, as many of the narrators do not know the intention of what they have seen or heard and transmit the news based on their assumption and guess, so they fall into lying. Among them is the assumption of truth, which is common and comes mostly from trust in the narrators. Among them is ignorance of applying conditions to events because of the confusion and affectation that enters them, so the narrator transmits them as he saw them, although they are affectation and not true in themselves. Among them is the approach of people in most cases to those of veneration and ranks through praise and flattery and improving conditions and spreading mention of that, so the news of it is widespread without truth, as souls are fond of loving praise and people are looking forward to the world and its causes of prestige or wealth, and they are not in most cases desirous of factions nor competing for its people. And among the reasons that also require it, and which precede all that has been mentioned, is ignorance of the nature of conditions in civilization, for every incident, whether it is an essence or an action, must have a nature that is specific to it in itself and in the conditions that it encounters. So if the listener is knowledgeable about the nature of incidents and conditions in existence and their requirements, this will help him in scrutinizing the news to distinguish truth from falsehood. This is more effective in scrutiny than any other aspect that is presented. And listeners often accept impossible news and transmit it and it is transmitted from them, as Al-Mas’udi reported from Alexander when the sea creatures prevented him from building Alexandria, and how he took a glass box and dived into it to the bottom of the sea until he depicted those demonic creatures that he saw and made statues of them from metal bodies and set them up next to the building, and those creatures fled when they came out and saw them and they were built in a long story of impossible mythical tales before he took the glass coffin and clashed with the sea and its waves with his body and before the fact that kings do not bear themselves to such arrogance, and whoever among them relied on it exposed himself to destruction, the collapse of the knot, and the gathering of people to Other than that, and in that is his destruction, and they do not see him return from his delusion, that is the blink of an eye, and before that, the jinn do not know of an image or statues that are specific to them, but rather they are capable of forming, and what he mentions of the many heads for them, then what is meant by it is ugliness and terror, not that it is the truth. All of these are flaws in that story, and the flaw that refers to it from the path of existence is clearer than all of this, which is that the one immersed in water, even if he were in a box, the air for natural breathing becomes narrow for him and his soul heats up quickly due to its scarcity, so his companion loses the cold air that regulates the temperament of the lung and the heart’s soul, and he perishes in his place. This is the reason for the perishing of the people of the baths if they close in on them from the cold air, and those hanging in the wells and deep tunnels, if their air is heated with assistance and the winds do not enter it and break it, then the one hanging in them perishes immediately. And for this reason, the death of the whale occurs when it leaves the sea, for the air is not sufficient for it to regulate its lungs, since it is excessively hot, and the water that regulates it is cold, and the air that it comes out to is hot, so the hot takes over its animal soul and he perishes suddenly. From this is the perishing of those who are struck down and the like. And from the impossible news is what al-Mas’udi also transmitted about the statue of the starling to which the starlings gather in Rome on a specific day of the year, carrying olives, from which they make their oil. And see how far that is from the natural course in making oil. And from it is what he transmitted Al-Bakri in the construction of the city called Dhat al-Abwab surrounds more than thirty stages and includes ten thousand gates and cities were only built for fortification and protection as follows and this went out from being surrounded so there is no fortress or protection and as al-Mas’udi also transmitted in the hadith of the city of copper and that it is a city whose construction is entirely copper in the desert of Sijilmasa that Musa bin Nusayr seized in his expedition to the Maghreb and that its gates are closed and that whoever ascends to it from its walls if he looks over the wall he claps and throws himself and does not return until the end of time in a hadith that is usually impossible from the fables of storytellers and the desert of Sijilmasa was shaken off by the riders and guides and they did not stop for this city on their news that these conditions that they mentioned about it are all usually impossible and contrary to the natural matters in building and planning cities and that the most of the minerals that exist from them is to be spent on vessels and dung and as for building a city from it, as you see from the impossibility and remoteness and the likes of that are many and its scrutiny is only by knowing the nature of civilization and it is the best and most reliable way to scrutinize the news and distinguish its truth from its falsehood and it precedes the scrutiny by the correction of the narrators and does not return to the correction of the narrators until it is known That this news in itself is possible or impossible, but if it is impossible, then there is no benefit in considering the modification and criticism. And the people of consideration have considered among the objections to the news the impossibility of the meaning of the word and its interpretation in a way that the mind does not accept. Rather, modification and criticism are what are considered in the validity of the legal news because most of it is constructive obligations that the Lawgiver has made it obligatory to act upon until there is a belief in its truthfulness, and the way to the validity of belief is trust in the narrators with justice and precision.

As for the news about events, its truthfulness and correctness must be based on the consideration of conformity. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the possibility of its occurrence, and this has become more important than modification and takes precedence over it, since the benefit of the construction is derived from it only, and the benefit of the news from it and from the outside is by conformity. If that is the case, then the law in distinguishing truth from falsehood in news by possibility and impossibility is to look at human society, which is civilization, and distinguish what conditions are attached to it in itself and according to its nature, and what is incidental and not taken into account, and what cannot be attached to it. If we do that, then that will be a law for us in distinguishing truth from falsehood in news and truth from falsehood by a demonstrative method in which there is no room for doubt. Then, if we hear about something of the conditions that occur in civilization, we know what we judge to be acceptable and what we judge to be false, and that will be a correct criterion for us by which historians investigate the path of truth and correctness in what they transmit. This is the purpose of this first book of ours, and it is as if this is an independent science in itself, for it has a subject, which is human civilization and human society, and it has issues, which are explaining what accidents and conditions are attached to it in itself, one after another. This is the case with every science, whether it is positive or rational. Know that speech on this subject is a new craft, strange in its tendency, and of little benefit. Research has found it and diving has led to it. It is not from the science of rhetoric, but rather it is persuasive statements that are useful in attracting the public to an opinion or turning them away from it. It is also not from the science of civil politics, since civil politics is the management of the home or the city in a manner that is required by virtue of morals and wisdom in order to lead the public to a method in which the species is preserved and continues. Its subject matter differs from the subject matter of these two arts that perhaps resemble it, as if it were a science of derived origin. By my life, I have not come across speech on its subject matter for anyone among creation. I do not know whether they were unaware of that, and I do not suspect them, or perhaps they wrote on this subject and completed it, but it did not reach us. The sciences are many, and the wise men among the nations of the human species are numerous. What has not reached us of the sciences is more than what has reached us. So where are the sciences of the Persians, which Umar, may God be pleased with him, ordered to be erased at the conquest? Where are the sciences of the Chaldeans, the Syriacs, and the people of Babylon, and what appeared among them of their effects and results? Where are the sciences of the Copts and those before them? Rather, the sciences of one nation have reached us, and they are the Greeks in particular, because al-Ma’mun was charged with removing them from Their language and his ability to do so with the abundance of translators and the spending of money on it, and we did not find anything from the sciences of others, and if every related natural truth is suitable for us to search for what is exposed to it from the accidents in itself, it must be based on the consideration of every concept and truth of a science of the sciences that is specific to it, but the wise perhaps only noticed in that the care for the fruits, and this is only its fruit in the news as you have seen, even though its issues in themselves and in their specialization are noble, but its fruit is correcting the news, and it is weak, so for this reason they abandoned it, and God knows best, and you have been given only a little knowledge, and this art that has appeared to us to look into, we find from it issues that are presented to the people of sciences in the proofs of their sciences, and they are of the same type as its issues in the subject and the request, like what the wise and scholars mention in proving prophethood that humans cooperate in their existence, so they need a ruler and a deterrent, and like what is mentioned in the principles of jurisprudence in the chapter on proving languages, that people need to express the purposes by the nature of cooperation and meeting, and clarifying the expressions is lighter, and like what the jurists mention in explaining the legal rulings by the purposes, that adultery mixes lineages and corrupts the species, and that Killing also corrupts the species and injustice is a harbinger of the destruction of civilization leading to the corruption of the species. Other than that, there are other objectives of the Shari’a in the rulings, as they are all based on preserving civilization, so it had to consider what is exposed to it, and this is apparent from our speech in these representative issues. Likewise, a little of its issues come to us in the scattered words of the wise men of creation, but they did not complete it. Among the words of the Mobadhan Bahram bin Bahram in the story of the owl that Al-Mas’udi transmitted: O king, the glory of the king is not complete except through the Shari’a and standing up for God in His obedience and acting under His command and prohibition. The Shari’a has no foundation except through the king, and the glory of the king is only through men, and the men have no foundation except through money, and there is no way for money except through construction, and there is no way for construction except through justice. Justice is the scale set up among creation. The Lord set it up and made for it a guardian, and he is the king. Among the words of Anushirwan in this same meaning: The king is through the army, the army is through money, money is through tax, tax is through construction, construction is through justice, justice is through the reform of workers, and the reform of workers is through the integrity of ministers, and the head of all is through the king’s inspection of the condition of his subjects himself and his ability to perform it so that he owns them and they do not own him. In the book attributed to Aristotle on politics, which is circulating among the people, there is a good part of it, but it is not complete and is not given its due in terms of proofs and is mixed with other things. In that book, he referred to these words that we have quoted from Mobadhan and Anushirwan and placed them in the close circle in which the greatest statement is his saying: The world is a garden, its fence is the state, and the state is a sultan by which the year lives, a policy that the king governs, a system supported by soldiers, helpers guaranteed by money, a livelihood collected by the subjects, slaves protected by justice, familiar and by which the pillars of the world are a garden. Then you return to the beginning of the statement. These are eight wise political words, some of which are linked to each other, and their ends return to their beginnings and are connected in a circle whose end is not specified. He was proud of finding them and magnified their benefits.

And if you contemplate our speech in the chapter on states and kingship and give it its due right of browsing and understanding, you will find during it an explanation of these words and a detailed summary of their summary, fully explained with the most comprehensive explanation and clearest evidence and proof that God has informed us of without the teaching of Aristotle or the benefit of Mobedhan. Likewise, you will find in the speech of Ibn al-Muqaffa’ and what he digresses in his letters from mentioning politics many of the issues of this book of ours that are not proven as we have proven, but rather he clarifies them in the mention in the manner of rhetoric in the style of correspondence and the eloquence of speech. Likewise, Judge Abu Bakr al-Tartushi circled in the book Siraj al-Muluk and arranged it into chapters close to the chapters of this book of ours and its issues, but he did not encounter the target in it nor hit the mark nor complete the issues nor clarify the evidence, but rather he arranged the chapter for the issue then he multiplied the hadiths and traces and transmitted scattered words of the Persian sages such as Buzur Jamhar and Mobedhan and the sages of India and what was transmitted from Daniel and Hermes and others from the greatest of creation, and he does not uncover the mask of investigation nor lift the veil of natural proofs, but rather he transmitted And the structure is similar to sermons, as if he hovered over the display and did not encounter it, nor did he achieve his purpose, nor did he complete its issues. And God inspired us to that with inspiration and we stumbled upon knowledge that made us between the indefinite and the apparent its news. So if I have completed its issues and distinguished from all other crafts its aspects and aspects, then it is success and guidance from God. And if I missed something in its enumeration and I was confused with something else, then it is for the one who is investigating to correct it, and I have the credit because I paved the way for him and made the path clear to him, and God guides with His light whomever He wills. And we now explain in this book what is presented to people in their society from the conditions of civilization in kingship, earnings, sciences, and crafts with demonstrative aspects that clarify the investigation in the knowledge of the special and the general, and by which illusions are dispelled and doubts are removed. We say that since man is distinguished from other animals by characteristics that he has acquired, including the sciences and industries that are the result of the thought that distinguishes him from animals and honors him by his description over creatures, and including the need for a deterrent judgment and a compelling authority, since he cannot exist without that among all animals, except what is said about bees and locusts, and if these have something like that, it is by way of inspiration, not by thought and contemplation, and including the pursuit of livelihood and working to obtain it from its aspects and acquiring its causes, since God has made the need for food in his life and survival and guided him to seek and ask for it, for the Most High gave everything He created and then guided, and from them is the civilization, which is cohabitation and compromise in Egypt or a setting for familiarity with the clan and the fulfillment of needs, because of what is in their nature of cooperation in livelihood, as we explain, and from this civilization is what is Bedouin, which is what is in the suburbs and in the mountains and in the resorted settings in the deserts and the edges of the sands, and from it is what is urban, which is what is in the cities and villages and towns and the city to take refuge in them and fortify themselves with their walls, and in all these conditions there are matters that are presented from the standpoint of society as intrinsic presentations for him It is no wonder that the discussion in this book is limited to six chapters.

 

 The first is about human civilization in general, its types and its share of the earth.

 The second is about Bedouin civilization and mentioning the wild tribes and nations.

 The third is about states, the caliphate and the kingdom and mentioning the royal ranks.

 The fourth is about urban civilization, countries and cities.

 The fifth is about industries, livelihood, earning and its aspects.

 The sixth is about sciences and their acquisition and learning.

 

I have presented Bedouin civilization because it preceded all of them, as we will explain to you later. Likewise, I have presented kingship over countries and cities. As for presenting livelihood, it is because livelihood is a natural necessity, and learning knowledge is a luxury or a necessity, and the natural precedes the luxury. I have placed crafts with earnings because they are from it in some ways and from the perspective of civilization, as we will explain to you later. And God is the guide to what is right and the helper to it.

 

The first chapter of the first book on human civilization in general, and it contains introductions #

 

The first is that human society is necessary, and the wise men express this by saying that man is a city by nature, meaning that he must have society, which is the city in their terminology, and it is the meaning of civilization. Its explanation is that God Almighty created man and composed him in an image whose life and survival are not valid except through food, and He guided him to seek it by his nature and by the ability that was created in him to obtain it. However, the ability of one human being is insufficient to obtain his need for that food, not fulfilling his life substance from it. Even if we assume that it is the least possible opportunity, which is a day’s sustenance of wheat, for example, it cannot be obtained except through a lot of treatment of grinding, kneading, and cooking. Each of these three works requires utensils and machines that cannot be completed except through various crafts of blacksmithing, carpentry, and pottery. And suppose that he eats it as grain without treatment, he also needs to obtain it as grain other works more than these, such as agriculture, harvesting, and threshing, which extracts the grain from the ear’s husk. Each of these requires multiple tools and many crafts, much more than the first, and it is impossible for the ability of one person to fulfill all or some of that, so it is necessary for the great number of his kind to come together in order for it to be obtained. Sustenance is for him and for them, so through cooperation they obtain a sufficient amount of need for more than they have by a factor of one. Likewise, each one of them also needs, in defending himself, to seek the assistance of his kind, because God Almighty, when He created the natures of all animals and divided the fate among them, made the portions of many dumb animals in ability more complete than the portion of man. So the ability of the horse, for example, is much greater than the ability of man, and so is the ability of the donkey and the bull, and the ability of the lion and the elephant is many times greater than his ability. And since aggression is natural in animals, He made for each one of them an organ that is specialized in defending it from the aggression of others, and He made for man instead of all that the mind and the hand, so the hand is prepared for crafts by serving the mind and crafts, and he obtains for him the tools that replace the limbs prepared in all animals for defense, such as spears that replace the butting horns, and swords that replace the cutting claws, and shields that replace the hard skin, and so on and so forth, which Galen mentioned in the book of the benefits of the organs, so the ability of one of the humans does not resist the ability of one of the dumb animals, especially the predatory ones, so he is unable to defend them alone as a whole, and his ability is also not sufficient by using the tools prepared for them, so in all of that there is no need for cooperation with his kind, and unless this cooperation is there, he will not obtain sustenance or food, and his life will not be completed because of the need for food that God Almighty has placed in him in his life, and he will not obtain defense for himself due to the loss of weapons, so he will be prey to animals and death will hasten him throughout his life, and the human species will be nullified. And if there is cooperation, he will obtain sustenance for food and weapons for defense, and the wisdom of God in his survival and preservation of his species will be completed, so then this The meeting is necessary for the human race, otherwise their existence and what God wanted of them populating the world and making them His successors would not be complete. This is the meaning of the civilization that we made the subject of this science. In these words there is a kind of proof of the subject in his art which is its subject. And even if it is not obligatory for the master of the art, since it is established in the logical industry that it is not upon the master of knowledge to prove the subject in that science, it is also not among the miscellaneous matters for them, so proving it is a donation, and God is the Grantor of success by His grace. Then if this meeting occurs for humans as we have established and the world is populated by them, then there must be a deterrent that repels some of them from others because of the aggression and injustice in their animal natures. And the weapon that was made to repel the aggression of dumb animals from them is not sufficient to repel aggression from them because it exists for all of them, so there must be something else that repels the aggression of some of them from others. And it is not from other than them because all animals are unable to comprehend and inspire them, so that deterrent is one of them who has dominance, authority and a powerful hand over them so that no one can reach anyone else with aggression. This is the meaning of kingship. It has become clear to you from this that man has a natural characteristic and they need it. It may be found in some dumb animals, as the sages have mentioned, as in the bees and locusts, because of what has been inferred from them of the rule, submission and following of a leader from among their individuals who is distinguished from them in his creation and body. However, this is found for other than man by virtue of nature and guidance, not by virtue of thought and policy. He gave each thing its creation and then guided it. And the philosophers add to this proof when they try to prove prophethood with evidence! The rational and that it is a natural characteristic of man, so they decide this proof to an end and that humans must have a deterrent judgment, then they say after that and that judgment is by a law imposed by God that is brought by one of the humans and that it must be distinguished from them by what God deposits in him in the characteristics of his guidance so that submission to him and acceptance from him occurs so that the judgment in them and against them is completed without denial or falsification. This issue for the wise is not deductive as you see, since the existence and life of humans may be completed without that by what the ruler imposes for himself or by the fanaticism by which he is able to subjugate them and force them to his path. The People of the Book and those who follow the prophets are few in comparison to the Magians who do not have a book, for they are the majority of the people of the world. However, they had states and monuments in addition to life, and so they have it to this era in the deviant regions in the north and south, unlike the life of humans, which is chaos without any deterrent for them at all, for it is impossible. Thus, their error becomes clear to you in the necessity of prophethood and that it is not rational, but rather its perception is the law as is the doctrine of the predecessors of the nation. And God is the Guardian of success and guidance.

 

The second introduction to the portion of the earth inhabited and a reference to some of the trees, rivers and regions in it #

 

Know that it has been shown in the books of the wise who have considered the conditions of the world that the shape of the earth is spherical and that it is surrounded by the element of water as if it were a grape floating on it, so the water receded from some of its sides when God willed to create animals in it and populate it with the human species that has the caliphate over the rest of it. It may be imagined from this that the water is under the earth, but this is not correct. Rather, the natural sculpture is a heart in the earth and the middle of its sphere, which is its center, and everything seeks it with what is in it of weight and what is other than that of its sides. As for the water surrounding it, it is above the earth, and if it is said about a part of it that it is under the earth, then it is in addition to another side of it. As for that from which the water has receded from the earth, it is half of the surface of its globe in the form of a circle surrounded by the element of water from all sides by a sea called the ocean sea and it is also called Lablaya with emphasis on the second lam and it is called or Qianus foreign names and it is called the green and black sea. Then this exposed part of the earth for inhabiting has more deserts and emptiness than it is inhabited and the empty part from the south of it is more than the north, and the inhabited part of it is more inclined to the north side in the form of a spherical plane that ends from the south to the equator and from the north to a spherical line and behind it are the mountains separating it from the elemental water between them is the dam of Gog and Magog and these mountains are inclined to the east and it ends from the east and west to the element of water also with two pieces of the surrounding circle and this exposed part of the earth they said is the amount of half of the globe or less and the inhabited part of it is the amount of a quarter of it and it is divided into the seven regions and the equator divides the earth in two halves from the west to the east and it is the length of the earth and the largest line in its globe as the region of the zodiac and the circle of the day is the largest line in the zodiac and the region of the zodiac is divided by three hundred And sixty degrees, and a degree of the distance of the Earth is twenty-five farsakhs, and a farsakh is twelve thousand cubits, and a cubit is twenty-four fingers, and a finger is six grains of barley arranged, stuck together, back to back, and between a circle and the day that divides the celestial sphere into two halves, and the elevation of the equator from the Earth, and between each of the two poles is ninety degrees, but the habitation in the northern part of the equator is sixty-four degrees, and the rest of it is empty, with no habitation in it, due to the intense cold and freezing, just as the southern part was completely empty due to the intense heat, as we will explain all of that, God willing. Then those who reported on this inhabited world and its borders and on what is in it of cities, towns, mountains, seas, rivers, deserts and sands, such as Ptolemy in his book on geography and the author of the book on Zachary after him, divided this inhabited world into seven sections which they called the seven regions with imaginary borders between the east and the west, equal in width and different in length. The first region is longer than the next, and so on to the second until the end of it, so that the seventh is shorter due to what is required by the position of the circle resulting from the receding of water from the globe of the earth. Each one of these regions, according to them, is divided into ten parts from the west to the east in succession, and in each part is the report on its conditions and the conditions of its civilization. They mentioned that this ocean emerges from the direction of Morocco in the fourth region, the well-known Roman Sea. It begins in a gulf, then narrows to a width of twelve miles or so between Tangier and Tarifa, and it is called the Strait. Then it goes east and expands to a width of six hundred miles, and its end is at the end of the fourth part of the fourth region, one thousand and one hundred and sixty leagues from its beginning. On it there are the coasts of the Levant, and on it from the south are the coasts of Morocco, the first of which is Tangier at the gulf, then Africa, then Barqa, where Alexandria is, and from the north are the coasts of Constantinople at the gulf, then Venice, then Rome, then the Franks, then Andalusia to Tarifa, where the Strait is opposite Tangier. This is called the Roman and Syrian seas, and in it are many large, populated islands, such as Crete, Cyprus, Sicily, Majorca, and Sardinia. They said: And from it emerge from the north two other seas from two gulfs. One of them is parallel to Constantinople, it begins from this sea, narrowing to the width of an arrow’s throw, and passes through three seas, then connects with Constantinople, then expands to a width of four miles, and runs sixty miles in its course, and is called the Gulf of Constantinople, then emerges from a mouth six miles wide, and extends the Sea of Nitish, which is a sea that deviates from there in its course to the east, passes the land of Heraclea, and ends in the land of Khazaria, one thousand three hundred miles from its mouth, and on it on both sides are nations of the Romans, Turks, Burjans, and Russians. The second sea of the two gulfs of this Roman sea, which is the Sea of Venice, emerges from the land of the Romans in the direction of the north, and when it reaches the direction of the mountain, it deviates in the direction of the west to the land of the Venetians, and ends in the land of Incala, one thousand one hundred miles from its beginning, and on its edges are nations of the Venetians, the Romans, and others, and it is called the Gulf of Venice.

They said: And from this ocean also flows from the east and thirteen degrees north of the equator, a great, wide sea that passes a little south until it ends in the first region, then passes through it westward until it ends in the fifth part of it in the lands of Abyssinia and Zanj and in the lands of Bab al-Mandab from it, four thousand leagues from its beginning, and it is called the Chinese, Indian, and Abyssinian sea. And upon it from the south is the lands of Zanj and the lands of the Berbers, which Imru’ al-Qais mentioned in his poetry, and they are not from the Berbers who are the tribes of the Maghreb, then the land of Sifala and the land of Waq Waq and other nations, after which there is nothing but deserts and emptiness. And upon it from the north is China from its beginning, then India, then Sindh, then the coasts of Yemen from al-Ahqaf and Zabid and others, then the lands of Zanj at its end, and after them Abyssinia. They said that two other seas emerge from this Abyssinian Sea, one of which emerges from its end at Bab al-Mandab, and begins narrow, then passes as a sea to the north and a little west until it ends at Qulzum in the fifth part of the second region, one thousand four hundred miles from its beginning, and it is called the Qulzum Sea and the Suez Sea, and between it and Fustat, Egypt from there are three stages, and on it from the east are the coasts of Yemen, then the Hijaz and Jeddah, then Madyan, Ayla and Fazan at its end, and from the west are the coasts of Upper Egypt, Aydhab, Sawakin and Zeila, then the lands of Abyssinia at its beginning and its end at Qulzum, parallel to the Roman Sea at al-Arish, and between them are about a few stages, and the kings in Islam and before it continued to throw stones at what was between them, and that was not completed. The second sea of ​​this Abyssinian sea, called the Green Gulf, extends between the lands of Sind and Al-Ahqaf in Yemen and passes to the north, slightly westward, until it ends at Al-Ubla on the coasts of Basra in the sixth part of the second region, four hundred and forty farsakhs from its beginning. It is called the Persian Gulf. On it, on the eastern side, are the coasts of Sind, Makran, Kerman, Fars, and Al-Ubla. At its end, on the western side, are the coasts of Bahrain, Al-Yamamah, Oman, Ash-Shihr, and Al-Ahqaf at its beginning. What is between the Persian Sea and Al-Qulzum and the Arabian Peninsula is as if it were entering from the land into the sea. The Abyssinian Sea surrounds it from the south, the Sea of ​​Al-Qulzum from the west, and the Persian Sea from the east. It leads to Iraq between Syria and Basra, one thousand five hundred miles between them. There are Kufa, Al-Qadisiyah, Baghdad, the Palace of Kisra, and Al-Hirah. Beyond that are the nations of the Persians, the Turks, the Khazars, and others. In the Arabian Peninsula, there are the lands of Al-Hijaz on the western side of it, and the lands of Al-Yamamah, Bahrain, and Oman on the eastern side of it, and the lands of Yemen on the southern side of it, and its coasts on the Abyssinian Sea. They said: In this inhabited area there is another sea that is cut off from all the other seas in the northern part of the land of Daylam. It is called the Sea of ​​Gorgan and Tabaristan. Its length is one thousand miles and its width is six hundred miles. In its west are Azerbaijan and Daylam, in its east is the land of the Turks and Khwarazm, in its south is Tabaristan, and in its north is the land of the Khazars and the Alans. These are the famous seas that geographers have mentioned. They said: In this inhabited area there are many rivers, the four largest of which are the Nile, the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the Balkh River called the Jayhun. As for the Nile, its beginning is from a great mountain sixteen degrees behind the equator on the azimuth of the fourth part of the first region, and it is called the Mountain of the Moon. There is no mountain on earth higher than it. Many springs emerge from it, some of which flow into Al-Hirah there and some into another. Then rivers emerge from the two lakes, all of which flow into a single lake at the equator, ten stages from the mountain. From this lake emerge two rivers, one of which goes to the north on its azimuth and passes through the land of Nubia and then the land of Egypt. When it passes it, it branches into similar branches, each of which is called a gulf. They all flow into the Roman Sea near Alexandria, and it is called the Nile of Egypt. Upon it rises the Sa’id from its east and the oases from its west. The other goes in a curve to the west, then passes on its azimuth until it flows into the ocean, which is the river of the Sudan, and all their nations are on its banks. As for the Euphrates, its beginning is in the land of Armenia in the sixth part of the fifth region, and it passes south through the land of the Romans and Malatya to Manbij, then it passes through Siffin, then Raqqa, then Kufa until it ends in the plain between Basra and Wasit, and from there it flows into the Abyssinian Sea, and many rivers flow into it on its way, and other rivers flow from it and flow into the Tigris. As for the Tigris, its beginning is a spring in the land of Jalat in Armenia as well, and it passes south through Mosul, Azerbaijan, and Baghdad to Wasit, then it splits into gulfs, all of which flow into Lake Basra and lead to the Persian Gulf, which is in the east to the right of the Euphrates, and many great rivers flow into it from every side. Between the Euphrates and the Tigris at its beginning is the island of Mosul opposite the Levant on the two sides of the Euphrates and opposite Azerbaijan on the two sides of the Tigris. As for the Jayhun River, its beginning is in Balkh in the eighth part of the third region from many springs there, and great rivers flow into it. It goes from the south to the north, passing through the lands of Khurasan, then exiting with it to the lands of Khwarazm in the eighth part of the fifth region, and flows into Lake Jurjaniya, which is below its city, and it is a month’s journey in its likeness. The rivers Ferghana and Shash flow into it, coming from the lands of the Turks. To the west of the Jayhun River are the lands of Khurasan and Khwarazm, and to the east of it are the lands of Bukhara, Termez, and Samarkand, and from there to what is beyond it are the lands of the Turks, Ferghana, Jurjaniya, and the nations of the Persians. Ptolemy mentioned all of this in his book, and al-Sharif in the book of Roger, and they depicted in geography all that is in the inhabited world of mountains, seas, and valleys, and they exhausted from that what I need because of its length, and because our concern is mostly with the Maghreb, which is the homeland of the Berbers, and with the homelands of the Arabs in the East. And God is the Grantor of success.

In continuation of this second introduction, that the northern quarter of the earth is more populated than the southern quarter, and the reason for that is mentioned. We see by observation and successive reports that the first and second of the regions of the inhabited world are less populated than those after them, and what is found of its population is interspersed with emptiness, wastelands, sands, and the Indian Ocean that is to the east of them. The nations and people of these two regions do not have the greatest number, and their cities and towns are likewise. The third and fourth and what is after them are different from that, for the deserts in them are few and the sand is likewise or nonexistent, and their nations and people exceed the limit of the number, and their cities and towns exceed the limit in number, and the population in them is included between the third and the sixth, and the south is all empty. Many of the sages have mentioned that this is due to the extreme heat and the sun’s inclination in it is less than the zenith of the heads. Let us clarify that with its proof, and the reason for the abundance of population between the third and the fourth from the north side to the fifth and the seventh becomes clear from it. We say that if the poles of the southern and northern spheres are on the horizon, then there is a great circle that divides the sphere into two halves, which is the greatest of the circles passing from the east to the west, and it is called the circle of the average day. It has been shown in its place in the astronomy that the highest sphere moves from the east to the west in a daily motion that moves all the other spheres in its interior by force, and this motion is perceptible. It has also been shown that the planets in their spheres have a motion that is contrary to this motion, which is from the west to the east, and their periods differ according to the motion of the planets in speed and slowness, and the passages of these planets in their spheres are all parallel to a great circle of the highest sphere that divides it into two halves, which is the circle of the zodiac, divided into twelve signs, and as it has been shown in its place, it interrupts the circle of the average day at two opposite points of the zodiac, which are the beginning of Aries and the beginning of Libra, so the circle of the average day divides them into two halves, one half inclined from the average day to the north, which is from the beginning of Aries to the end of Virgo, and one half inclined from it to the south, which is from the beginning of Libra to the end of Pisces. If the poles fall on the horizon in all parts of the earth, then there is a single line on the surface of the earth that is perpendicular to the circle of the average day, passing through. From the west to the east, it is called the equator. This line was observed, as they claimed, at the beginning of the first region of the seven regions, and all civilization in the northern direction gradually rises above the horizons of this inhabited world until its elevation reaches sixty-four degrees. There, civilization ceases, and it is the end of the seventh region. If it rises above the horizon, ninety degrees remain, which is the one between the pole and the circle of the average day on the horizon, and six of the zodiac signs remain above the horizon, which are the northern ones, and six below the horizon, which are the southern ones. And civilization between sixty-four and ninety is impossible because heat and cold do not occur at that time, mixed, due to the distance of time between them. The formation occurs. So, the sun rises above the equator at the head of Aries and Libra, then it inclines in the equidistance to the head of Cancer and the head of Capricorn, and the end of its inclination from the circle of the average day is twenty-four degrees. Then, if the north pole rises above the horizon, the circle of the average day inclines from the azimuth of the heads by an amount of elevation, and the south pole falls likewise by an amount equal to the three, which is called by the people of timekeeping the latitude of the country. And if the circle of the average day inclines from the azimuth of the heads, the northern zodiac signs rise above it, included in the amount of their elevation to the head of Cancer. The southern zodiac signs also descended from the horizon to the head of Capricorn because of their deviation to the sides in the horizon of the equator as we said, so the northern horizon continues to rise until it becomes the furthest north, which is the head of Cancer in the azimuth of the heads, and that is where the width of the country is twenty-four in the Hijaz and what follows it. This is the inclination that if the head of Cancer inclines from the average day in the horizon of the equator, it rises with the height of the North Pole until it becomes opposing. If the pole rises more than twenty-four, the sun descends from the opposing and continues to decline until the height of the pole is sixty-four. The sun’s decline from the opposing is likewise, and the decline of the South Pole from the horizon is likewise, so the formation is interrupted due to the excess of cold and freezing and the length of its time not mixed with the heat. Then the sun at the opposing and what is close to it sends out rays that are upright, and at less than the opposing at obtuse and acute angles. If the angles of the rays are upright, the light is great and spreads out, unlike at the obtuse and acute. For this reason, the heat at the opposing and what is close to it is greater than what is beyond it, because light is the cause of heat and heating.

Then the equidistance on the equator occurs twice a year at the points of Aries and Libra, and if it inclines, it is not far, and the heat is hardly moderate at the end of its inclination at the head of Cancer and Capricorn, except that it ascends to the equidistance, so the rays remain at right angles insisting on that horizon and their stay is prolonged or continues, so the air is ignited with heat and becomes excessive in its intensity. And so as long as the sun ascends twice beyond the equator to twenty-four latitude, the rays insist on the horizon in that with a similar insistence on the equator, and the excess of heat causes drying and dryness in the air that prevents formation, because if the heat is excessive, the waters and moistures dry up and the formation in minerals, animals and plants is corrupted, since formation does not occur except through moisture. Then if the head of Cancer inclines from the azimuth of the heads at twenty-five latitude and beyond, the sun descends from the equidistance, so the heat becomes moderate or inclines from it a little, so formation occurs and increases gradually until the cold becomes excessive in its intensity due to the lack of light and the rays being at obtuse angles, so formation decreases and is corrupted. However, the corruption of formation from the side of the intensity of heat is greater than from the side of the intensity of cold, because heat has a faster effect. In drying from the effect of cold on the ice, therefore the population in the first and second regions was little, and in the third, fourth and fifth it was moderate due to the moderation of heat with the decrease of light, and in the sixth and seventh it was much due to the decrease of heat, and the nature of the cold does not affect at its beginning the corruption of the formation as heat does, since there is no drying in it except in excess of what is exposed to it at that time of dryness as after the seventh, therefore the population in the northern quarter was more and more abundant, and God knows best. From here the sages took the emptiness of the equator and what is beyond it and brought against them that it is submerged by observation and successive reports, so how can the proof of that be completed? It appears that they did not mean that population in it is completely impossible, but the proof led them to the fact that the corruption of the formation in it is close to the excess of heat, and population in it is either impossible or possible, and it is so, because the equator and what is beyond it, even if there is population in it as it was reported, it is very little. Ibn Rushd claimed that the equator is moderate and that what is beyond it in the south is like what is beyond it in the north, so what is inhabited from it is what is inhabited from this. What he said is not impossible due to the corruption of the formation, but it is impossible for what is beyond the equator in the south due to the fact that the water element covered the face of the earth there to the extent that its opposite from the northern side was capable of formation. And when the moderate was impossible due to the absence of water, what is other than it followed it because the civilization is gradual and takes on gradualness due to existence, not due to impossibility. As for the statement of its impossibility in the equator, it is refuted by the continuous transmission, and God knows best. After this speech, let us draw a picture of geography as the author of Roger’s book drew it, then we will go into detailing the discussion of it until the end.

 

The first section of detailing the discussion of this geography #

 

Know that the wise men divided this inhabited world, as mentioned above, into seven sections from north to south, calling each section a region. Thus, the inhabited world as a whole was divided into these seven regions, each one of which is taken from west to east along its length. The first of them extends from west to east with the equator as its limit on the southern side, and behind it there is nothing but deserts and sands and some habitation, if that is correct, then it is all habitation. Next to it on the northern side is the second region, then the third likewise, then the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh, which is the last of the habitation on the northern side, and behind the seventh there is nothing but emptiness and deserts until it reaches the surrounding sea, as is the case beyond the first region on the southern side, except that the emptiness on the northern side is much less than the emptiness on the southern side. Then the times of night and day vary in these regions due to the inclination of the sun from the circle of the two averages of the day and the elevation of the North Pole from its horizons, so the arc of night and day varies, and the length of night and day ends at the end of the first region, which is when the sun reaches the head of Capricorn for the night and the head of Cancer for the day, each of them to thirteen hours. Likewise at the end of the second region towards the north, the length of the day ends there when the sun reaches the head of Cancer, which is its summer solstice, to thirteen and a half hours, and the same is the longest night at its winter solstice at the head of Capricorn. What remains for the shortest part of the night and day is what remains after thirteen and a half of the total twenty-four hours of the total of night and day, which is the complete cycle of the sky. Likewise at the end of the third region towards the north, they also end at fourteen hours, at the end of the fourth to fourteen and a half hours, at the end of the fifth to fifteen hours, at the end of the sixth to fifteen and a half hours, and at the end of the seventh to sixteen hours. There the civilization ends, so the difference in the length of these regions in the length of their night and day is by half an hour for each region, increasing from its beginning in the south to its end in the north, distributed over parts of this distance. As for the latitude of the countries in these regions, it is the distance between the zenith of the country’s head and the circle of the average day, which is the zenith of the equator’s head, and the same is true of the South Pole being lower than the horizon of that country and the North Pole being higher than it, and it is three equal dimensions called the latitude of the country, as mentioned before. The speakers on this geography divided each of these seven regions in its length from the west to the east into ten equal parts and they mentioned what each part of them included of countries, cities, mountains, rivers and the distances between them in the paths. We will now summarize the statement on that and mention the famous countries, rivers and seas in each part of it. We will thus align with what was mentioned in the book Nuzhat al-Mushtaq, which was written by al-Alawi al-Idrisi al-Hamoudi for the king of Sicily from the Franks, namely Zakhar ibn Zakhar, when he was visiting him in Sicily after Sicily left the Emirate of Malaga. He wrote the book in the middle of the sixth century and collected for it many books by al-Masudi, Ibn Khordadhiyah, al-Hawqali, al-Qudari, Ibn Ishaq al-Munjim, Ptolemy and others. We will begin with the first region to the end. May God Almighty protect us with His grace and favor.

The first region, in which on the western side are the immortal islands from which Ptolemy began to take the lengths of the country, and they are not in the plain of the region, but rather they are in the surrounding sea in many islands, the largest and most famous of which are three, and it is said that they are inhabited. It has reached us that ships from the Franks passed by them in the middle of this century and fought them, so they took booty from them and took captives and sold some of their prisoners on the coasts of the far west of Morocco and they became in the service of the Sultan. When they learned the Arabic language, they told about the state of their islands and that they dig the land for agriculture with horns and that iron is missing from their land and their livelihood is barley and their livestock is goats and their fighting is with stones that they throw backwards and their worship is prostrating to the sun when it rises and they do not know a religion and no call has reached them and the location of these islands is not known except by finding and not by heading to them because the travel of ships in the sea is only by the winds and knowing the directions of their winds and where it leads if it passes in a straight line from the countries that are in the path of that wind and if the wind differs and it is known where it leads in a straight line, the fort is drawn parallel to it and the ship is carried by it according to laws in that which are summed up with The navigators and the sailors who are the captains of ships at sea and in the countries on the edges of the Roman Sea and in its enemy are all written in a document in the form they are in existence and in their position on the coasts of the sea in their order and the fears of the winds and their paths in their differences with them in that document and they call it the Kanbas and they depend on it in their travels and all of this is lost in the surrounding sea and therefore ships do not enter it because if it disappears from the sight of the coasts it is rare for them to be guided to return to it with what is formed in the atmosphere of this sea and on the surface of its water of vapors that prevent ships in their path and because of its distance the lights of the sun reflected from the surface of the earth do not reach it and it dissolves it and therefore it is difficult to guide to it and it is difficult to stand on its news. As for the first part of this region, it contains the mouth of the Nile, which comes from its beginning at Jebel al-Qamar, as we mentioned, and is called the Nile of Sudan. It goes to the Atlantic Ocean and empties into it at the island of Oulek. On this Nile are the cities of Salé, Takrur, and Ghana, all of which are at that time in the kingdom of the King of Mali, one of the nations of Sudan. The merchants of the far Maghreb travel to their lands, and near them to the north are the lands of the Lamtuna and other groups of the veiled ones, and there are deserts in which they roam. To the south of this Nile are a people of Sudan called Lamlam, who are infidels and cauterize their faces and temples. The people of Ghana and Takrur raid them, take them captive, and sell them to merchants who bring them to Morocco. Most of them are slaves. There is no civilization behind them in the south except for people who are closer to dumb animals than to speech. They live in the deserts and caves and eat grass and grains that are not prepared. They may eat each other and are not counted among humans. The fruits of the lands of Sudan are all from the palaces of the desert of Morocco, such as Touat, Takdrarin, and Ourklan. In Ghana, it is said, there was a kingdom and a state for a people of the Alawites known as Bani Salih. The author of the book Rogar said that he was Salih bin Abdullah bin Hassan bin Hassan. This Salih is not known among the descendants of Abdullah bin Hassan. This state has passed in this era and Ghana has become the property of the Sultan of Mali. In the east of this country in the third part of the region is the country of (Koko) on a river that springs from some of the mountains there and passes westward and sinks into the sands of the third part. The kingdom of Koko was established by itself, then the Sultan of Mali seized it and it became part of his kingdom. It was destroyed in this era because of a sedition that occurred there, which we will mention when mentioning the state of Mali in its place in the history of the Berbers. In the south of the country of Koko is the country of Katim from the nations of Sudan, and after them Wongara on the bank of the Nile from its north. In the east of the country of Wongara and Katim is the country of Zaghawa and Tajira connected to the land of Nubia in the fourth part of this region. The Nile of Egypt passes through it, going from its beginning at the equator to the Roman Sea in the north. The outlet of this Nile is from Jabal al-Qamar, which is sixteen degrees above the equator. They differed in the pronunciation of this word. Some of them pronounce it with a fatha on the qaf. The letter “mim” is in reference to the moon of the sky, due to its intense whiteness and abundant light. In the book “Al-Mushrik” by Yaqut, the letter “qaf” is pronounced with a damma and the letter “mim” is in reference to a people from India. Ibn Saeed also pronounced it this way: Ten springs emerge from this mountain, five of which meet in a lake, and between them are six miles. Three rivers emerge from each of the two lakes, all of which meet in a single valley at the bottom of which is a mountain that cuts through the lake from the north. Its water is divided into two parts: the western part of it passes to the lands of Sudan in the west until it empties into the ocean, and the eastern part of it emerges going north to the lands of Abyssinia and Nubia and what is between them. They divide in the upper part of Egypt, and three of its streams empties into the Roman Sea near Alexandria. And Rashid and Damietta, and one of them flows into a salt lake before it connects with the sea in the middle of this first region, and on this Nile there are the lands of Nubia and Abyssinia and some of the oases to Aswan and the capital of the Nubian lands, the city of Dongola, which is to the west of this Nile, and after it Alwa and Bilaq, and after them Jabal al-Janadil, six stages from Bilaq in the north, and it is a high mountain on the side of Egypt and low on the side of Nubia, so the Nile flows into it and flows into a distant abyss in a tremendous flow, so that ships cannot pass through it, but rather the load is transferred from the ships of Sudan and carried on the back to the country of Aswan, the base of Upper Egypt, to above the Jadali, and between the Jadali and Aswan twelve stages, and the oases to its west are the enemy of the Nile, and it is now in ruins and has traces of ancient architecture.

In the middle of this region, in its fifth part, is the land of Abyssinia, on a valley that comes from behind the equator, going to the land of Nubia, and there it flows into the Nile descending to Egypt. Many people have made a mistake about it and claimed that it is from the Nile of the Moon, and Ptolemy mentioned it in his book on geography, and he said that it is not from this Nile. And to the middle of this region, in its special part, the Indian Ocean ends, which enters from the direction of China and submerges most of this region to this fifth part, so that no civilization remains in it except what is in the islands that are within it, and they extend, it is said, to a thousand islands, or what is on its coasts from the north, and there is nothing in this first region except a part of the land of China in the east and the land of Yemen. In the sixth part of this region, between the two seas descending from this Indian Sea to the north, which are the Sea of ​​Qalzum and the Persian Sea, and between them is the Arabian Peninsula, which includes the lands of Yemen and the lands of Ash Shihr in its east on the coast of this Indian Sea and the lands of Hijaz and Yamamah and what is related to them, as we mention in the second region and what follows. As for that which is on the coast of this sea from its west, it is the country of Zali’ from the edges of the lands of Abyssinia and the areas of the Beja in northern Abyssinia between Mount Al-Alaqi in the upper Upper Egypt and the Sea of ​​Qalzum descending from the Indian Sea, and under the country of Zali’ from the north in this part is the Gulf of Bab al-Mandab. The descending sea there narrows by jostling Mount al-Mandab, which is inclined in the middle of the Indian Sea, extending with the coast of Yemen from the south to the north in a length of twelve miles, so the sea narrows because of that until it becomes three miles wide or so, and it is called Bab al-Mandab, and through it the ships of Yemen pass to the coast of Suez, near Egypt, and under Bab al-Mandab are the islands of Suakin and Dahlak, and opposite it from its west are the areas of the Bukha from the nations of Sudan, as we mentioned, and from its east in this part are the wanderings of Yemen, and from it on Its coast is the country of Ali bin Yaqub, and to the south of the country of Zale’, and on the coast of this sea from its west you see Berbers following one another and bending from its south to the end of the sixth part, and after it from its east is the country of the Zanj, then the country of Sfala, from its southern coast is the country of the Cuckoos, connected to the end of the tenth part of this region at the entrance of this sea from the Atlantic Ocean. As for the islands of this sea, they are many. The largest of them is the island of Serendib, which is round in shape. And in it is the famous mountain, it is said that there is no higher on earth than it, and it is opposite Sfala. Then the Moon Island, which is an oblong island that begins off the land of Safala and goes to the east, deviating greatly until it approaches the coasts of Upper China. It is surrounded in this sea from its south by the Cuckoo Islands, and from its east by the Ceylon Islands, to other islands in this sea, which are numerous and contain various types of perfumes and spices. It is said that there are mines of gold and emeralds in it, and most of its people are Zoroastrians, and among them are many kings. In these islands, there are wonders of civilization mentioned by geographers. On the northern bank of this sea in the sixth part of this region are all the lands of Yemen. On the side of the Sea of ​​Qulzum are the lands of Zabid, Al-Muhajim, and Tihama of Yemen. After that is a small country, the seat of the Zabdi Imamate, and it is far from the southern sea and the eastern sea. After that is the city of Aden, and to its north is Sana’a, and after them to the east is the land of Al-Ahqaf and Dhofar, and after that is the land of Hadhramaut, then the land of Ash-Shihr, between the southern sea and the Persian Gulf. This part of the sixth part is what the sea revealed from the central parts of this region, and after it a little of the ninth part is revealed, and more of the tenth part, in which are the upper parts of China, and among its famous cities is Hankou, and opposite it on the eastern side are the Ceylon Islands, which were mentioned previously. This is the last word on the first region, and God Almighty is the Grantor of success by His grace and favor.

The second region: It is connected to the first from the north and opposite the west of it in the ocean are two islands of the immortal Algeria that were mentioned earlier. In the first and second parts of it, on the upper side of them, is the land of Qanuriyah, and after it in the eastern direction, the highlands of the land of Ghana, then the areas of Zaghawa from Sudan. On the lower side of them, is the desert of Nestor, connected from the west to the east, with deserts through which traders travel between the lands of Morocco and the lands of Sudan. In it are the areas of the veiled ones from Sanhaja, who are many peoples between Kazula, Lamtuna, Masrata, Lamta, and Warika. On the eastern side of these deserts is the land of Fezzan, then the areas of Azkar from the Berber tribes, going to the upper parts of the third part on its eastern side. After this third part, which is on the northern side of it, is the rest of the land of Wadhan, and on its eastern side is the land of Sintriya, and it is called the Dakhla Oases. In the fourth part from above, there is the rest of the land of the Bajawiyin. Then, in the middle of this part, the lands of Upper Egypt intercept the banks of the Nile, which goes from its beginning in the first region to its outlet in the sea. It passes in this part between the two barrier mountains, which are the Oasis Mountain from its west and the Muqattam Mountain from To the east of it, and on top of it, the land of Asna and Armant, and its banks also connect to Asyut and Qus, then to Sol, and the Nile there splits into two branches, the right of which ends in this part at Lahun and the left at Dalas, and between them are the highlands of Egypt, and to the east of Mount Muqattam are the deserts of Aydhab, extending in the fifth part until it ends at the Sea of ​​Suez, which is the Sea of ​​Qulzum descending from the Indian Ocean in the south towards the north, and on its eastern side of this part is the land of the Hijaz from Mount Yalamlam to the land of Yathrib in the middle of the Hijaz is Mecca, may God honor it, and on its coast is the city of Jeddah, opposite the country of Aydhab on the western side of this sea. In the sixth part of its west are the lands of Najd, its highest point in the south, Tabalah and Jerash to Ukaz from the north, and below Najd in this part is the rest of the land of the Hijaz, and on its line in the east are the lands of Najran and Khaybar, and below it is the land of Yamamah, and on the line of Najran in the east is the land of Saba and Ma’rib, then the land of Ash Shihr, and it ends at the Persian Gulf, which is the second sea descending from the Indian Ocean to the north, as mentioned, and in this part it goes in a deviation to the west, and between its east and its interior there passes a triangular piece upon which on its top is the city of Qalhat, which is the coast of Ash Shihr, and below it on its coast is the country of Amal. Then the lands of Bahrain and Hajar are at the end of the section, and in the seventh section, at the top of its west, there is a piece of the Persian Gulf that connects with the other piece in the sixth, and the Indian Ocean covers its entire upper side, and upon it there is the lands of Sindh to the lands of Makran, and opposite it is the lands of Tobaran, which are also from Sindh, so the whole of Sindh is connected on the western side of this section, and the deserts separate it from the land of India, and its river passes through it, coming from the direction of the lands of India, and it empties into the Indian Sea in the south, and the first lands of India on the coast of the Indian Sea, and in its eastern direction is the lands of Balhera, and below it is Multan, the lands of the idol most revered by them, then to the bottom of Sindh, then to the upper lands of Sistan. And in the eighth section, at its west, there is the rest of the lands of Balhera from India, and in its eastern direction is the lands of Kandahar. Then the land of Manibar, and on the upper side on the coast of the Indian Ocean, below it in the lower part, is the land of Kabul, and after that to the east to the ocean sea, the land of Kannauj, between the inner Kashmir and the outer Kashmir, at the end of the region and in the ninth part, then on the western side of it, the land of the farthest India, and it connects to the eastern side, so it connects from its top to the tenth, and there remains at the bottom of that side a piece of the land of China in which is the city of Shigon, then the land of China connects in the entire tenth part to the ocean sea, and God and His Messenger know best, and with Him, glory be to Him, is success, and He is the Guardian of grace and generosity.

The third region: It is connected to the second from the north. In the first part of it, and about a third of its top, is Mount Darn, which is located in the west of it at the ocean to the east at the end. This mountain is inhabited by Berber nations that only their Creator can count, as will be mentioned. In the section between this mountain and the second region, and on the ocean of it, is Ribat Massa. Connected to it to the east are the lands of Sous and Noul, and on its eastern side are the lands of Draa, then the lands of Sijilmasa, then a piece of the desert of Nestor, the wilderness that we mentioned in the second region. This mountain overlooks all of these countries in this section. It has few bends and paths in this western region until it parallels the Muluya Valley, so its bends and paths increase until it ends. In this section of it are the nations of Masmuda, then Hintana, then Tinmelek, then Kadmiou, then Mashkoura, then the last of the Masmuda in it, then the tribes of Sanhaka, who are Sanhaja. At the end of this section of it are some tribes of Zenata. Connected to it there from its interior is Mount Aures, which is Mount Ketama, and after that are other nations of Berbers, whom we mention in Their places. Then this Mount Darn from its western side overlooks the lands of the far Maghreb, which are in its interior. In its southern part are the lands of Marrakesh, Agmat, and Tadla, and on the surrounding sea from it is the Ribat of Asfi and the city of Salé. In the interior of the lands of Marrakesh are the lands of Fez, Meknes, Taza, and the palace of Ketama. These are the ones called the far Maghreb in the custom of its people. On the coast of the surrounding sea from it are the lands of Asilah and Larache. In the eastern direction of these lands are the lands of the central Maghreb, and its base is Tlemcen. On its coasts on the Roman Sea are the lands of Hanin, Oran, and Algiers, because this Roman Sea emerges from the ocean from the Gulf of Tangier in the western part of the fourth region and goes east and ends in the lands of the Levant. If it emerges from the narrow gulf not far away, it expands south and north and enters the third and fifth regions. For this reason, on its coast from this third region there is much in its country. Then it connects to the lands of Algeria from its east, the lands of Bejaia on the coast of the sea, then Constantine in the east of it, and at the end of the first part, and at a stage from this sea in the south of these lands, and rising to the south of the central Maghreb is the land of Ashir, then the land of M’Sila, then the Zab. Its base is Biskra under Mount Aures connected to Darn as mentioned above, and that is at the end of this part from the east, and the third part of this region is in the form of the first part, then Mount Darn about a third of its south, going from west to east, dividing it into two parts and crossing the Roman Sea a distance from its north, so the southern part from Mount Darn, its west is all deserts, and to the east of it is the country of Adhames, and in its eastern direction is the land of Waddan, which remains in the second region as mentioned, and the subterranean part from Mount Darn, between it and the Roman Sea in the west of it is Mount Aures, Tebessa and the Awbas, and on the coast of the sea is the country of Bona, then in the direction of these countries east, the countries of Africa, so on the coast of the sea is the city of Tunis, then Sousse, then Mahdia, and in the south of these countries under Mount Darn are the countries of Jerid, Tozeur, Gafsa and Nafrawa, and between them and the coasts is the city of Kairouan, Mount Waslat and Sbeitla, and in the direction of all these countries east is the country of Tripoli on the Roman Sea, and opposite it in the south is Mount Dammar and Naqra from the Hawara tribes connected to Mount Darn, and opposite Ghadames, whose river passed at the end of the southern part, and at the end of this part in the east is Suwayqa Ibn Thank you for the sea and to its south are the fields of the Arabs in the land of Wadan and in the third part of this region also passes through it Mount Daran except that it turns at another point to the north and goes on its course until it enters the Roman Sea and is called there the edge of Athan and the Roman Sea from its north submerges a section of it until it narrows what is between it and Mount Daran and what is behind the mountain in the south and to the west of it is the rest of the land of Wadan. And the areas of the Arabs in it, then Zuwayla Ibn Khattab, then sands and deserts to the end of the part in the east, and between the mountain and the sea in the west of it, the country of Sirt on the sea, then a desert and deserts in which the Arabs roamed, then Ajdabiya, then Barqa at the bend of the mountain, then Talmasa on the sea there, then to the east of the bend of the mountain, the areas of Hib and Rawaha to the end of the part, and in the fourth part of this region, and at the top of it from the west, the deserts of Barqiq, and below it, the countries of Hib and Rawaha, then the Roman Sea enters this part, and changes a part of it to the south until it crowds its upper end, and between it and the end of the part, there remain deserts in which the Arabs roamed, and on its eastern side, the land of Fayum, and it is at the mouth of one of the two branches of the Nile that passes through Lahun from the lands of Upper Egypt in the fourth part of the second region and empties into Lake Fayum, and on its eastern side, the land of Egypt and its famous city, on the second branch that passes through Dalas from the lands of Upper Egypt at the end of the second part, and this branch splits off again from under Egypt into two other branches from Shatnouf and Zifta, and the right of them from Qarmat divides into two other branches, and all of them flow into the sea. The Romans: At the western mouth of this valley is the country of Alexandria, at the middle mouth is the country of Rashid, and at the eastern mouth is the country of Damietta. Between Egypt and Cairo, and between these sea coasts, the lower reaches of the Egyptian lands are all filled with civilization and canals. In the special part of this region is the Levant, and most of it is as I will describe. This is because the Qulzum Sea ends in the south and in the west of it at Suez, because in its passage it begins from the Indian Sea to the north, it turns towards the west, so a part of its turn in the part is long, so it ends at the western end of it at Suez. On this part, after Suez, is Paran, then Mount Tur, then Ayla, Madyan, then Al-Hawra at its end. From there, its coast turns to the south in the lands of the Hijaz, as was mentioned in the second region in the fifth part of it. In the northern side of this part, there is a part of the Roman Sea that has flooded much of its west, on which are Al-Farma and Al-Arish, and its end is close to the country of Qulzum, so what is between them is narrow from there, and there remains something like a door leading to the land of the Levant. To the west of this door is the desert, a barren land that does not grow, which was a place for the Children of Israel after their exodus from Egypt and before their entry into the Levant for forty years. As the story of the Qur’an,

In this part of the Roman Sea in this part there is a group of the island of Cyprus and the rest of it is in the fourth region as we mention and on the coast of this part at the narrow end of the Suez Sea is the country of Al-Arish which is the last of the Egyptian lands and Ashkelon and between them is the edge of this sea then this part declines in its bend from there to the fourth region at Tripoli and Gaza and there the Roman Sea ends in the eastern direction and on this part are most of the coasts of the Levant so in its east Gaza then Ashkelon and with a slight deviation from it to the north is the country of Caesarea then also the country of Acre then Tyre then Sidon then the sea turns to the north in the fourth region and opposite these coastal countries of this part in this part is a great mountain that emerges from the coast of Aila from the Sea of ​​Qalzum and goes in the northern direction deviating to the east until it passes this part and is called Mount Al-Lakam as if it is a barrier between the land of Egypt and the Levant so at its end at Aila is the pass through which the pilgrims flee from Egypt to Mecca then after it in the northern direction is the burial place of Abraham, peace be upon him, at Mount Sarat it connects from the aforementioned Mount Al-Lakam from the north of the pass going in the direction of the east then it turns a little and in To the east of it is the country of Al-Hijr and the lands of Thamud, Tayma and Dumat Al-Jandal, which are the lower reaches of the Hijaz. Above it is Mount Radwa and the fortresses of Khaybar to the south of it. Between Mount Sarat and the Sea of ​​Qulzum is the Tabuk desert. To the north of Mount Sarat is the city of Jerusalem at Mount Lakam, then Jordan, then Tiberias. To the east of it is the country of the Ghor to Adhraat. At its turn is Dumat Al-Jandal, the end of this part, which is the end of the Hijaz. At the bend of Mount Lakam to the north of the end of this part is the city of Damascus, opposite Sidon and Beirut from the sea section. Mount Lakam intersects between it and it. On the eastern side of Damascus is the city of Baalbek, then the city of Homs on the northern side at the end of the part at the end of Mount Lakam. To the east of Baalbek and Homs is the country of Tadmur and the desert areas to the end of the part. In the sixth part from above it is the areas of the Arabs under the country of Najd and Al-Yamamah between Mount Al-Arj and Al-Samman to Bahrain and Hajar on the Persian Gulf. At the lower reaches of this part under the areas are the country of Al-Hirah and Al-Qadisiyah and the Euphrates basins. Beyond it to the east is the city of Basra. In this part the Persian Gulf ends at Abadan and Al-Aylah from the lower reaches of the part from its north and flows into! In it, at Abadan, is the Tigris River after it is divided into many streams and other streams from the Euphrates mix with it, then they all meet at Abadan and flow into the Persian Gulf. This part of the sea is wide at its top, narrow at its eastern end, and narrow at its end, narrowing to its northern limit. On its western side are the lower parts of Bahrain, Hajar, and Al-Ahsa. On its western side are Akhtab, As-Samman, and the rest of the land of Al-Yamamah. On its eastern side are the coasts of Persia from its top, and it is at the end of the part from the east, because on one side it has extended from this sea eastward, and behind it to the south, in this part, are the Qafs Mountains of Kerman. Below Hormuz on the coast are the lands of Siraf and Najiram on the coast of this sea. To its east, to the end of this part, are the lands of Persia, such as Sabur, Dar Abjard, Nasa, Istakhr, Shahjan, and Shiraz, which is its entire base. Below the lands of Persia to the north at the edge of the sea are the lands of Khuzestan, including Ahwaz, Tostar, Sada, Sabur, Susa, Ram Hormuz, and others, and Azjal, which is the limit between Persia and Khuzestan. To the east of the lands of Khuzestan are the Kurdish Mountains, connected to the regions of Isfahan, and in it are their dwellings and their fields, behind it in the land of Persia, and it is called Al-Rasum. In the seventh part, at the top of it from the west, are the rest of the Qafs Mountains, and after it from the south and north, are the lands of Kerman and Makran, and among its cities are Rawdan, Shirjan, Jirift, Yazdshir, and Al-Bahraj, and under the land of Kerman to the north, is the rest of the land of Persia to the borders of Isfahan, and the city of Isfahan is at the edge of this part between its west and north, then in the east, from the land of Kerman and the land of Persia, the land of Sistan and Kuhistan in the south, and the land of Kuhistan in the north of it, and it is in the middle between Kerman and Persia, and between Sistan and Kuhistan, and in the middle of this part are the great deserts, with few paths due to their difficulty, from the cities of Sistan, Bast al-Taq, and as for Kuhistan, it is from the land of Khorasan, and among the famous lands of Sarakhs and Kuhistan are the last part. In the eighth part, to the west and south, are the areas of the halaj of the Turkic nations, connected to the land of Sistan from its west and to the land of Kabul, India from its south. To the north of this area are the mountains of Ghor and its lands and base, Ghazni, the port of India. At the end of the Ghor from the north is the land of Astarabad, then to the north, west to the end of the part, is the land of Herat, the middle of Khorasan, and in it are Asfarain, Kashan, Bushanj, Marwal Rudh, Talqan, and Jawzjan. Khorasan ends there at the Oxus River.

 

The second section of the detailed discussion of this geography #

 

On this river in the land of Khorasan, to the west of it is the city of Balkh, and to the east of it is the city of Termez, and the city of Balkh was the seat of the Turkish kingdom. This river is the Jayhun River, its outlet is in the land of Wajar in the borders of Badakhshan, which is next to India. It emerges from the south of this part, and at another end from the east, it turns close to the west to the middle of the part, and is called there the Kharnab River. Then it turns to the north until it passes through Khorasan and goes on its way until it empties into Lake Khwarazm in the fifth region, as we will mention. Five great rivers from the lands of Khatal and Wakhsh from its east, and other rivers from the mountains of Batum from its east also, and from the depths of the mountain, supply it, until it expands and becomes great beyond compare. Among these five rivers supplying it is the Wakhshab River, which emerges from the land of Tibet, which is between the south and the east of this part. It passes west through the heat to the north until it emerges into the ninth part, close to the north of this part. A great mountain obstructs it on its way, passing from the middle of the south in this part, and it goes east, deviating to the north, until it emerges into the ninth part, close to the north of this part, and it passes through the land of Tibet. To the southeastern part of this part and it separates the Turks from the land of Khatal and there is only one path in the middle of the east of this part in which Al-Fasl bin Yahya made a dam and built a gate in it like the dam of Yajuj and Majuj. When the river and Khashab emerge from the land of Tibet and this mountain intercepts it, it passes under it for a long distance until it passes through the land of Al-Wahsh and empties into the river of Jayhun at the borders of Balkh, then it passes down to Termez in the north to the land of Jawzjan and in the east from the land of Ghor between it and the river of Jayhun, the land of Al-Nasan from Khorasan, and in the eastern enemy there is from the river the land of Khatal and most of it is mountains and the land of Al-Wakhsh and it is bordered on the north by the mountains of Al-Batm that emerge from the edge of Khorasan west of the river of Jayhun and it goes east until its end connects with the great mountain behind it, the land of Tibet and the river and Khashab passes under it as we said, so it connects at the door of Al-Fadl bin Yahya and the river of Jayhun passes between these mountains and other rivers that flow into it, including the river of the land of Al-Wakhsh that flows into it from the east under Al-Tirmez towards the north and the river of Balkh emerges from the mountains of Al-Batm, its beginning is at Jawzjan and it flows into it from To the west of this river, on the west of it, is the land of Amed of Khorasan, and to the east of the river, from there, is the land of Sogd and Asr-e-Washna of the land of the Turks, and to the east of it, is the land of Ferghana also, to the end of the eastern part, and all the lands of the Turks are encompassed by the Batum Mountains to its north, and in the ninth part, to the west, is the land of Tibet to the middle of the part, and to the south of it, is the land of India, and to the east of it, is the land of China, to the end of the part, and at the bottom of this part, to the north of the land of Tibet, is the land of the Khazlajiyya of the land of the Turks, to the end of the part, east and north, and to its west, is connected to it, to the end of the eastern part, and to its east, is the land of the Tgarghar of the Turks, to the part, east and north. In the tenth part in the south of it all is the rest of China and its lower parts and in the north is the rest of the country of the Taghargars then east of them is the country of Kharkhir of the Turks also to the end of the part east and in the north of the land of Kharkhir is the country of Katman of the Turks and opposite it in the ocean is the island of ruby ​​in the middle of a round mountain from which there is no exit or path and climbing to its top from outside is extremely difficult and on the island there are deadly snakes and many ruby ​​pebbles so the people of that area scheme with what God inspires them to and the people of this country in this ninth and tenth part beyond Khorasan and the mountains are all fields for the Turks are countless nations and they are nomadic wanderers people of camels and sheep and cows and horses for production and riding and eating and their groups are many and only their Creator can count them and among them are Muslims from the countries of the river the Oxus River and they raid the infidels among them who are indebted to Zoroastrianism and they sell their slaves to those next to them and they go out to the countries of Khorasan and India and Iraq. The fourth region: connects to the third from the north. The first part of it in its west is a piece of the ocean, rectangular from its beginning in the south to its end in the north, and on it in the south is the city of Tangier. From this piece below Tangier from the ocean to the Roman Sea in a narrow gulf of twelve miles between Tarifa and Algeciras in the north and Qasr al-Majaz and Ceuta in the south, and it goes east until it ends in the middle of the fifth part of this region, and it gradually expands as it goes until it submerges the four parts and more than the fifth of this third and fifth region, as we will mention. This sea is also called the Levantine Sea, and in it are many islands, the largest of which is in the west, dry, then Maqra, then Minerga, then Sardinia, then Sicily, which is the largest of them, then Lonos, then Crete, then Cyprus, as we will mention all of them in the parts in which they are located. From this Roman Sea emerges at the end of the third part of it, and in the third part of the fifth region, the Gulf of Venice goes to the north, then turns at the middle of the part of its interior and passes west until it ends in the second part of the fifth. From it also emerges at the end of the fourth part in the east of the fifth region, the Gulf of Constantinople, which passes in the north narrowly in The arrow throw extends to the end of the region, then leads to the fourth part of the sixth region and turns to the Sea of ​​Nitish, going east in the entire fifth part and half of the sixth part of the sixth region, as we mention in its places, and when this Roman Sea comes out From the surrounding sea in the Gulf of Tangier and opens into the third region. There remains in the south of the Gulf a small piece of this part in which is the city of Tangier at the confluence of the two seas and after that the city of Ceuta on the Roman Sea then Cataun then Badis then this sea submerges the rest of this part to the east and emerges to the third and most of the construction in this part is to its north and north of the Gulf from it and it is all the lands of western Andalusia from it what is between the ocean and the Roman Sea the first of them is Tarif at the confluence of the two seas and to the east of it on the coast of the Roman Sea is Algeciras then Malaga then Al-Manqab then Almeria and under this from the ocean sea to the west and close to it is Jerez then Labla and opposite it is the island of Cadiz and to the east of Jerez and Labla is Seville then Astija and Cordoba and Medellin then Granada and Jaén and Abda then Wadish and Basta and under this Shantamariya and Silves on the ocean sea to the west and to the east of them Ptolemy and Marida and Yabra then Ghafiq and Bazjala then Qal’at Riyah and under this is Ashbouna on the ocean sea to the west and on the river of Baja and to the east of it is Shantarin and Muzia on the aforementioned river then Qantara Al-Saif and Ashbouna is parallel to the east of Mount Al-Sharat it begins from the west there and goes east with The last part from its north ends at the city of Salem after half of it and under this mountain Talavera in the east of Forna then Toledo then Guadalajara then the city of Salem and at the beginning of this mountain between it and Lisbon is the country of Calamria and this is western Andalusia. As for eastern Andalusia, on the coast of the Roman Sea from it after Almeria is Cartagena then Lafta then Denia then Valencia to Tortosa the last part in the east, and under it to the north Llorca and Shaqura bordering Basta and Qalaat Riyah from western Andalusia then Murcia to the east then Xativa under Valencia to the north then Shaqr then Tortosa then Tarragona the last part then under this to the north the land of Manjala and Rida bordering Shaqura and Toledo from the west then Afragha to the east under Tortosa and north of it then to the east of the city of Salem Taqla Ayub then Zaragoza then Lleida the last part east and north. The second part of this region was completely submerged except for a part of its west in the north, in which there is the rest of Mount Al-Barnat, meaning the mountain of the folds, and the traveler exits to it from the end of the first part of the fifth region, starting from the end of the ocean at the end of that part south and east, and passing in the south by the sea to the east, he exits in this fourth region, deviating from the first part of it to this second part, and a part of it falls in it, its folds leading to the connected land and it is called the land of Gascony, and in it is the city of Khuraida and Carcassonne, and on the coast of the Roman Sea of ​​this part is the city of Barcelona, ​​then Narbonne, and in this sea that submerged the part are many islands, and many of them are uninhabited due to their smallness, in its west is the island of Sardinia, and in its east is the island of Sicily, with a wide area, it is said that its circumference is seven hundred miles, and in it are many cities, the most famous of which are Syracuse, Palermo, Trabzon, Mazara, and Messina, and this island is opposite the land of Africa, and between them is the island of Aadosh and Malta. The third part of this region is also submerged by the sea, except for three parts in the northwestern part of it, the land of Calabria, the middle part of the land of Abkirdah, and the eastern part of the land of Venice. The fourth part of this region is also submerged by the sea, as mentioned above, and its islands are many, most of which are uninhabited, as in the third. The submerged part of it is the island of Ploenus in the western northern part, and the island of Crete is rectangular from the middle of the part to between the south and the east of it. The fifth part of this region is covered by the sea, a large triangle between the south and the west, the western side of which ends at the end of the part in the north, and the southern side of it ends at about two-thirds of the part, and a piece of about a third remains in the eastern side of the part, the northern part of which passes to the west, bending with the sea as we said, and in the southern half of it is the lower part of the Levant, and in the middle of it passes Mount Al-Lakam until it ends at the end of the Levant in the north, then it turns from there, going to the northeastern region, and after its bend it is called Mount Al-Silsila, and from there it goes out to the fifth region, and from its bend it passes a piece of the lands of the island towards the east, and from its bend from the west rises mountains connected to each other until it ends at an end outside the Roman Sea, behind the end of the part from the north, and between these mountains are folds called paths, which lead to the lands of the Armenians, and in this part there is a piece of it between these mountains and Mount Al-Silsila. As for the southern side, which we mentioned, it contains the lower part of the Levant and that Mount Al-Lakam is intersecting it between the Roman Sea and the end of the part from the south to the north, and on the coast of the sea is the country of Tartus in the beginning of the part from the south, adjacent to Gaza and Tripoli on its coast from the third region, and in the north Tartous, Jableh, then Latakia, then Alexandretta, then Seleucia, and then to the north, the lands of the Romans. As for Mount Al-Lakam, which is located between the sea and the end of the part with its edges, it is opposite from the lands of the Levant, from the top of the part, to the south, from its west, the fortress of Al-Hawani, which belongs to the Ismaili Hashishah, and they are known to this day as Al-Fadawiyah, and it is called Masyat, and it is opposite Tartous. Opposite this fortress, to the east of the mountain, is the country of Salamiyah, to the north of Homs, and in the north, in Masyat, between the mountain and the sea, is the country of Antioch. Opposite it to the east of the mountain is Al-Ma’arra, and to the east of it is Al-Maragha, and to the north of Antioch is Al-Masisa, then Adana, then Tarsus, another Ash-Sham, and Qansrin, then Ain Zarba, bordering it to the west of the mountain, and opposite Qansrin to the east of the mountain, is Aleppo, and opposite Ain Zarba is Manbij, the last of Ash-Sham. As for the paths, on its right, between it and the Roman Sea, is the land of the Romans, which at this time belongs to the Turkmen, and its Sultan is Ibn Othman. On the coast of the sea, there is the land of Antioch and Alaya. As for the lands of the Armenians between Jabal al-Duroub and Jabal al-Silsila, it contains the lands of Marash, Malatya, and Ma’arra to the end of the northern part. From the fifth part in the lands of the Armenians, the Ceyhan River emerges, and the Seyhan River is to its east. Ceyhan passes through it to the south until it passes the Duroub, then it passes by Tarsus, then by al-Masiysa, then it turns downward to the north and west until it flows into the Roman Sea south of Seleucia. The Seyhan River passes parallel to the Ceyhan River, parallel to al-Ma’arra and Marash, and passes the mountains of al-Duroub to the land of al-Sham, then it passes by Ain Zarba and passes the Ceyhan River, then turns to the north and west, mixing with the Ceyhan River at al-Masiysa and to its west. As for the lands of al-Jazira, which are surrounded by the curve of Jabal al-Lakam to Jabal al-Silsila, in its south are the Rafidah and al-Raqqa, then Harran, then Saruj and al-Raha, then Nisibis, then Samosata and Amed under Jabal al-Silsila and the end of the part from its north, which is also the end of the part from its east. In the middle of this section, the Euphrates River and the Tigris River pass, emerging from the fifth region and passing through the lands of the Armenians to the south until they pass Jabal The Euphrates River passes from the west of Samisat and Saruj and turns to the east, passing near Al-Rafida and Al-Raqqa and exits to the sixth part, and the Tigris passes east of Amid and turns close to the east, exiting close to the sixth part. In the sixth part of this region, to its west, are the lands of Al-Jazira and to its east, the lands of Iraq are connected to it, ending in the east near the end of the part. From the end of Iraq, there is Mount Isfahan descending from the south of the part, turning to the west. When it ends in the middle of the part from the end in the north, it goes west until it exits from the sixth part and connects on its year with Mount Al-Silsila in the fifth part. This sixth part is cut off into two western and eastern parts. In the western part, from its south, is the exit of the Euphrates from the fifth part, and in the north of it is the exit of the Tigris from it. As for the Euphrates, the first thing it exits to the sixth part is Qarqisiya, and from there a stream emerges to the north, flowing in the land of Al-Jazira and diving into its regions. It passes from Qarqisiya not far away, then turns to the south, passes near Al-Khabur to the west of Al-Rahba, and streams emerge from it from there. It passes south and remains in Saffin in its west, then turns east and is divided into valleys, some of which pass through Kufa. Some of them are in the palace of Ibn Hubayrah and the two mosques, and they all come out in the south of the part to the third region, where it dives there in the east of Al-Hirah and Al-Qadisiyah, and the Euphrates comes out from Al-Rahba, east on its course to Hit from its north, passing to Al-Zab and Al-Anbar from their south, then flows into the Tigris near Baghdad. As for the Tigris River, when it enters from the fifth part to this part, it passes by Ibn Omar Island to its north, then Mosul likewise, and Tikrit, and ends at Al-Hadithah, then turns south, and Al-Hadithah remains to its east, and the Great and Little Zab likewise, and it passes on its course to the south and to the west of Al-Qadisiyah until it ends in Baghdad and mixes with the Euphrates, then it passes south to the west of Jarjaraya until it exits from the part to the third region, and its peoples and streams spread there, then it gathers and flows there into the Persian Gulf at Abadan, and between the Tigris and Euphrates before their meeting, as Baghdad is the land of Al-Jazirah, and it mixes with the Tigris River after it leaves Baghdad, another river comes from the northeastern side of it and ends in the land of Al-Nahrawan opposite Baghdad to the east, then it turns south and mixes with the Tigris before exiting to the third region, and what remains between this river and the mountains of Iraq and the Persians is the country of Jalula, and to its east, near the mountain, is the country of Halwan and Sumrah. As for the western part of the section, it is intercepted by a mountain that begins from Jabal al-Aajim in the east to the end of the section and is called Jabal Shahrazur. It divides it into two parts. In the south of this smaller part is the country of Khunjan from the west and north of Isfahan. This part is called the country of Halus. In the middle of it is the country of Nahavand. In the north of it is the country of Shahrazur in the west at the junction of the two mountains and the Dinur in the east at the end of the part. In the second smaller part is the country of Armenia, its base is Maragha. What is opposite it from the mountain of Iraq is called Baria. It is the dwellings of the Kurds and the Great and Little Zab that is on the Tigris behind it. At the end of this part from the east is the country of Azerbaijan, including Tabriz and Baydaqan. In the northeastern corner of this part is a part of the Sea of ​​Nitish, which is the Caspian Sea. In the seventh part of this region from its west and south is most of the country of Halus. In it is Hamadan and Qazvin, and the rest of it is in the third region. In it is Isfahan. It is surrounded from the south by a mountain that emerges from its west and passes through the third region. Then it turns from the sixth part to the fourth region and connects with the mountain of Iraq in its east, which was mentioned there. It surrounds the country of Halus In the eastern section, this mountain surrounding Isfahan descends from the third region to the north and goes out to this seventh section surrounding the lands of Halus from its east and below it there is Kashan then Qom and turns in about half of its way westward somewhat then returns round and goes east and deviates to the north until it comes out to the fifth region and includes in its turn and rounding the country of Ray in its east and begins from its turn another mountain passes west to the end of this section and from its south from there Qazvin and from its northern side and the side of the Ray Mountain connected with it going east and north to the middle of the section then to the special region the lands of Tabaristan between these mountains and a piece of the Tabaristan Sea and enters from the fifth region in this section in about half from its west to its east and intercepts at the Ray Mountain and when it turns to the west a connected mountain passes on its direction eastward and with a little deviation to the south until it enters the eighth section from its west and remains between the Ray Mountain and this mountain from their beginning the lands of Gurgan between the two mountains and from it Bastam and behind this mountain a piece of this section in which is the rest of the desert between Fars and Khorasan and it is in To the east of it is Kashan, and at its end at this mountain is the country of Astarabad. The edges of this mountain from its east to the end of the part are the country of Nishapur in Khorasan. To the south of the mountain and to the east of the desert is the country of Nishapur, then Marv al-Shahjan, the end of the part. To the north of it and to the east of Gorgan is the country of Mahrajan, Khazrun, and Tus, the end of the part to the east. All of this is under the mountain. To the north of it is the country of Nisa, and it is surrounded at the corner of the two parts, north and east, by deserted deserts. In the eighth part of this region and to its west is the Jayhun River running from the south to the north. In its western enemy is Ramma and Amal from the lands of Khurasan and Al-Dhahiriya and Al-Jurjaniya from the lands of Khwarazm. The southwestern corner of it is surrounded by Mount Astarabad, which is located in the seventh part before it. It emerges in this part from its west and surrounds this corner and in it is the rest of the lands of Herat and Al-Jawzkhan until it connects with Mount Al-Batm as we mentioned there. To the east of the Jayhun River from this part and to the south of it is the land of Bukhara, then the lands of Sogd and its base is Samarkand, then Sardar and Ashna, and from it is Khujandah, the last part to the east. To the north of Samarkand, Sardar and Ashna is the land of Ilag, then to the north of Ilag, the land of Shash to the end of the part to the east. It takes a piece of the ninth part in the south of that piece, the rest of the land of Ferghana. From that piece in the ninth part, the Shash River emerges, crossing the eighth part until it flows into the Jayhun River at its exit from this eighth part to its north to the fifth region and mixes with it in the land of Ilag. A river comes from the ninth part of the third region from the borders of the country of Tibet and mixes with it before Its outlet is from the ninth part, the Fergana River, and on the direction of the Shash River, Jabrajun Mountain begins from the fifth region and turns eastward and deviates to the south until it exits to the ninth part, surrounding the land of Shash, then it turns in the ninth part, surrounding Shash and Fergana there to its south, and enters the third region. Between the Shash River and the edge of this mountain in the middle of this part is the land of Farab, and between it and the land of Bukhara and Khwarazm are deserts, and in the corner of this part from the north and east is the land of Khujandah, and in it is the country of Isbijab and Taraz. In the ninth part of this region, in its west, after the land of Fergana and Shash, is the land of Khazlajiyya in the south and the land of the Khaljiyya in the north, and in the east of the entire part is the land of Kimakiyya, and in the entire tenth part it connects to the Qawqiya Mountain, the last part to the east, and on a piece of the surrounding sea there, which is the mountain of Gog and Magog, and all these nations are from the peoples of the Turks. End. The fifth region: The first part of it is mostly submerged in water except for a little from its south and east because the sea surrounding this western side entered the fifth, sixth and seventh regions from the circle surrounding the region. As for what is exposed from its south, it is a piece in the shape of a triangle connected from there to Andalusia and its rest is on it and the sea surrounds it from two sides as if they were two sides surrounding the corner of the triangle. In it from the rest of western Andalusia is Saiyur on the sea at the beginning of the part from the south and west and Salamanca to the east of it and in its interior is Samora and to the east of Salamanca is Ayla the last of the south and Castilian land to the east of it and in it is the city of Sequonia and to the north of it is the land of Leon and Barghasht then behind it in the north is the land of Galicia to the corner of the piece and in it on the surrounding sea at the end of the western side is the country of Shintiago and its meaning is Jacob and in it from the east of the land of Andalusia is the city of Shetalia at the end of the part in the south and east of Castilia and to the north and east of it is Shaqqa and Pamplona on its direction east and north and to the west of Pamplona is Castile then Najiza between it and Barghasht and a great mountain stands in the middle of this piece adjacent to the sea and to the northern side To the east of it, and close by, it connects to it and to the edge of the sea at Pamplona in the eastern direction, which we mentioned before, connects to the south with the Roman Sea in the fourth region and becomes a barrier over the lands of Andalusia from the eastern direction, and its folds have doors leading to the Gascon lands of the Frankish nations, from which from the fourth region are Barcelona and Narbonne on the coast of the Roman Sea, and Khuraida and Carcassonne behind them to the north and from it from the fifth region is Talusha north of Khuraida. As for what is exposed in this part from the east, it is a piece in the shape of a rectangular triangle with an acute angle behind the Barnats to the east and in it on the surrounding sea according to the opinion of the piece to which the Barnats Mountain is connected is the country of Nyonah and at the end of this piece in the northeastern side of the part is the land of Panto from the Franks to the end of the part. In the second part, on the western side of it, is the land of Gascony, and to the north of it is the land of Pontus and Barghasht, which we have mentioned. And to the east of the land of Gascony, to the north of it, is a piece of land from the Roman Sea that entered this part like a molar, leaning slightly to the east, and the land of Gascony became to the west of it entering into a bay of the sea. And at the head of this piece to the north is the land of Genoa, and on its line to the north is Mount Nitjun, and to the north of it and on its hearing is the land of Barghuna, and to the east, on the edge of Genoa that extends from the Roman Sea, there remains another edge that extends from it, between them remains a bay that enters from the land into the sea in the Ghazbiyeh of Nis, and to the east of it is the great city of Rome, the seat of the king of the Franks and the residence of the Pope, their great patriarch. And in it are the huge buildings and enormous temples and ordinary churches, which are well-known news, and among its wonders is the river that runs in its middle from the east to the west, its floor is paved with copper tiles, and in it is the church of Peter and Paul, the apostles, and they are buried in it. And to the north of the land of Rome is the land of Aqransissa to the end of the part, and on this end of the sea, which is to the south of it, is the land of Nabeul, on the eastern side of it connected to the country of Calabria. From the lands of the Franks, and to its north, a part of the Gulf of Venice entered this part of the third part, westward and parallel to the north of this part, and ended at about a third of it, and upon it much of the lands of Venice entered this part from its south, between it and the ocean, and to its north the lands of England in the sixth region. In the third part of this region, in its west, is the country of Calabria, between the Gulf of Venice and the Roman Sea, surrounding it from its east. It reaches from its land in the fourth region in the Roman Sea in a bay between two sides that emerge from the sea in the direction of the north to this part in the east of the country of Calabria, the country of Ankirdah in a bay between the Gulf of Venice and the Roman Sea. One side of this part enters the bay in the fourth region and in the Roman Sea, and the Gulf of Venice surrounds it from its east from the Roman Sea, going in the direction of the north, then it turns to the west parallel to the end of the northern part, and a great mountain emerges on its direction from the fourth region parallel to it and goes with it to the north, then it sets with it in the sixth region until it ends opposite a bay in its north in the country of Ankala, from the nations of the Germans, as we mention. On this bay and between it and this mountain, as long as they go to the north, is the country of the Venetians. If they go to the west, between them is the country of Harwaya, then the country of the Germans at the end of the bay. In the fourth part of this region, there is a piece of the Roman Sea that came out to it from the fourth region, all of it molars from the sea, and from it comes out to the north, and between every two molars of it, a part of the sea in the bay between them, and at the end of the part east, a piece of the sea, and from it comes out to the north, the Gulf of Constantinople comes out from this southern end and goes in the direction of the north until it enters the sixth region, and from there it turns from close east to the Sea of ​​Nitish in the fifth part and some of the fourth south and the sixth by a number of the sixth region as we mention, and the city of Constantinople is in the east of this gulf at the end of the part from the north, and it is the great city that was the seat of the Caesars, and in it are traces of construction and enormity that have been much talked about, and the piece that is between the Roman Sea and the Gulf of Constantinople from this part, and in it is the land of Macedonia that belonged to the Greeks and from it began their rule, and in the east of this gulf to the end of the part is a piece of the land of Bathos, and I think that it is to this day the fields of the Turkmen, and in it is the rule of Ibn Othman and his base in it is Bursa, and before them it belonged to the Romans and they defeated them over it when the nations until it became for the Turkmen. In the special part of this region, to the west and south of it, is the land of Batus, and to the north of it to the end of the part, is the land of Amorium, and to the east of Amorium, is the river Qabaqib, which supplies the Gharat and emerges from a mountain there and goes south until it mixes with the Euphrates before arriving from this part to its passage in the fourth region, and there is to the west of it the end of the part at the beginning of Sihal, then the river Ceyhan to the west of it, going on its course, and we have mentioned them before, and to the east of it, there is the beginning of the Tigris River, going on its course and parallel to it until it mixes with it at Baghdad, and in the corner between the south and the east of this part, behind the mountain from which the Tigris River begins, is the country of Mayyafariqin and the river Qabaqib, which we mentioned, this part is divided into two parts, one of them is to the west of the south, and in it is the land of Batus, as we have said, and its lower parts to the end of the part to the north, and behind the mountain from which the river Qabaqib begins, is the land of Amorium, as we have said, and the second part is to the east of the north, on the third in the south of it, the beginning of the Tigris and Euphrates, and to the north, the land of the Balkans, connected to the land of Amorium from behind the mountain of Qabaqib, and it is Arab, and at its end is at the beginning of The Euphrates is the country of Kharshana, and in the northeastern corner is a piece of the Nitish Sea, which is supplied by the Gulf of Constantinople.

 

The third section of the detailed discussion of this geography #

 

In the sixth part of this region, in its south and west, there is the land of Armenia, connected until it passes the middle of the part to the east, and in it are the countries of Jordan in the south and west, and in its north, Tiflis and Dibil, and in the east of Jordan, the city of Khalat, then Barda’a in its south, deviating to the east, the city of Armenia, and from there the exit of the land of Armenia to the fourth region, and in it there is the country of Maragha in the east of the Kurdish mountain called Armi, and its mention was mentioned in the sixth part of it, and it borders the land of Armenia in this part and in the fourth region before it from the east, in it is the land of Azerbaijan, and its last in this part to the east is the land of Ardabil on a piece of the Sea of ​​Tabaristan, which entered the eastern side of the seventh part and is called the Sea of ​​Tabarisan, and upon it from its north in this part is a piece of the land of the Khazars, who are the Turkmen, and from the end of this sea piece in the north begins mountains that connect with each other in the direction of the west to the special part, and it passes in it, bending and surrounding the country of Mayyafariqin, and it exits to the fourth region at Amid and connects to the mountain of Silsilah in the lower parts of the Levant, and from there it connects to the mountain of Lakam as was mentioned, and between these northern mountains in this part are folds like doors. It opens on both sides. In its south is the land of the gates, connected in the east to the Sea of ​​Tabaristan, and upon it is the city of Bab al-Abwab. The land of the gates is connected in the west from its southern side to the country of Armenia, and between them in the east and the southern country of Azerbaijan is the land of Zab, connected to the Sea of ​​Tabaristan. In the north of these mountains is a piece of this part. In its west is the Kingdom of Sarir in the northwestern corner of it, and in the corner of the whole part is also a piece of the Sea of ​​Nitish, which is supplied by the Gulf of Constantinople, and it has been mentioned before. With this piece of Nitish, the land of Sarir is reduced, and upon it is the country of Atrabizida. The land of Sarir is connected between the mountain of the gates and the northern side of the part until it ends in the east to the barrier mountain between it and the land of the Khazars, and at its end is the city of Sol. Behind this barrier mountain is a piece of the land of the Khazars that ends in the northeastern corner of this part of the Sea of ​​Tabaristan, and the end of the part is to the north. The seventh part of this region, its entire west, is submerged in the Tabaristan Sea, and from its south in the fourth region comes the piece that we mentioned there that it contains the lands of Tabaristan and the Daylam Mountains to Qazvin, and to the west of that piece is connected to it the piece that is in the sixth part of the fourth region, and from its north the piece that is in the sixth part of its east is also connected to it, and from this part a piece is exposed at its northwestern corner, into which the Athl River flows into this sea, and from this part in the eastern direction there remains a piece exposed from the sea, which are areas for the riddle of the Turkic nations, surrounded by a mountain from the south inside the eighth part and goes in the west to below its middle, then turns to the north until it meets the Tabaristan Sea, and surrounds it, going with it to its remainder in the sixth region, then turns with its edge and leaves it, and there it is called Mount Siyah, and it goes west to the sixth part of the sixth region, then returns south to the sixth part of the fifth region, and this edge of it is what is intercepted in this part between the land of Sarir and the land of the Khazars, and the edges of this mountain called Mount Siyah are connected to the land of the Khazars in the sixth and seventh parts, as will come. The eighth part of this fifth region is all fields of enigma from the Turkic nations. In the southwestern part of it is Lake Khwarazm, into which the Jayhun River flows. Its course is three hundred miles, and many rivers flow into it from the land of these regions. In the northeastern part of it is Lake Aroun, its course is four hundred miles, and its water is sweet. In the northern part of this part is Mount Margar, which means the mountain of snow because it does not melt in it, and it is connected to the last part. In the south of Lake Aroun is a mountain of solid stone that does not grow anything, called Aroun, and the lake was named after it. From it and from Mount Margar, north of the lake, countless rivers flow, flowing into it from both sides. In the ninth part of this region is the land of Arx of the Turkic nations in the west of the land of the Ghuzz and the east of the land of the Kimakia. It is surrounded on the eastern side of the last part by the Qawqia Mountain surrounding Gog and Magog. It intercepts there from the south to the north until it turns its first entrance from the tenth part. It had entered it from the end of the tenth part of the fourth region before it and surrounded there the surrounding sea to the end of the part in the north. Then it turned west in the tenth part of the fourth region to less than half of it and surrounded from its beginning to here the land of the Kimakia. Then it went out to the tenth part of the fifth region and went west to its end. In the south of this part there remained a rectangular piece to the west before the last land of the Kimakia. Then it went out to the ninth part in its east and at the top of it and turned close to the north and went on its course to the ninth part of the sixth region and in it is the dam there as we mention. The piece of it that the Qawqia Mountain surrounded at the northeastern corner of this part remained rectangular to the south and it is from the land of Gog and Magog. In the tenth part of this region is the land of Gog. And Magog and Gog are connected to it in its entirety except for a part of the sea that submerges its eastern end from its south to its north except for the part that is separated to the south and west by Mount Qoviya when it passed through it and everything else is the land of Gog and Gog, and God Almighty knows best.

The sixth region. The first part of it was covered by the sea more than half of it and turned eastward with the northern side, then went with the eastern side to the south and ended close to the southern side, so a piece of this land was exposed in this part entering between the two sides and in the southeastern corner of the surrounding sea like the lagoon in it and it expands in length and breadth and it is all British land and in its gate between the two sides and in the southeastern corner of this part is the land of Sax connected to the land of Pontus which was mentioned in the first and second parts of the fifth region. The second part of this region entered the ocean from its west and north. From its west, there is a rectangular piece larger than its northern half from the east of British land in the first part. The other piece connected to it in the north from its west to its east, and it expanded somewhat in its western half. In it there is a piece of the island of England, which is a great island containing cities and a huge kingdom. The rest of it is in the seventh region. In the south of this piece and its island in the western half of this part are the lands of Armenia and the lands of the Afladis connected to it, then the lands of France to the south and west of this part, and the lands of Burgundy to the east of it, all of which belong to the nations of the Franks. The lands of the Almanacians are in the eastern half of the part. To its south are the lands of Anclair, then the lands of Burgundy to the north, then the lands of Lehuica and Chetton. On the piece of the ocean in the northeastern corner is the lands of Afrira, all of which belong to the nations of the Almanac. In the third part of this region, in the western part, is the country of Maratia in the south and the country of Shatuniah in the north. In the eastern part, is the country of Ancovia in the south and the country of Balonia in the north. Between them, there is the Balwat Mountain entering from the fourth part and passing westward, deviating to the north, until it stops in the country of Shatuniah, the last part of the western half. In the fourth part, in the southern part, is the land of Gethul, and below it in the north, is the land of Russia. Between them, there is the Balwat Mountain from the beginning of the part in the west until it stops in the eastern half. In the east of the land of Gethul, is the country of Germany. In the southeastern corner, there is the land of Constantinople and its city at the end of the gulf emerging from the Roman Sea and at its cannon in the Sea of ​​Nitish. A section of the Sea of ​​Nitish is located in the upper part of the eastern part of this part, and the gulf extends it. Between them in the corner is the country of Mesina. In the fifth part of the sixth region, then in the southern side at the Sea of ​​Nitish, it connects with the Gulf at the end of the fourth part and emerges from its eastern direction, passing through this entire part and some of the sixth over a length of one thousand three hundred miles from its beginning in a width of six hundred miles. Behind this sea, in the southern side of this part, to its west to its east, there remains a rectangular land. In its west is Heraclea on the coast of the Sea of ​​Nitish, connected to the land of the Balkans from the fifth region, and in its east is the land of Alania, and its base is Sutli on the Sea of ​​Nitish. In the north of the Sea of ​​Nitish in this part, to the west, is the land of Tarkhan, and to the east is the land of Russia, all of which is on the coast of this sea. The land of Russia surrounds the land of Tarkhan from its east in this part, from its north in the fifth part of the seventh region, and from its west in the fourth part of this region. In the sixth part, to its west, is the rest of the Nitish Sea, which deviates slightly to the north, and between it and the end of the part to the north remains the country of Qomania, and in its south it is wide to the north, as it deviated, and so is the rest of the country of Alaniya, which was the end of its south in the fifth part. In the eastern part of this part, the land of the Khazars is connected, and in its east is the land of Bartas, and in the northeastern corner is the land of Bulgar, and in the southeastern corner is the land of Bulgar, a piece of Mount Siyakoh, which bends with the Khazar Sea, passes through it in the seventh part after it, and after leaving it, it goes west, so it passes through this piece and enters the sixth part of the fifth region, and there it connects with Mount al-Abwab, and from there it is the direction of the Khazar country. In the seventh part of this region, in the southern part, is what Mount Siyah crosses after leaving the Tabaristan Sea, which is a piece of the Khazar land to the end of the part to the west, and in its east is the piece of the Tabaristan Sea that this mountain passes through from its east and north, and behind Mount Siyah in the northwestern part is the land of Bartas, and in the eastern part of the part is the land of Shahrab and Yakhnak, and they are the Turkic nations. In the eighth part and the southern part of it is all the land of the Golk of the Turks in the northern part to the west and the stinking land and the east of the land that it is said that Gog and Magog destroyed before the construction of the dam and in this stinking land is the beginning of the Athl River, one of the greatest rivers in the world and its course is in the land of the Turks and its outlet in the Sea of ​​Tabaristan in the fifth region in the seventh part of it and it has many turns and emerges from a mountain of the stinking land from three springs that meet in one river and passes in the direction of the west to the end of the seventh of this region then turns north to the seventh part of the seventh region and passes at its end between the south and the west and emerges in the sixth part of the seventh and goes west not far then turns again to the south and returns to the sixth part of the sixth region and a stream emerges from it that goes west and empties into the Sea of ​​Nitish in that part and it passes in a piece between the north and the east in the land of Bulgar and emerges in the seventh part of the sixth region then turns a third time to the south and runs into Mount Siyah and passes through the land of the Khazars It goes out to the fifth region in its seventh part, and there it flows into the Sea of ​​Tabaristan in the part that was exposed from the part at the southwestern corner. The ninth part of this region, on its western side, is the land of Khafshakh of the Turks, who are Qipchaq, and the land of the Circassians is also from them. In the east of it is the land of Gog and Gog, separated from them by the surrounding mountain of Caucasus, which has been mentioned before. It begins from the surrounding sea in the east of the fourth region and goes with it to the end of the region in the north, and leaves it westward and with a deviation to the north until it enters the ninth part of the fifth region, then it returns to its first direction until it enters this ninth part of the region from its south to its north with a deviation to the west, and in the middle of it here is the dam that Alexander built. Then it goes out on its direction to the seventh region and in the ninth part of it, and it passes in it to the south until it meets the surrounding sea in its north, then it turns with it from there westward to the seventh region to the fifth part of it, and there it connects with a part of the surrounding sea in its west, and in the middle of this ninth part is the dam that Alexander built, as we have said, and the correct account of it is in the Qur’an. Abdullah bin Khordadbeh mentioned in his book on geography that al-Wathiq saw in his dream as if the dam opened, so he woke up frightened. And he sent Salam the interpreter, who stopped at him and brought his news and described him in a long story that is not the purpose of this book of ours. In the tenth part of this region, the land of Magog is connected to it to the end, on a piece of the surrounding sea that surrounds it from its east and north, oblong in the north and somewhat wide in the east. The seventh region: The surrounding sea has covered most of it from the north to the middle of the fifth part where it connects to Mount Caucaia surrounding Gog and Magog. The first and second parts are submerged in water except for what is exposed of the island of England, most of which is in the second, and in the first part of it, a tip has turned in a deviation to the north, and the rest of it with a piece of the sea rounding it in the second part of the sixth region, and it is mentioned there, and the crossing from it to the mainland in this piece is twelve miles wide, and behind this island in the north of the second part is the island of Raslanda, oblong from west to east. The third part of this region is mostly submerged by the sea except for a rectangular piece in its south that expands in its east and in it there is a connection to the land of Flonia which was mentioned in the third of the sixth region and that it is in its north and in the piece of sea that submerges this part and then on the western side of it is a spacious circle and is connected to the mainland by a door in its south that leads to the land of Flonia and in its north is the island of Barqaa and in a copy a rectangular hall with the north from the west to the east. The fourth part of this region, its entire north is submerged in the ocean from the west to the east and its south is exposed. In its west is the land of Qimmazak of the Turks and in its east is the land of Tist, then the land of Ruslan to the end of the part to the east. It is permanently snowy and its population is sparse. It connects to the lands of Russia in the sixth region and in the fourth and fifth parts of it. In the fifth part of this region in the western part of it is the lands of Russia and ends in the north to a part of the ocean to which the Caucasus Mountains are connected as we mentioned before. In the eastern part of it is connected to the land of Qamaniya which is on a part of the Nitish Sea from the sixth part of the sixth region and ends to Lake Tarma from this part. It is fresh and many rivers flow into it from the mountains from the south and north. In the north of the eastern part of this part is the land of Tatars from the Turks and in a copy of the Turkmen to the end. In the sixth part from the southwestern part is connected to the lands of Qamaniya and in the middle of the region is Lake Athur, which is fresh and rivers flow into it from the mountains in the eastern parts. It is always frozen due to the severe cold except a little in the summer. In the east of the lands of Qamaniya is the lands of Russia which began in the sixth region in the northeastern part of the fifth part. From it and in the southeastern corner of this part is the rest of the land of Bulgar, which began in the sixth region and in the northeastern side of the sixth part of it and in the middle of this part of the land of Bulgar is the bend of the Athl River, the first part to the south as mentioned, and at the end of this sixth part from its north is Mount Qawqia connected from its west to its east, and in the seventh part of this region in its west is the rest of the land of Yakhnak from the Turkic nations, and from its beginning from the northeastern side of the sixth part before it and in the southwestern side of this part and it extends to the sixth region from above it and in the eastern side is the rest of the land of Saharb then the rest of the stinking land to the end of the part east and at the end of the part from the north side is Mount Qawqia surrounding it connected from its west to its east. And in the eighth part of this region in its southwest is the stinking land connected and in its east is the dug land, which is one of the wonders, a huge hole in the earth Far away, spacious in its regions, and inaccessible to its bottom, its civilization is indicated by smoke during the day and fires at night that light up and disappear. Perhaps a river can be seen in it that cuts through it from the south to the north. In the eastern part of this part are the ruined lands adjacent to the dam. At the far north of it are Mount Qofia, connected from the east to the west. In the ninth part of this region, on the western side of it, are the lands of Khafshakh, who are Qafjaq.

Mount Qofia crosses it when it turns from its north at the surrounding sea and goes in its middle to the south, deviating to the east. It emerges in the ninth part of the sixth region and passes across it. In the middle of it there is a dam. Gog and Magog, and we have mentioned them. In the eastern part of this part, the land of Gog is behind Mount Qofia on the sea, narrow in width, rectangular, surrounding it from its east and north. The tenth part is completely covered by the sea. This is the end of the discussion of geography and its seven regions, and in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of night and day, as signs for the worlds.

 

The third introduction to the moderate and deviant regions, the effect of air on human colors and much of their conditions #

 

We have shown that the inhabited part of this exposed part of the earth is only its middle, due to the extreme heat in the south and the cold in the north. And since the two sides of the north and south are opposite in heat and cold, it is necessary that the quality of both of them be included in the middle, so it is moderate. The fourth region is the most moderate in terms of civilization, and its edges from the third and fifth are closer to moderation, and those following them, the second and sixth, are far from moderation, and the first and seventh are much further away. For this reason, the sciences, industries, buildings, clothing, foods, fruits, and even animals and everything that is formed in these three middle regions are characterized by moderation, and their human inhabitants are more moderate in bodies, colors, morals, and religions, even prophecies, for they are found in most of them. We have not come across any news of a mission in the southern or northern regions, and that is because the prophets and messengers are characterized by the most perfect of the kind in their creation and morals. God Almighty said: You are the best nation produced for mankind, and this is to complete the acceptance of what the prophets bring to them from God. The people of these regions are the most perfect because of the existence of moderation for them, so you find them at the height of moderation in their dwellings, clothing, foods, and industries. They build houses lined with stones decorated with craftsmanship, and they compete in the excellence of tools and utensils. They go to the extreme in this and have natural minerals of gold, silver, iron, copper, lead and tin and they conduct their transactions with the two precious currencies and they avoid deviation in most of their conditions. These are the people of Morocco, the Levant, the Hijaz, Yemen, Iraq, India, Sindh and China, as well as Andalusia and those near it from the Franks, Galicians, Romans and Greeks and those who were with these or close to them in these moderate regions. For this reason, Iraq and the Levant were the most just of all of them because they are in the middle from all sides. As for the regions far from moderation, such as the first, second, sixth and seventh, their people are far from moderation in all their conditions. Their buildings are made of mud and reeds, their food is corn and grass, their clothing is made of leaves that they weave around themselves or hides, and most of them are naked of clothing. The fruits of their country and its skin are of a strange composition and tend toward deviation. Their dealings are with other than the two noble stones of copper or iron or hides that they estimate for dealings. Their morals are, however, close to the morals of dumb animals, so much so that it is reported from many of the Sudanese people of the first region that they live in caves and thickets and eat grass and that they are savages who are not domesticated and eat each other. The same is true of the Slavs. The reason for this is that, due to their distance from moderation, their temperaments and morals are close to those of dumb animals, and they are far from humanity by that amount. Likewise, their conditions in religion also, they do not know prophecy nor do they adhere to a law except for those who are close to them in terms of moderation, which is at least rare, such as the Abyssinians, neighbors of Yemen, who professed Christianity before Islam and after it until this era, and such as the people of Mali and Kuku. And the repetition of the neighbors of the land of Morocco who are creditors of Islam in this era, it is said that they converted to it in the seventh century, and like those who converted to Christianity from the nations of the Slavs, the Franks, and the Turks from the north and others from the people of those regions that deviated south and north, the religion is unknown to them and knowledge is lost among them and all their conditions are far from the conditions of humans and close to the conditions of animals and creates what you do not know. This statement is not objected to by the existence of Yemen, Hadhramaut, Al-Ahqaf, the lands of the Hijaz, Al-Yamamah and what follows it from the Arabian Peninsula in the first and second regions, for the entire Arabian Peninsula was surrounded by seas from the three sides as we mentioned, so its humidity had an effect on the humidity of its air, so that decreased the dryness and deviation that the heat requires and some moderation occurred in it due to the humidity of the sea. Some genealogists who have no knowledge of the nature of beings have imagined that the blacks are the descendants of Ham, son of Noah, and were distinguished by their black color because of a prayer that was inflicted upon him by his father, the effect of which appeared in his color and in what God made of slavery in his offspring. They relate a story about this from the fables of storytellers. Noah’s prayer against his son Ham occurred in the Torah, and there is no mention of blackness in it. Rather, he prayed that his children would be slaves to the children of his brothers and nothing else. In saying that blackness is attributed to Ham, there is neglect of the nature of heat and cold and their effect on the air and what animals are formed in it. This color included the people of the first and second regions from the temperament of their air for the double heat in the south, as the sun rises above their heads twice in every year, one close to the other, so the tanning is prolonged in all seasons, so the light increases because of it, and the intense heat is persistent upon them, and their skins turn black due to the excess of heat. Similar to these two regions, which are opposite them from the north, the seventh and sixth regions, their inhabitants also included whiteness from the temperament of their air for the excessive cold in the north, as the sun is still on their horizon in the circle of vision of the eye or close to it and does not rise to tanning nor The one who is close to it, the heat weakens in it and the cold becomes intense in all seasons, so the colors of its people turn white and it ends in the tawny, and what follows is what the temperament of extreme cold requires of blue eyes, white skin, and coarse hair, and the three regions, the fifth, fourth, and third, are in between them And it had a great share in moderation, which is the temperament of the middle, and the fourth was the most eloquent in moderation, as it reached its end in moderation, as we have presented. So its people had moderation in their creation and character, as required by the temperament of their passions, and the third and fifth sides followed it, although they did not reach the end of moderation, because this one leaned slightly toward the hot south and this one slightly toward the cold north, but they did not end in deviation. The four regions were deviant, and their people were likewise in their creation and character. The first and second are for heat and blackness, and the seventh is for cold and whiteness. The inhabitants of the south of the first and second regions are called Abyssinia, Zanj, and Sudan, names synonymous with the nations that change in blackness, even though the name Abyssinia is specific to those facing Mecca, and Yemen, and Zanj is to those facing the Indian Ocean. These names are not for them because of their lineage to a black human being, neither Ham nor other. We may find among the blacks, the people of the south, those who inhabit the moderate quarter or the seventh deviating toward whiteness, so the colors of their descendants gradually whiten with the days, and vice versa for those who inhabit the people of the north or the fourth in the south, so the colors of their descendants blacken. And in that is evidence that color is dependent on the temperament of the air. Ibn Sina said in His poem on medicine

 

The free Zanj changed the bodies until their skins were covered with blackness

And the Saqlub acquired whiteness until their skins became smooth

 

As for the people of the north, they were not named based on their colors because whiteness was a color for the people of that language that established names, so there was no strangeness in it that would lead to considering it in the name due to its agreement and custom, and we found its inhabitants from the Turks, the Slavs, the Tughrir, the Khazars, the Alans, and many of the Franks, and Gog and Magog, scattered names and multiple generations named with various names. As for the people of the three middle regions, the people of moderation in their creation and conduct and all the natural conditions of habitation with them from livelihood and dwellings and industries and sciences and leaderships and kingship, there were among them prophecies and kingship and states and laws and sciences and countries and cities and buildings and physiognomy and superior industries and all the moderate conditions, and the people of these regions whose news we have come across are like the Arabs and the Romans and Persia and the Children of Israel and the Greeks and the people of Sindh and India and China. When the genealogists saw the difference between these nations in their characteristics and emblems, they considered that to be for the sake of lineage, so they made all the people of the south blacks from the descendants of Ham, and they doubted their colors, so they took it upon themselves to transmit that weak story and made all or most of the people of the north from the descendants of Japheth, and most of the moderate nations and the people of the middle who claim to have sciences, industries, religions, laws, politics, and kingship from the descendants of Shem. If this claim coincides with the truth in the lineage of these people, then it is not by consistent analogy, but rather it is a report of reality, not that the people of the south are called blacks and Abyssinians because of their lineage to the black Ham. What led them to this mistake was their belief that the distinction between nations is only by lineage, and it is not so, for the distinction of a generation or nation is by lineage in some of them, as for the Arabs, the Children of Israel, and the Persians, and it is by direction and feature, as for the Zanj, the Abyssinians, the Slavs, and the blacks, and it is by customs, emblem, and lineage, as for the Arabs. And it is other than that from the conditions of nations and their characteristics and their features, so the generalization of the saying about the people of a certain region of the south or north that they are from the offspring of so-and-so known for what included them from the sect or the colors and medals found for that father is only from the errors that caused the negligence of the natures of the universes and the regions that all of these change in the descendants and it is not necessary for them to continue, it is the law of God with His servants and you will not find any change in the law of God and God and His Messenger know best His unseen and are wiser and He is the Master, the Beneficent, the Merciful.

 

The Fourth Introduction to the Effect of Air on the Morals of Humans #

 

We have seen that the Sudanese people in general are light-hearted, reckless and very musical, and you find them fond of dancing to every beat, and they are described as foolish in every country. The correct reason for that is that it has been established in its place in wisdom that the nature of joy and happiness is the spread and diffusion of the animal spirit, and the nature of sadness is the opposite, which is its contraction and condensation. It has been established that heat diffuses the air and steam loosens it, increasing its quantity. For this reason, the one who is intoxicated with joy and happiness finds what cannot be expressed, and that is because the steam of the spirit enters the heart from the dear heat that the wine sends into the spirit from its temperament, so the spirit spreads and the nature of joy comes.

Likewise, we find those who enjoy baths, if they breathe in their air and the heat of the air connects with their spirits and they become warmed, for this reason joy occurs to them, and perhaps many of them are emitted with singing arising from joy. And since the Sudanese live in the hot region and the heat has taken over their temperaments and in their original composition there was in their souls a degree of heat in proportion to their bodies and region, so their souls are hotter in comparison to the souls of the people of the fourth region, so they are more widespread and are quicker to rejoice and be happy and more relaxed, and recklessness comes as a result of this, and likewise the people of the maritime countries are somewhat similar to them, because their air is of double heat due to what is reflected on it from the lights of the plain of the sea and its rays, their share of the consequences of heat in joy and lightness is more present than in the cold hills and mountains.

We may find a little of that in the people of the island countries of the third region due to the abundance of heat in them and in their air because they are deeply rooted in the south of the countryside and hills. Consider this also with the people of Egypt, for it is like the width of the island countries or close to it, how joy and lightness have overcome them and they are heedless of the consequences until they do not save their year’s or month’s provisions, and generally their food is from their markets. Since Fez is from the Maghreb countries, unlike it in its penetration into the cold hills, how do you see its people with their heads bowed in sadness and how they have gone too far in considering the consequences, so that a man among them would save two years’ worth of wheat grains and go to the markets early to buy his food for the day, fearing that he would lose something from his savings? And you will find in the morals an effect of the qualities of the air, and God is the Creator, the All-Knowing.

Al-Mas’udi has addressed the search for the reason for the lightness, recklessness, and abundance of joy in the blacks, and he tried to explain it, but he did not come up with anything more than that he quoted from Galen and Jacob bin Ishaq al-Kindi that this is due to the weakness of their brains and what resulted from it of the weakness of their minds. This is talk that has no result or proof, and God guides whomever He wills to the straight path.

 

The fifth introduction on the differences in the conditions of civilization in fertility and hunger and the effects that result from that on the bodies and morals of people #

 

Know that not all of these temperate regions are fertile, nor are all of their inhabitants comfortable living conditions. Rather, there are those whose inhabitants have a fertile life of grains, fat, wheat, and fruits. Because of the purity of the origins, the moderation of the clay, and the abundance of civilization, and in it the free land, the soil does not grow crops or grass in general, so its inhabitants live in hardship, like the people of the Hijaz and southern Yemen, and like the veiled ones from Sanbahja who live in the desert of Morocco and the edges of the sands between the Berbers and the Sudan, for these lack grains and fat in general, and their food and sustenance are milk and meat, and like the Arabs also who roam the deserts, for although they take grains and fat from the mounds, that is only occasionally and under the control of its protector, and rarely due to their lack of means, so they do not reach from it the dam of the hole or less, let alone comfort and fertility, and you find them confined in most of their circumstances to milk, and they are compensated by wheat with the best provisions, and you find with that those who lack grains and fat from the people of the deserts are in a better state in their bodies and morals than the people of the mounds who are immersed in life, for their colors are purer and their bodies are cleaner and their forms are more complete and better and their morals are further from deviation and their minds are more penetrating in knowledge and perceptions. This is a matter that experience attests to in Every generation of them, there is much between the Arabs and the Berbers in what we have described, and between the veiled ones and the people of the hills, knows this from their experience, and the reason for that, and God knows best, is that the abundance of food and the abundance of corrupt and putrid mixtures and their moistures generate in the body bad wastes that arise from them after their secretion in an unproportionate manner, and this is followed by the eclipse of colors and the ugliness of shapes from the abundance of meat, as we said, and the moistures cover the minds and thoughts with what ascends to the brain from their bad vapors, so dullness, heedlessness and deviation from moderation come in general, and consider that in the animals of the desert and places of drought, such as the gazelle, ostrich, oryx, giraffe, wild donkey and cow, with their likes from the animals of the hills, countrysides and fertile pastures, how you find between them a great difference in the purity of their skin and the beauty of their splendor and shapes and the harmony of their members and the sharpness of their perceptions, so the gazelle is the brother of the goat, and the giraffe is the brother of the camel and the donkey, and the cow is the brother of the donkey and the cow, and the distance between them is what you have seen, and that is only because the fertility in the hills has done in the bodies of these bad wastes and corrupt mixtures what has appeared on them, and hunger for the animal The desert is beautiful in its creation and shapes as he wished, and this was also considered in humans, for we find that the people of the fertile regions with abundant crops, milk, fat, and fruits are often characterized by dullness in their minds and roughness in their bodies. This is the case of the Berbers who are immersed in fat and wheat, along with the ascetics in their lives who limit themselves to barley or corn, such as the Masmuda among them, the people of Ghomara, and the Sous. You find these people in a better state in their minds and bodies. Likewise, the people of the Maghreb in general, who are immersed in fat and wheat, along with the people of Andalusia, whose land lacks ghee, and most of their lives are corn. You find that the people of Andalusia have intelligent minds, light bodies, and acceptance of education that are not found in others. Likewise, the people of the suburbs of Morocco in general, along with the people of the cities and the cities, for although the cities are abundant like them in fat and fertile in their lives, their use of it after treatment by cooking and softening with what they mix with it, therefore its coarseness goes away and its consistency becomes soft. Their general food is lamb and chicken meat, and they do not envy fat. Among the flesh is its insignificance, so the moisture in their food is reduced and the harmful waste it brings to their bodies is reduced. Therefore, you find the bodies of the people of the cities softer than the bodies of the Bedouins who live rough. Likewise, you find those who are accustomed to hunger among the people of the Bedouin have no waste in their bodies, whether coarse or fine. Know that the effect of this fertility on the body and its conditions is evident even in the case of religion and worship. We find the ascetics among the people of the desert or the city who are consumed by hunger and avoidance of pleasures are better in religion and devotion to worship than the people of luxury and fertility. Rather, we find the people of religion are few in the cities and towns because of the harshness and heedlessness that prevails in them, connected to the abundance of meat, fat, and the core of wheat. The presence of worshippers and ascetics is therefore specific to those who are ascetics in their food among the people of the desert. Likewise, we find those who are fertile in life and immersed in its goodness among the people of the desert and among the people of the cities and towns, if the years descend upon them and famines overtake them, death comes to them more quickly than others, such as the Berbers of Morocco and the people of the city of Fez and Egypt, as far as we have been informed. They are not like the Arabs, the people of the desert and the wilderness, nor like the people of the land of palm trees, whose main livelihood is dates, nor like the people of Africa to this day, whose main livelihood is barley and oil, nor the people of Andalusia, whose main livelihood is corn and oil. For these, even if the years and famines overtake them, they do not affect them as they affect those, nor do they increase. In them, death by hunger is not rare, and the reason for that, and God knows best, is that those who are immersed in fertility and are accustomed to fat and butter in particular, their intestines acquire moisture from that in addition to their original temperamental moisture until it exceeds its limit. So if the habit is violated by a lack of food and the loss of fat and the use of rough, unfamiliar food, the intestines will quickly become dry and shrink, and it is extremely weak, so the disease will quickly come to it and its owner will perish suddenly because it is one of the killers, Those who perish in famines are killed by the usual previous satiety, not by the subsequent, emerging hunger. As for those who are accustomed to a lack of fat and oil, their original moisture remains at its limit without increase, and it is receptive to all natural foods, so that with the change of foods, there is no dryness or deviation in their stomachs, and they are mostly saved from the destruction that befalls others with fertility and the abundance of fat in food. The origin of all this is to know that foods and their combination or abandonment is only by habit. So whoever accustoms himself to food and its consumption suits him, it becomes familiar to him, and departure from it and its change becomes a disease, as long as it does not deviate from the purpose of food in general, such as poisons and stagnation and what goes too far in deviation. As for what he finds nourishment and suitability in, it becomes familiar food by habit. So if a person accustoms himself to using milk and vegetables instead of wheat until it becomes his habit, then that has become nourishment for him and he has dispensed with wheat and grains without a doubt. And likewise for whoever accustoms himself to patience with hunger and dispensing with food, as is transmitted from the people of mathematics, for we hear strange reports from them about that that those who do not know them almost deny, and the reason for that is habit, for if the soul becomes accustomed to something, it becomes part of its nature and disposition because it is very variable. If she gradually becomes accustomed to hunger and exercise, then it has become a natural habit for her. What doctors imagine that hunger is fatal is not as they imagine, unless the soul is forced to do so suddenly and food is cut off from it completely. Then the intestines become constricted and the disease afflicts them, with which death is feared. However, if that amount is gradual and exercised by reducing food little by little, as the Sufis do, then it is far from death. This gradualism is necessary, even in returning from this exercise. If he returns to the first food suddenly, death is feared for him, but he returns as he began with exercise gradually. We have seen someone who endures hunger for forty consecutive days or more. And the elders were present in the council of Sultan Abu al-Hasan, and two women from the people of Algeciras and Ronda were brought before him, who had abstained from eating for years. Their affair became widespread and they were tested, and their affair became clear. Their condition continued in that state until they died. We also saw many of our companions who restricted themselves to the milk of a goat, taking its breast during some of the day or at breakfast, and that was their food. He continued to do that for fifteen years, and there are many others, and that is not to be disapproved of. Know that hunger is better for the body than increasing food in every way for those who are able to do so, or to reduce it or to reduce it, and that it has an effect on bodies and minds in their qualities and their soundness, as we have said. Consider this with the effects of the foods that they produce in the bodies. We have seen those who feed on the meat of luxurious, large-bodied animals, their generations grow up in this way. This is seen in the people of the desert with the people of the city. Likewise, those who feed on camel milk and meat also, with what affects their morals of patience, endurance, and the ability to carry heavy loads that are found in camels. Their intestines also grow up in proportion to the intestines of camels in health and thickness, so weakness does not affect them nor does the circulation of food affect them as others do. They drink the sips to release their stomachs, not covered, like colocynth before cooking, and dryas and qurbani, and their intestines do not suffer from it. If the people of the city, whose intestines are delicate, had eaten it with what they grew up on from the delicate foods, then death would have come to them faster than the blink of an eye, because of what is in it of poison and the effect of foods on the bodies, as mentioned by the people of agriculture and witnessed by the people of experience. If chickens are fed grains cooked in camel dung and their eggs are taken and then incubated, the chickens from them will be the largest possible. They may dispense with feeding them and cooking grains by throwing that dung with the incubated eggs, and their chickens will be extremely large. There are many examples of this. If we see these effects of food on bodies, then there is no doubt that hunger also has effects on bodies, because the two opposites are in the same proportion in effect and lack thereof. Thus, the effect of hunger is in purifying bodies from corrupt additions and mixed moistures that impair the body and mind, just as food was influential in the existence of that body, and God encompasses His knowledge.

 

 

The sixth introduction on the types of human beings who perceive by nature or exercise, preceded by the discussion of revelation and vision #

 

Know that Allah, the Exalted, has chosen from among mankind certain individuals whom He has favored through His discourse and created them to know Him and made them intermediaries between them and His servants, who know their interests, incite them to their guidance, take hold of their barriers from the Fire, and show them the path of salvation. Among the knowledge that He conveys to them and shows them on their tongues are the supernatural and the news of the hidden beings from mankind, which there is no way to know except from Allah through their mediation, and they do not know them except through Allah’s teaching them. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: “Behold, I do not know except what Allah has taught me. Know that their news of that is of its particularity and necessity to be truthful, as is clear to you when the truth of prophecy is explained to you. The sign of this type of mankind is that they are absent from those present with them during the state of revelation, with snoring as if it were fainting or unconsciousness in the eyes’ view, and it has nothing to do with them. Rather, it is in reality immersion in meeting the spiritual king with their perception that is appropriate to them and is completely outside the perceptions of mankind. Then He descends to human perceptions either by hearing a sound of speech and understands it, or by appearing to him in the form of a person who addresses him with what he has brought from…” With Allah, then that state would be revealed to him and he would have understood what was revealed to him. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: He was asked about revelation. Sometimes it comes to me like the ringing of a bell, and that is the most difficult for me, then it would leave me and I would have understood what it said. Sometimes the angel would appear to me as a man and speak to me, and I would understand what he was saying. During that, he would be overcome by such intensity and suffocation that it could not be described. In the hadith, one of the things that he treated from revelation was intensity. Aisha said: The revelation would come to him on a very cold day, then it would leave him and his forehead would be dripping with sweat. Allah the Almighty said: We will cast upon you a weighty word. For this purpose in the revelation, the polytheists would accuse the prophets of madness and say that he was a visionary or a follower of the jinn. They were only confused by what they saw of the outward appearance of those states. He whom Allah sends astray – for him there is no guide. Among their signs is that before the revelation they have the character of goodness and purity and avoidance of reprehensible and unclean things, and this is the meaning of infallibility, and it is as if he was created to be free from reprehensible things and those that are contrary to them, and it is as if they are contrary to his nature. In the Sahih, he carried stones while he was a boy with his uncle Abbas to build the Kaaba, so he put them in his garment, but it was exposed and he fell unconscious until he covered himself with his garment, and he was invited to a gathering of a feast in which there was a wedding and games, and he was overcome by sleep until the sun rose, and he did not attend anything of their business, but God cleared him of all of that, so that by his nature he avoids abhorrent foods. The Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, did not approach onions and garlic, so he was asked about that, and he said, “I am speaking to someone you do not speak to.” And look at what the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, told Khadija, may God be pleased with her, about the state of the revelation when it first surprised him and wanted to test him, so she said, “Put me between you and your garment.” So when he did that, he left him, and she said, “He is an angel and not a devil.” Its meaning is that he does not approach women. Likewise, she asked him about the clothes he liked best to come to Him in, and he said, “White and green.” So she said, “He is…” The king means that white and green are the colors of goodness and angels and black is the colors of evil and devils and the like. Among their signs is also their call to religion and worship from prayer, charity and chastity. Khadija and Abu Bakr proved his truthfulness by that and they did not need any evidence in his matter outside of his condition and character. In the Sahih, when the letter of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, came to Heraclius inviting him to Islam, he brought whoever he found in his country from Quraysh, including Abu Sufyan, to ask them about his condition. Among what he asked was that he said, “What does he command you?” Abu Sufyan said, “With prayer, zakat, kinship ties and chastity,” and so on. He answered him and said, “If what you say is true, then he is a prophet and will rule what is beneath these two feet.” The chastity that Heraclius referred to is infallibility. So look at how he took infallibility and the call to religion and worship as evidence of the truth of his prophecy and did not need a miracle, so he indicated that this is one of the signs of prophecy. Among their signs is also that they are of noble lineage among their people. In the Sahih, Allah did not send a prophet except in a position of strength among his people. In another narration, in a position of wealth among his people, Al-Hakim added it to the two Sahihs. In the question of Heraclius to Abu Sufyan as it is in the Sahih, he said, “How is he among you?” Abu Sufyan said, “He is of noble lineage among us.” Heraclius said, “The messengers are sent among the nobles of their people.” This means that he will have a clan and a force that will protect him from the harm of the infidels until he conveys the message of his Lord and fulfills Allah’s will of completing His religion and faith. Among their signs is also the occurrence of miracles to them, testifying to their truthfulness. These are actions that humans are incapable of doing, so they are called miracles, and they are not of the same kind as the ability of servants, but rather they occur in a place other than their ability. People differ regarding how they occur and their indication of the truthfulness of the prophets. The theologians, based on the view of the chosen doer, say that they occur by the ability of Allah, not by the action of the Prophet, even though the actions of the servants, according to the Mu’tazilah, are issued by them. However, the miracle is not of the same kind as their actions. And the Prophet has no right in it, according to all the theologians, except to challenge it with God’s permission, which is that the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, uses it before it occurs to prove his truthfulness in his claim. If it occurs, it is considered as an explicit statement from God that he is truthful, and its indication of truthfulness is then definitive. The miracle indicates the combination of the extraordinary and the challenge, and therefore the challenge is part of it, and the expression of the theologians is a quality of itself and it is one because it is the meaning of the intrinsic according to them, and the challenge is the difference between it and the miracle and magic, since there is no need for belief in them, so there is no existence of the challenge unless it is found in agreement. And if the challenge occurs in the miracle according to those who permit it and it has an indication, then it is only for guardianship and it is not prophecy. From here, Professor Abu Ishaq and others prevented the occurrence of the extraordinary as a miracle, escaping confusion with prophecy when challenging guardianship. We have shown you the difference between them, and that he challenges with something other than what the Prophet challenges with, so there is no confusion that the transmission from the professor in that is not explicit, and perhaps it is carried on denying that the miracles of the prophets occur to them based on the exclusivity of each of the two groups with its miracles. As for the Mu’tazila, what prevents the occurrence of miracles, according to them, is that supernatural events are not the actions of servants, and their actions are usual, so there is no difference. As for their occurrence at the hands of a liar as a deception, this is impossible. As for the Ash’aris, this is because the characteristic of the miracle itself is belief and guidance. If it occurred otherwise, the evidence would become doubt, guidance would become misguidance, belief would become a lie, truths would become impossible, and the characteristics of the soul would be reversed. What is required from assuming its occurrence is impossible, and it is not possible. As for the Mu’tazila, this is because the occurrence of evidence is doubt and guidance is misguidance, which is ugly, and it does not occur from God. As for the wise men, the supernatural, according to them, is the action of the Prophet, even if it is not in the place of power, based on their doctrine of intrinsic affirmation and the occurrence of incidents from one another, depends on the causes and conditions that occur, ultimately relying on the necessary agent in itself, not by choice, and that the prophetic soul, according to them, has intrinsic properties, including the issuance of these supernatural acts by his power and the obedience of the elements to him in formation, and the Prophet, according to them, is created to manage the universes no matter how he directs them and gathers for them what God has made for him of that, and the supernatural, according to them, occurs to the Prophet, whether it is for the challenge or not, and it is a witness to his truthfulness in terms of its indication of the Prophet’s management of the universes, which is from the properties of the prophetic soul, not that it descends to the level of explicit statement of belief, so therefore its indication, according to them, is not definitive as it is according to the theologians, and the challenge is not part of the miracle, and it is not correct to differentiate it from magic and miracles, and its difference, according to them, from magic is that the Prophet is created to do good deeds and is diverted from evil deeds, so evil is not touched by his supernatural acts, and the magician is the opposite, so all his deeds are evil and in the purposes of evil, and its difference from miracles is that the supernatural acts of the Prophet Specifically, such as ascending to the sky, penetrating dense bodies, reviving the dead, speaking to angels, flying in the air, and the miracles of the saint, other than that, such as multiplying a little, talking about some of the future, and the like, which are insufficient for the disposal of the prophets. The prophet performs all his miracles, but he is not capable of performing the miracles of the prophets. The Sufis have established this in what they have written in their method and taught it to them from those who informed them. If this is established, then know that the greatest, most honorable, and clearest of them is the miracles, the evidence of which is the Holy Qur’an revealed to our Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace. The miracles usually occur in contrast to the revelation that the prophet receives, and he brings the miracle as a witness to his truthfulness. The Qur’an itself is the claimed revelation, and it is the miraculous miracle, so he witnessed it in its own eyes and does not need evidence different from it, like all the miracles with the revelation. It is the clearest evidence for the union of evidence and meaning in it. This is the meaning of his saying, may God bless him and grant him peace, “There is no prophet among the prophets except that he came with signs similar to it, and mankind believed in him. Rather, what I was given was a revelation revealed to me, so I hope that I will be a follower on the Day of Resurrection.” He indicates that when the miracle is like this, The reward in clarity and strength of indication is that it is the same as the revelation, so its truthfulness is greater due to its clarity, so the believer and the follower are more numerous. Now let us mention the interpretation of the truth of prophecy as explained by many investigators, then we mention the truth of divination, then vision, then the affair of fortune-tellers and other knowledge of the unseen, so we say:

Know, may God guide us and you, that we see this world with all its creatures in a form of order and perfection, and the connection of causes to effects, and the connection of universes to universes, and the transformation of some beings into others, its wonders do not end in that, nor do its goals end. I begin with that with the tangible, corporeal world, and first the world of the observable elements, how they gradually ascend from the earth to water, then to air, then to fire, connected to each other, and each one of them is ready to transform into what follows it, ascending and descending, and transforming at times, and the ascending one of them is more subtle than the one before it, until it ends in the world of the spheres, and it is more subtle than all of them, in layers, some of which are connected to each other in a form from which the senses perceive only movements, and by them some of them are guided to know their quantities and positions, and what comes after that of the existence of the entities that have these effects in them. Then look at the world of creation, how it began with minerals, then plants, then animals, in a wonderful form of gradation, the last horizon of minerals connected to the first horizon of plants, such as grasses and what has no seeds, and the last horizon of plants, such as palm trees and grapevines, connected to the first horizon of animals, such as snails. And the shells and they only have the power of touch only and the meaning of the connection in these components is that the last horizon of them is prepared with the strange readiness to become the first horizon of the one after it and the animal world expanded and its types multiplied and ended in the gradual formation of man with thought and vision rising to him from the world of power in which sense and perception came together and did not end with vision and thought in action and that was the first horizon of man after it and this is the goal of our witnessing then we find in the worlds with their differences diverse effects so in the world of sense there are effects from the movements of the spheres and elements and in the world of formation there are effects from the movement of growth and perception all of which testify that it has an influence that is different from the bodies so it is spiritual and connects to the components because of the connection of this world in its existence and therefore it is the perceiving and moving soul and above it there must be another existence that gives it the powers of perception and movement and connects to it also and its essence is pure perception and pure intellect and it is the world of angels so it is necessary from that that the soul has a readiness to separate from humanity to kingship so that it actually becomes of the kind of angels for a time of times in a moment of moments and that is after its spiritual self is actually completed as we will mention later and it has a connection to the horizon The one after it is the affair of the ordered beings as we have presented, for it has in connection two directions, the upper and the lower, and it is connected to the body from its upper part and acquires through it the sensory perceptions by which it prepares itself to obtain intellect in action, and it is connected from its higher part to the horizon of the angels and acquires through it the scientific and unseen perceptions, for the world of events exists in their intellects without time, and this is according to what we have presented of the perfect arrangement in existence by the connection of its essences and powers to each other. Then this human soul is hidden from sight and its effects are apparent in the body, so it is as if it and all its parts, combined and separated, are instruments of the soul and its powers. As for the active, it is striking with the hand, walking with the foot, speaking with the tongue, and the total movement of the body, pushing each other. As for the perceptive, although the powers of perception are arranged and ascend to the higher power from it and from the thinking power that is expressed by the speaking, then the powers of the apparent sense with its instruments of hearing and sight and the rest of it ascend to the inner, and the first of them is the common sense, which is a power that perceives the sensible things, seen, heard, touched, and others, in one state, and thus it differs from the power of the apparent sense because the sensible things do not crowd it in time. The one, then the common sense leads it to the imagination, which is a power that represents the sensible thing in the soul as it is abstracted from external materials only, and the tool of these two powers in their disposal is the first belly of the brain, its front for the first and its back for the second, then the imagination ascends to the imagination and the memory, so the imagination is for perceiving meanings related to personalities such as the enmity of Zaid and the friendship of Amr and the mercy of the father and the predation of the wolf, and the memory for creating all the perceptions imagined and it is for it like a treasury that preserves them for the time of need, and the tool of these two powers in their disposal is the posterior belly of the brain, its front for the first and its back for the other, then they all ascend to the power of thought and its tool is the middle belly of the brain, which is the power by which the movement of vision and the orientation towards reasoning occurs, so the soul is always moved by it because of what is built into it of the tendency to get rid of the depth of power and readiness that humanity has, and it emerges to action in its reasoning resembling the highest spiritual assembly and becomes in the first ranks of spiritualities in its perception without physical instruments, so it is always moving and directed towards that, and it may completely separate itself from humanity and its spirituality to Ownership is from the highest horizon without acquisition, but rather by what God has placed in it of the nature and first instinct in that.

 

Types of human souls #

 

Human souls are of three types: a type that is naturally unable to reach, so it is cut off by movement to the lower side towards the sensory and imaginative perceptions and the composition of meanings from the memory and imagination according to limited laws and a special arrangement from which they benefit from the conceptual and ascertaining sciences of thought in the body, all of which are imaginary and limited in scope, since from its beginning it ends with the first things and does not go beyond them, and if it is corrupted, what comes after them is corrupted, and this is mostly the scope of human perception in the physical, and to it the perceptions of scholars end and in it their feet are established. A type that is directed by that intellectual movement towards the spiritual mind and perception that does not lack physical instruments due to what was made in it of readiness for that, so the scope of its perception expands from the first things that are the scope of the first perception of humans in and it wanders in the space of inner observations, which are all feelings, the scope of its beginning and not its end, and these are the perceptions of the scholars, the saints, the people of religious sciences and divine knowledge, and they are obtained after death for the people of happiness in the intermediate realm.

 

Revelation #

 

And a type created to separate from humanity, its entire physicality and spirituality, to the angels from the highest horizon, so that in a moment he becomes an angel in reality and he obtains the witnessing of the highest assembly in their horizon and hearing the spiritual speech and the divine discourse in that moment. And these prophets, may God’s prayers and peace be upon them, God made for them the separation from humanity in that moment, which is the state of revelation, an innate nature upon which God created them and created them in it and purified them from the obstacles and impediments of the body as long as they are clothed in it with humanity, with what was built into their instincts of intention and rectitude with which they align with that direction and focused in their natures a desire for worship that is revealed by that direction and is permissible towards it, so they turn to that horizon with that type of separation whenever they wish with that innate nature upon which they were created, not by acquisition or industry. So they turned and separated from their humanity and received in that highest assembly what they receive, and they hastened with it to human perceptions, descending in their powers for the wisdom of conveying. For the servants, sometimes one of them hears a noise as if it were a symbol of speech from which he takes the meaning that was conveyed to him, and the noise does not end until he has comprehended and understood it. And sometimes the angel appears to him who conveys to him a man and speaks to him and he comprehends what he says, and the reception from the angel and the return to human perceptions and his understanding of what was conveyed to him is all as if it were in a single moment, rather closer than the blink of an eye because it is not in a time, but whenever they all occur together, it appears as if they are fast. Therefore, it was called revelation because revelation in the language means haste. And know that the first, which is the state of the noise, is the rank of the prophets who were not sent, according to what they have confirmed, and the second, which is the state of the angel representing a man who speaks, is the rank of the prophets who were sent, and therefore it was more complete than the first. This is the meaning of the hadith in which the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, explained the revelation when Al-Harith bin Hisham asked him and said: How does the revelation come to you? He said: Sometimes it comes to me like the ringing of a bell, which is the most difficult for me, and then it leaves me and I have understood what it says. Sometimes the angel appears to me and speaks to me, and I understand what it says. The first is more difficult because it is the beginning of the exit in that connection from potentiality to action, so it is somewhat difficult. Therefore, when it is difficult for human perceptions, it is specific to hearing, and everything else is difficult. When revelation is repeated and received frequently, that connection becomes easy. When it ascends to human perceptions, it reaches all of them, especially the clearest of them, which is the perception of sight. In the expression of awareness in the first in the past tense and in the second in the present tense, there is a subtlety of eloquence, which is that speech came as an example of the two states of revelation. He likened the first state to the roar, which is, in common usage, not speech. He informed that understanding and awareness follow it after its expiration, so it was appropriate when depicting its expiration and separation to express awareness in the past tense, which corresponds to expiration and cessation. He likened the angel in the second state to a man who addresses and speaks, and the speech is accompanied by awareness, so it was appropriate to express it in the present tense, which requires renewal. Know that in the whole state of revelation there is difficulty and severity to which the Qur’an has referred. God Almighty says: “Indeed, We will cast upon you a weighty word.” Aisha said: “One of the things that people suffered from revelation was severity.” She said: “The revelation came to him on a very cold day and it would leave him and his forehead would be dripping with sweat.” That is why what is known about him in that state of absence and snoring is that which is well-known. The reason for that is that revelation, as we have established, is the separation of humanity from the angelic perceptions and the reception of the speech of the soul, and it causes him severity from the separation of the self itself and its shedding from it from its horizon to that other horizon. This is the meaning of snoring that he expressed at the beginning of revelation in His statement: “So he covered me until I was exhausted, then he released me and said: ‘Read.’ I said: ‘I am not a reader.’” And so on a second and a third time. As in the hadith, and getting used to it gradually, little by little, may lead to some ease in comparison to what came before it. Therefore, the revelation of the stars, chapters, and verses of the Qur’an when he was in Mecca was shorter than when he was in Medina. Look at what was reported about the revelation of Surat Bara’ah in the Battle of Tabuk, and that all or most of it was revealed to him while he was riding his camel after he was in Mecca. Some of the short chapters of the Mufassal were revealed to him at one time and the rest were revealed at another time. Likewise, the last thing that was revealed in Medina was the verse of debt, which is what is long after the verse was revealed in Mecca, such as the verses of Ar-Rahman, Adh-Dhariyat, Al-Muddaththir, Ad-Duha, Al-Falaq, and the like. Consider this as a sign that distinguishes between the Meccan and Medinan chapters and verses. And Allah is the guide to the truth. This is the gist of the matter of prophecy.

 

Divination (Kahana) #

 

As for divination, it is also one of the characteristics of the human soul, and that it has been presented to us in all that has passed that the human soul has a readiness to separate itself from humanity to the spirituality that is above it, and that from that comes a glimpse of humans in the category of prophets with what they were created with from that, and it was established that it comes to them without acquisition or assistance from anything of the perceptions or from the imaginations or from the physical actions of speech or movement or by any command of matters, but it is a separation from humanity to kingship by nature in a moment closer than the blink of an eye. And if that is the case and that readiness is present in human nature, then the rational division is given, and here is another category of humans deficient from the rank of the first category, the deficiency of the opposite from its complete opposite, because the lack of assistance in that perception is the opposite of assistance in it, and there is a great difference between them. So if the division of existence is given to here another category of humans created so that their rational power moves with its intellectual movement by will when the inclination prompts it to that, and it is deficient from it by nature when the inability to do that hinders it, clinging to partial matters that are perceptible or imagined, such as transparent bodies, animal bones, the rhyme of speech, and what appears from birds. Or an animal, so that feeling or imagination continues, assisting it in that intended shedding, and it is like a promoter of it, and this power in them is the beginning of that perception, which is divination. And because these souls are created with deficiency and shortcomings from perfection, their perception of particulars is more than of generalities, and therefore the imagination in them is extremely powerful because it is the instrument of particulars, so it penetrates them completely in sleep or wakefulness, and it is present and ready for them, and the imagination attends to it, and it is like a mirror in which it always looks. And the soothsayer is not able to achieve perfection in the perception of intelligibles because his inspiration is from the inspiration of Satan, and the highest state of this type is that he seeks assistance from speech in which there is rhyme and balance to occupy himself with it from the senses, and he is somewhat strengthened in that imperfect connection, so he imagines in his heart about that movement and what spreads it from that foreigner what he throws on his tongue, so perhaps he is truthful and agrees with the truth, and what he lies about, because he completes his deficiency with something foreign to his perceiving self and is different from it and not appropriate, so truth and falsehood are exposed to him together, and he is not trusted, and perhaps he resorts to suspicions and guesses, eager to achieve perception. He claimed, and to deceive the questioners, and the people who use this rhyme are the ones who are specifically called soothsayers because they are the highest of all their classes. The Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, said in a similar case, “This is from the soothsayers’ rhyme,” so he made the rhyme specific to them based on the addition. He said to Ibn Sayyad when he asked him, revealing his condition with the news, “How does this matter come to you?” He said: He comes to me truthful and false. He said: You have mixed up the matter, meaning that prophecy is characterized by truthfulness, so it is not affected by falsehood in any way, because it is a connection from the Prophet’s self to the highest assembly without a companion or assistance from a stranger. And prophecy, when its owner needed, due to his inability, to seek assistance from foreign concepts, it was included in his perception and became confused with the perception to which he was directed, so it became mixed with it and falsehood entered it from this side, so it was impossible for it to be a prophecy. Rather, we said that the highest levels of prophecy are the state of rhyme, because the meaning of rhyme is lighter than all the unseen things, from the seen and heard, and the lightness of the meaning indicates the closeness of that connection and perception and its distance from inability to some extent. Some people have claimed that this prophecy was cut off since the time of prophecy, due to what happened regarding the stoning of the devils with meteors before the mission, and that was to prevent them from news of the heavens, as it occurred in the Qur’an, and the soothsayers only learn news of the heavens from the devils, so prophecy was invalidated from that day, and there is no evidence from that because the knowledge of the soothsayers, just as it is from the devils, is also from their souls, as we have established. And also The verse only indicates that the devils are prevented from one type of news from heaven, which is related to the news of the mission, and they were not prevented from anything else. Also, that interruption was only during the time of prophecy, and perhaps it returned after that to what it was, and this is what is apparent, because all these perceptions are extinguished during the time of prophecy, just as the planets and lamps are extinguished when the sun is present, because prophecy is the greatest light with which all light is hidden and goes away. Some of the sages have claimed that it only exists during the time of prophecy, then it is interrupted, and so is every prophecy that occurred, because the existence of prophecy must have an astronomical situation that requires it, and in the completion of that situation is the completion of that prophecy that indicates it, and the deficiency of that situation from perfection requires the existence of a nature of that type that it requires, which is incomplete, and this is the meaning of the soothsayer according to what we have decided, so before that complete situation is completed, the incomplete situation occurs and requires the existence of the soothsayer, either one or multiple, so when that situation is completed, the existence of the prophet is completed in its entirety, and the situations indicating such a nature are eliminated, so nothing of it exists after that, and this is based on the fact that some of the astronomical situation requires some of its effect, and this is not accepted. Perhaps the situation requires that effect in its pure form, even if some of its parts are missing, it does not require anything, not that it requires that effect incomplete as they said. Then, if these soothsayers lived during the time of prophecy, they would know the truthfulness of the Prophet and the significance of his miracle because they have some awareness of the matter of prophecy as every person has of the matter of today, and the Jacobiteness of that relation is present for the soothsayer more strongly than for the sleeper, and nothing prevents them from that and causes them to deny it except the strength of the desires that it is a prophecy for them, so they fall into stubbornness as happened to Umayyah ibn Abi al-Salt, for he was hoping to prophesy, and likewise it happened to Ibn Sayyad, Musaylima, and others. Then, when faith prevails and those hopes are cut off, they believe in the best faith as happened to Tulayha al-Asadi and Sawad ibn Qarib, and they had in the Islamic conquests of traces that testify to the goodness of faith.

 

The vision #

 

As for the vision, its reality is the rational soul’s perusal of its spiritual self, a glimpse of the images of realities. When it is spiritual, the images of realities are actually present in it, as is the case with all spiritual entities. It becomes spiritual by being stripped of physical materials and physical perceptions. This glimpse may occur to it because of sleep, as we mention, so it acquires knowledge of what it longs for of future matters and returns with it to its perceptions. If this acquisition is weak and not clear, then it needs imitation and example in the imaginary to be clear. For this simulation to expression, and the quotation may be strong in which simulation is dispensed with, so it does not need expression because of its purity from the example and imagination, and the reason for this glimpse of the soul occurring is that it is a spiritual self in potential, completed by the physical and its perceptions until its self becomes pure intellect and its existence is completed in actuality, so it is then a spiritual self, perceived without any of the physical instruments, except that its type in spirituality is less than the type of the angels, the people of the highest horizon, who have not completed their self with any of the perceptions of the body or anything else, so this readiness is obtained for it as long as it is in the body, and from it is specific like that of the saints, and from it is general for humans in general, which is the matter of the vision. As for what is for the prophets, it is a readiness to shed humanity for pure kingship, which is the highest spirituality. This readiness emerges in them repeatedly in cases of revelation, and when it ascends to the physical perceptions and what occurs in them of perception occurs, it is clearly similar to the state of sleep, even though the state of sleep is much lesser than it. For this reason, the Lawgiver described the vision as being a part of forty-six parts of prophecy, and in one narration forty-three, and in another narration seventy. The number in all of them is not intended in itself, but rather the abundance in the differences in these levels is indicated by the mention of seventy in some of its paths, which is for the purpose of multiplication among the Arabs. What some of them went to in the narration of forty-sixty, that the revelation was in its beginning by vision for six months, which is half a year, and the entire period of prophecy in Mecca and Medina is twenty-three years, so half a year of it is a part of forty-six, is a statement far from the truth, because that only happened to the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace. How can we know that this period happened to other prophets, even though that only gives the proportion of the time of the vision to the time of prophecy and does not give its reality from the reality of prophecy? And if This is clear to you from what we mentioned first. You know that the meaning of this part is the relation of the first comprehensive readiness of humans to the special near readiness of the class of prophets, innate to them, may God’s prayers be upon them, since it is the distant readiness, even if it is general in humans, and with it are many obstacles and impediments to its actual occurrence. Among the greatest of those impediments are the apparent senses. God created humans with the lifting of the veil of the senses through sleep, which is innate to them. When it is lifted, the soul is exposed to knowing what it longs for in the world of truth, so it sometimes perceives a glimpse of it in which the desired is attained. For this reason, the Lawgiver made it one of the good tidings, saying, “Nothing remains of prophecy except the good tidings.” They said, “And what are the good tidings, O Messenger of God?” He said, “The righteous vision that a righteous man sees or that is seen for him.” As for the reason for the lifting of the veil of the senses through sleep, it is as I describe to you, and that is that the rational soul only perceives and does its actions through the animal, physical spirit, which is a subtle vapor centered in the left cavity of the heart, according to what is in the books of anatomy of Galen and others. It is emitted with the blood in the arteries and veins, giving sensation and movement, and all the physical actions, and its subtlety rises to the brain, adjusting its coldness and completing the actions of the powers in its abdomen. The rational soul perceives and understands only through this vaporous spirit and is attached to it because the wisdom of creation requires that the subtle does not affect the dense. And because this animal spirit is subtle among the physical materials, it became the site of the effects of the self that is different from it in its physicality, which is the rational soul, and its effects became obtained in the body through it. We have already mentioned that its perception is of two types: perception by the external, which is the five senses, and perception by the internal, which is the cerebral powers, and that all of this perception diverts it from its perception of what is above it from its spiritual selves, which it is prepared for by nature. And because the external senses are physical, they were exposed to drowsiness and failure because of what befalls them of fatigue and exhaustion, and the spirit is overwhelmed by the abundance of action, so God created for it the quest for recreation in order to abstract perception in the complete image. And that only occurs through the withdrawal of the animal spirit from all the external senses and its return to the internal sense. And what covers the body of cold at night helps in that, so the abundant heat seeks the depths of the body and goes from its external to its internal, so it is the one who carries its component, which is the animal spirit, to the internal. And for this reason, sleep for humans is mostly at night, so if it withdraws, The soul departs from the external senses and returns to the internal powers. The preoccupations and obstacles of the senses are lightened for the soul and it returns to the image in the memory, representing from it through composition and analysis imaginary images, and most of them are habitual because they are extracted from the closely related perceptions. Then the common sense, which is the collector of the external senses, brings them down and perceives them in the manner of the five external senses. And perhaps the soul turns to its spiritual self while it disputes the internal powers, so it perceives through its spiritual perception.

Because it is created with it and measures from the images of things that have become attached to themselves at that time, then the imagination takes those perceived images and represents them in reality or imitation in the familiar molds, and imitation from these is what needs expression and its disposal by composition and analysis in the images of the memory before it perceives from that glimpse what it perceives as confused dreams. In Sahih, the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, said: “A vision is of three types: a vision from God, a vision from the angel, and a vision from Satan.” This detail is consistent with what we have mentioned. The clear vision is from God, the imitation that calls for interpretation is from the angel, and the confused dreams are from Satan, because they are all falsehood, and Satan is the source of falsehood. This is the reality of the vision and what causes it and spreads it from sleep. They are characteristics of the human soul that exist in humans in general, and none of them are free from them. Rather, every human being has seen in his sleep what occurred to him in his wakefulness more than once, and he has become certain that the soul perceives the unseen in sleep, and it is inevitable. If this is permissible in the world of sleep, then it is not impossible in other cases, because the perceiving self is one and its characteristics are general in every case, and God is the guide to the truth by His grace and His distinction.

Chapter: The occurrence of what happens to people of that is mostly without intention or ability to do it, but rather the soul longs for that thing, so it happens in that glimpse in sleep because it intends it and sees it #

 

And in the book of Al-Ghayah and other books of the people of mathematics, there is mention of names that are said when sleeping, and the vision is from them in what is longed for and they call it the dreaming. And Muslima mentioned from them in the book of Al-Ghayah a dream that he called the dreaming of the perfect nature, which is that when sleeping after the secret is finished and the intention is correct, these foreign words are said, and they are Tamaghas after it darkens and Ghadas Noufana Ghadis, and he mentions his need, for he sees the revelation of what he is asking about in the dream. It is narrated that a man did this after a night of exercise in his food and he mentioned it, and a person appeared to him saying to him that his nature is perfect, so he asked him and told him what he was looking forward to, and strange visions happened to me with these names and I learned through them about things I was looking forward to in my conditions, and this is not evidence that the intention of the vision causes it, but rather these dreams cause a readiness in the soul for the vision to occur, so if the readiness is strong, it is closer to the occurrence of what he is preparing for, and the person can do from the readiness what he likes, and it is not evidence of the occurrence of what was derived from it, so the ability to prepare is not the ability to do something, so know that and reflect on it in what you find of its likes, and God is the Wise, the All-Knowing.

 

Chapter: Then we find among the human species people who inform about beings before they occur by a nature in them that distinguishes their species from all other people, and they do not refer to any craft in that, nor do they infer it from an effect from the stars or anything else #

 

Rather, we find their perceptions in that according to the nature with which they were created, and that is like fortune-tellers and those who look into transparent bodies like mirrors and water bowls, and those who look into the hearts, livers, and bones of animals, and those who warn birds and beasts, and those who walk with pebbles and grains from wheat and pits, and all of these exist in the world of man, and no one has the right to deny or reject them. Likewise, the insane have words from the unseen on their tongues, and they inform about them. Likewise, the sleeper and the dead person, at the beginning of his death or sleep, speak about the unseen. Likewise, the astrologers among the Sufis have perceptions of the unseen by way of a well-known miracle. Now we are talking about all these perceptions and we begin with them with divination, then we come to them one by one until the end, and we present an introduction to that in how the human soul prepares itself to perceive the unseen in all the categories that we mentioned, and that is because it is a spiritual entity that exists potentially to the action of the body and its conditions, and this is a matter that is perceived by everyone, and everything that is potentially has matter and form, and the form of this soul by which its existence is completed is the same as perception and intellect, so it exists first potentially, ready to perceive and intellect, so it exists first potentially, ready to perceive and accept the general and partial images, then its emergence and existence in action is completed by accompanying the body and what returns to it by the arrival of its perceptible perceptions upon it and what is extracted from those perceptions of general meanings, so it intellects the images time after time until it obtains perception and intellect in action, so its self is completed and the soul remains like matter and the images succeed each other in perception one after the other, and therefore we find the boy in the beginning of his development not able to perceive what it has from itself, neither by sleep nor by revelation nor by anything else, and that is because its image, which is the same as its self, which is perception and intellect, has not yet been completed, rather the extraction of the generalities has not yet been completed for it, then if its self is completed Indeed, as long as it is with the body, it has two types of perception: perception by the body’s tools, which the physical perceptions lead to, and perception by itself, without an intermediary, and it is veiled from it by immersion in the body and the senses and by their preoccupations, because the senses are always attracting it to the outward appearance, by what it was created with first, of physical perception.

Perhaps it is immersed from the outward to the inward, so the veil of the body is lifted for a moment, either by a characteristic that is human in general, such as sleep, or by a characteristic that exists for some humans, such as divination and methods, or by exercise, such as the people of discovery among the Sufis. Then it turns to the entities above it from the assembly, because of the connection in existence between its horizon and their horizon, as we have previously established. Those entities are spiritual, and they are pure perception and intellects in action, and in them are the images of the existents and their truths, as has been mentioned. So something of those images is manifested in them, and knowledge is drawn from them. Perhaps those perceived images are pushed to the imagination, which directs it in the usual forms, then the senses return to what it has perceived, either abstractly or in its forms, and it informs about it. This is the explanation of the soul’s readiness for this unseen perception. Let us return to what we promised of explaining its types. As for those who look into transparent bodies such as mirrors, water bowls, the hearts, livers, and bones of animals, and those who walk with pebbles and pits, they are all of the same kind as soothsayers, except that they are of a weaker rank in their original creation, because the soothsayer does not need much suffering to lift the veil of the senses, while these people suffer from the confinement of all the sensory perceptions to one type, the most noble of which is sight, so he devotes himself to the simple visible until his perception appears to him, which informs him about it. Perhaps he thinks that the observation of these people of what they see is in the surface of the mirror, but it is not so, rather they continue to be repelled by the surface of the mirror until it disappears from sight and a veil appears between them and the surface of the mirror like a cloud in which images are represented, which are their perceptions, so they point to it with the intended meaning for what they are directed to know of negation or affirmation, so they inform of that in the manner in which they have perceived it. As for the mirror and what images are perceived in it, they do not perceive it in that state, but rather this other type of perception arises for them through it, which is psychological and not from the perception of sight, rather the psychological perception of the senses is formed by it, as is well known. And similar to that is what occurs to those who look into the hearts and livers of animals, and to those who look into water, basins, and the like. We have seen some of these people occupy the senses with incense only, then with spells to prepare, then they report as they have perceived, and they claim that they see images embodied in the air, telling them the conditions of what they are heading to perceive with ideals and indications, and the absence of these from the senses is lighter than the first ones, and the scholar is Abu al-Ghara’ib. As for the deterrence, which is what some people do of speaking about the unseen when a bird or animal appears and thinking about it after its absence, it is a power in the soul that prompts eagerness and thinking about what is deterred from being seen or heard, and its power of imagination is strong, as we have presented, so it sends it in search, aided by what he has seen or heard, and this leads him to perceive something, as the imaginative power does in sleep, and when the senses are stagnant, it mediates between the perceptible and visible in his wakefulness and gathers it with what he has understood, so the vision is from it. As for the insane, their rational souls are weak in their attachment to the body due to the corruption of their temperaments in general and the weakness of the animal spirit in them, so his soul is not absorbed in the senses nor immersed in them because of what preoccupies it in itself from the pain of deficiency and its illness, and perhaps another satanic spirituality competes with it in its attachment to it, clinging to it and this is weak in resisting it, so he becomes confused. So when that confusion befalls him, either due to the corruption of his temperament from corruption in its essence or due to the competition of satanic souls in his attachment, his senses are completely absent, so he perceives a glimpse of the world of his soul and nature in it some images and imagination diverts them, and perhaps he speaks from his tongue in that state without intending to speak, and the perception of all of these is mixed with truth with falsehood because they do not obtain contact even if they lose their sense except after resorting to foreign concepts as we have established, and from that comes the lie in these perceptions. As for the fortune-tellers, they are the ones attached to this perception, and they do not have that contact, so they direct the mind to the matter to which they are directed and they take it by art and guesswork based on what they imagine from the principles of that contact and perception, and they claim thereby to know. The unseen and not from it in reality, this is the collection of these matters, and Al-Masudi spoke about them in Muruj Al-Dhahab, but he did not find any verification or accuracy, and it appears from the man’s speech that he was far from being firmly rooted in knowledge, so he transmitted what he heard from his people and from others, and these perceptions that we mentioned are all present in the human race, as the Arabs used to resort to soothsayers to know events and they would compete with them in disputes so that they would inform them of the truth in them from the perception of their unseen, and in the books of the people of literature there is much of that, and among them were famous in the pre-Islamic era, Shaq bin Anmar bin Nizar and Satih bin Mazen bin Ghassan, and he would roll like a garment and there was no bone in it except the skull, and among the famous stories about them is the interpretation of the vision of Rabi’ah bin Mudar and what the King of Abyssinia told him about it for Yemen and the King of Mudar after them and the emergence of the Muhammadan prophecy in Quraysh and the vision of Mobadhan, which Satih interpreted when Khosrau Abdul-Masih sent it to him, so he informed him about the prophecy and the destruction of the kingdom of Persia, and all of these are famous, and so were the soothsayers, there were many among the Arabs and they mentioned them in their poems. He said,

So I said to the soothsayer of Yamamah, treat me, for if you treat me To a doctor

And the other said

I have given the fortune teller of Yamamah his judgment and the fortune teller of Najd his judgment if they cure me

They said, May God cure you, and by God, what do we have to do with what the ribs have carried from you?

The fortune teller of Yamamah is Rabah bin Ajlah and the fortune teller of Najd is Al-Ablaq Al-Asadi. Among these unseen perceptions is what some people do when they leave wakefulness and are confused with sleep, speaking about the thing they long for, giving them the unseen of that matter as they wish. This only happens at the beginning of sleep when they leave wakefulness and the test of speaking is gone, so they speak as if they are forced to speak, and their goal is for him to be heard and understood. Likewise, those killed when their heads and the middle of their bodies are separated from each other speak in a similar manner. We have been informed that some of the unjust tyrants killed people from their prisons in order to learn from their speech when killed the consequences of their affairs in themselves, so they informed them of what is abhorrent. Muslima mentioned in his book Al-Ghayah in a similar matter that if a human being is placed in a jar filled with sesame oil and remains in it for forty days, he is fed figs and walnuts until his flesh is gone and nothing remains of him except his veins and the affairs of his head. Then he emerges from that burial and when the air dries on him, he answers everything he is asked about regarding the consequences of private and public matters. This is one of the strange actions of magicians, but from it one understands the wonders of the human world and people. Whoever tries to obtain this unseen perception through exercise, they try through struggle to artificially kill all the physical powers, then erase their traces that colored the system, then nourish them with remembrance so that they become stronger. This is achieved by gathering thought and much hunger. It is known with certainty that when death descends upon the body, the senses and veils are gone and the soul is informed of the unseen. Among these are the people of magical exercise who exercise in this way to obtain knowledge of the unseen and the actions in the worlds. Most of these are in the regions deviating south and north, especially the lands of India, and they are called there the Hawkiya. They have many books on how to do this exercise, and the news about them in this is strange. As for the Sufis, their asceticism is religious and devoid of these reprehensible aims. They only intend to gather their ambition and turn to God completely so that they may obtain the tastes of the people of gnosis and monotheism. They increase their asceticism to gathering and hunger, nourishing themselves with remembrance, and with it their direction in this asceticism is completed, because if the soul is raised on remembrance, it is closer to gnosis of God, and if it is devoid of remembrance, it is satanic. The attainment of what these Sufis obtain of knowledge of the unseen and action is only by accident and is not intended from the beginning, because if that is intended, the direction in it is for other than God, but rather it is for the purpose of action and knowledge of the unseen, and the most losing deal with it is that it is in reality polytheism. Some of them said: Whoever prefers gnosis for the sake of gnosis has said the second, so they intend with their direction the worshipped one, not for anything other than Him. If what occurs during that occurs, it is by accident and not intended for them, and many of them flee from it if it occurs to them and do not care about it. Rather, God wants it for Himself, not for anyone else, and the attainment of that for them is known, and they call what happens to them of the unseen and the talk based on thoughts insight and revelation, and what happens to them of action a miracle, and nothing of that. This is a reprehensible act against them, and Professor Abu Ishaq al-Isfarayni and Abu Muhammad ibn Abi Zayd al-Maliki and others have denied it, in order to avoid confusing the miracle with something else. What is relied upon by theologians is that the distinction is made by the challenge, so it is sufficient. It has been proven in Sahih that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: “There are innovators among you, and among them is Umar.” There were well-known incidents of this among the Companions that bear witness to this, such as the statement of Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, “O Sariyah, the mountain.” He is Sariyah bin Zunaym, who was a commander over some of the Muslim armies in Iraq during the conquests. He got involved with those participating in a battle and were about to flee. There was a mountain near him that he was moving towards, so it was reported to Umar while he was giving a sermon on the pulpit in Medina, so he called out to him, “O Sariyah, the mountain.” Sariyah heard him while he was in his place and saw his person there. The story is well-known. Something similar also happened to Abu Bakr in his will to his daughter Aisha, may Allah be pleased with them both, regarding the wasqs of dates he gave her from his garden. Then he alerted her to cut it off so that she could keep it from the heirs. He said in the course of his speech, “They are your two brothers and your two sisters.” She said, “They are only Asmaa, so who is the other one?” He said: This is the daughter of Kharijah, I see her as a slave girl. So she was a slave girl. It was mentioned in Al-Muwatta’ in the chapter on what is not permissible in the sects. There are many such incidents for them and for those who came after them from the righteous and the people of emulation, except that the people of Sufism say that it decreases in the time of prophecy, as the disciple does not remain in a state in the presence of the Prophet, to the point that they say that if the disciple comes to the city of the Prophet, his state is taken away as long as he is in it until he leaves it. And God grants us guidance and directs us to the truth.

Among these disciples from the Sufis are a group of crazy fools who are more like the insane than the sane, and yet they have been granted the stations of sainthood and the states of the righteous, and this is known from their states by those who understand them from the people of taste, although they are not charged, and they have strange reports about the unseen because they are not restricted by anything, so they release their speech in that and come up with strange things from it. Perhaps the jurists deny that they have any of the stations because they see that the charge has fallen from them, and sainthood is not obtained except through worship, and this is a mistake, because the grace of God is given to whomever He wills, and the attainment of sainthood is not contingent upon worship or anything else. And if the human soul is of fixed existence, then God Almighty bestows upon it whatever He wills of His gifts. And these people have not lost their speaking souls nor have they become corrupted like the case of the insane, but they have lost the mind to which the charge is entrusted, and it is a special characteristic of the soul, and they are necessary sciences for man, by which his sight is sharpened and he knows the conditions of his livelihood and the rectitude of his home, and it is as if if he distinguishes the conditions of his livelihood and the rectitude of his home, he has no excuse for accepting the charges to reform his afterlife. And the one who lacks this characteristic is not sane in himself nor He is oblivious to his reality, so he is truly present and lacks the mind of obligation, which is knowledge of livelihood, and there is no impossibility in that, and God’s selection of His servants for knowledge does not depend on any of the obligations. If that is true, then know that perhaps the state of these people is confused with the insane, whose rational souls are corrupted and they join the beasts. You have signs in distinguishing them, including that these fools do not find a way for them at all, and among them is that they are created with stupidity from the beginning, their upbringing, and the insane are exposed to madness after a period of life due to natural physical symptoms, so if that happens to them and their rational souls are corrupted, they go away with disappointment, and among them is their frequent dealings with people with good and evil because they do not stop at permission due to the lack of obligation in their right, and the insane have no dealings with them. This is a chapter that we have concluded our speech with, and God is the guide to the truth. Some people may claim that there are perceptions of the unseen here without being hidden from the senses. Among them are the astrologers who believe in stellar indications and the requirements of their positions in the sky and their effects on the elements and what happens from the mixing between their natures by symmetry and from that the temperament is led to the air. These astrologers have nothing to do with the unseen, but rather they are intuitive assumptions and guesses based on the influence of the stars and the temperament resulting from it to the air with more guesses by which the observer stands on its details in the personalities in the world as Ptolemy said. We will show the invalidity of that in its place, God willing. If these were proven, then its ultimate is guesswork and conjecture and nothing of what we mentioned. If that is not the case, but rather the intention is to know the unseen by this craft and that it benefits him, then it is idle talk and action, and God guides whomever He wills. The result of this industry is that they made from the dots shapes with four ranks that differ according to their ranks in evenness and oddness and their equality in them, so they came to sixteen shapes because if they were all pairs or all individuals then they are two shapes, and if the individual in them is in only one rank then they are four shapes, and if the individual is in two ranks then they are six shapes, and if it is in three ranks then they are four shapes. They came to sixteen shapes, all of which they distinguished by their names and types into good and bad, like the planets, and they made for them sixteen natural houses, which they claim are as if they were the twelve zodiac signs of the universe and the four pegs, and they made for each shape of them a house and lines, and an indication of a type of the beings of the world of elements that is specific to it, and they derived from that an art that they followed in the art of astrology and the type of its division, except that the rulings of astrology are based on natural positions, as Ptolemy claims, and these are based on arbitrary positions and arbitrary whims, and there is no evidence for any of them, and they claim that the origin of that is from the ancient prophecies in the world, and perhaps they attributed it to Daniel or to Idris, may God’s prayers be upon them, like all industries, and perhaps They claim its legitimacy and cite the words of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace: “A prophet used to draw lines, so whoever agreed with his line, that is it.” There is no evidence in the hadith for the legitimacy of the sand line as some who have no knowledge claim, because the meaning of the hadith was that a prophet used to draw lines and revelation came to him at that line, and it is not impossible that this was a habit of some prophets.

Whoever agrees with the plan of that prophet, then that is it, meaning it is correct among the lines with what supported it from the revelation of that prophet, whose custom was for revelation to come to him at the line. But if he takes that from the line alone without agreeing with the revelation, then no. This is the meaning of the hadith, and God knows best. If they wanted to extract what they claimed was hidden, they would take paper, sand, or flour and place dots in lines according to the number of the four levels, then repeat that four times, so sixteen lines would come out. Then they would subtract the dots in pairs and place what remained of each line, whether paired or odd, in its level in order, so four shapes would come out, which they would place in a successive line. Then they would generate from them four other shapes from the bringer of the accident, considering each level and what is opposite it of the doubt that is opposite it and what is combined from them of pairs or odds, so there would be eight shapes placed in a line. Then they would generate from every two shapes a shape under them, considering what is combined in every level of the levels of the two shapes also of pairs or odds, so there would be four more under them. Then they would generate from the four two shapes likewise under them from the two shapes a shape likewise under them, then from this fifteenth shape with the first shape a shape that would be the last of the sixteen. Then they would rule on the entire line according to what its shapes required of good fortune and bad fortune in essence and sight and indwelling and mixing and indicating the types of existents and the rest of that with a strange control. This industry became widespread in civilization and was placed in it. The compositions in which the scholars of the past and present became famous are, as you have seen, judgment and passion. The investigation that should be the focus of your mind is that the unseen cannot be perceived by any craft at all, and there is no way to know them except for the special people who are created to return from the world of the senses to the world of the spirit. Therefore, astrologers call all of this type Venusians in relation to what the indication of Venus requires, according to their claim, in the origin of their births to perceive the unseen. So the line and other such things, if the one looking at them is one of the people of this speciality and intends by these matters that he looks at, such as dots or bones or other things, to occupy the senses so that the soul returns to the world of spirituality for a moment, then it is from the category of knocking with pebbles and looking into the hearts of animals and transparent mirrors, as we mentioned. And if it is not like that, and rather the intention is to know the unseen by this craft and that it benefits him, then it is idle talk and action, and God guides whom He wills. The sign of this nature with which the people of this unseen perception were created is that when they turn to knowing beings, they are afflicted with a departure from their natural state, such as yawning, stretching, and the beginnings of absence from the senses, and this varies in strength and weakness according to the difference in its presence in them. So whoever does not have this sign has no perception of the unseen at all, but rather he is striving to spread his lie.

And among them are sects who establish laws for extracting the unseen that are not from the first stage, which is from the perceptions of the spiritual soul, nor from the intuition based on the effects of the stars as Ptolemy claimed, nor from the conjecture and guesswork that the fortune-tellers attempt, but rather they are fallacies that they make like traps for people with weak minds. I do not mention from that except what the authors mentioned and the elite are fond of. Among those laws is the calculation that they call the calculation of the sleep, which is mentioned at the end of the book of politics attributed to Aristotle, by which the victor is known from the vanquished among the warring kings. It is that you calculate the letters in the name of one of them according to the abjad calculation that is agreed upon in the letters of the alphabet from one to one thousand, units, tens, hundreds, and thousands. If you calculate the name and obtain a number from it, calculate the name of the other in the same way, then subtract nine from each one of them and memorize the remainder of this and the remainder of this, then look between the two remaining numbers from the calculation of the two names. If the two numbers differ in quantity and they are both even or odd together. The owner of the smaller of the two is the dominant one. If one of them is a pair and the other is an individual, then the owner of the smaller is the dominant one. If they are equal in quantity and they are both a pair, then the one who is sought is the dominant one. If they are both individuals, then the one who is seeking is the dominant one. It is said that there are two verses in this work that are famous among people, which are:

 

I see the pair and the individuals rising. The lesser of them and the more of them when the alliance is dominant.

And the sought is dominant if the pair is equal, and when the individual is equal, the one seeking is dominant.

 

Then they established a well-known rule for subtracting nine to know what remained of the letters after subtracting them. They collected the letters indicating one in the four ranks, which are (a) indicating one, (y) indicating ten, which is one in the tens rank, (q) indicating one hundred because it is one in the hundreds rank, and (sh) indicating one thousand because it is one in the thousands rank, and there is no number after one thousand that can be indicated by letters because shin is the last letter of the alphabet. Then they arranged these four letters in the order of ranks, and from them came a four-letter word, which is (ayqash). Then they did that with the letters indicating two in the three ranks, and they dropped the thousands rank from it because it was the last letter of the alphabet. So the total of the letters of two in the three ranks was three letters, which are (b) indicating two in the ones, (k) indicating two in the tens, which is twenty, and (r) indicating two in the hundreds, which is two hundred. They made them one word, three in the order of ranks, which is bakr. Then they did that with the letters indicating three, and from it came the word sat, and so on to the last letters of the alphabet, and they became nine words. The end of the number of ones, which is iqsh bakr jals damt hanth sakh zaad hafz tdgh, is arranged in succession of numbers, and each word of it has its number in its rank, so one is for the word iqsh, two is for the word bakr, three is for the word jals, and so on to the ninth, which is tdgh, so it has nine. So if they want to subtract the name by nine, they look at each letter of it in which word it is from these words, and they take its number in its place, then they collect the numbers that they take instead of the letters of the name. If they are extra to the name, they take what is left over from it, otherwise they take it as it is. Then they do the same with the other name and they look between the outsiders as we have presented, and the secret in this is clear, and that is that the remainder of each decade of the decades of numbers by subtracting nine is only one, so it is as if the number of decades is collected specifically from each rank, so the numbers of the decades became as if they were ones, so there is no difference between twenty-two, two hundred, and two thousand, and they are all two, and likewise thirty-three, three hundred, and three thousand, they are all three by three. So the numbers were placed in succession indicating the numbers of the decades and nothing else, and the letters indicating the types of decades were made in each word from the ones and the tens. And the hundreds and thousands, and the number of the word placed on it became a substitute for each letter in it, whether it indicates units, tens, or hundreds, so the number of each word is taken instead of the letters in it and they are all collected to the end as we said. This is the practice that has been in circulation among people since ancient times, and some of our sheikhs whom we met saw that the correct thing in it is other words, nine in place of this and successive like its succession, and they do with it in the subtraction with nine like they do with the other, whether it is this, and it is arb yasqaq jazlat madus haf thathn ish kha thadhth nine words in succession, the number and each word of it has its number that is in its rank in it the triliteral, quadriliteral, and dual, and it is not running on a consistent principle as you see, but our sheikhs used to transmit it from the sheikh of Morocco in these knowledges of alchemy and the secrets of letters and astrology, and he is Abu al-Abbas ibn al-Banna, and they say about him that working with these words in subtracting the calculation of sleep is more correct than working with the words of iqsh, and God knows how that is, and all of these are perceptions of the unseen that Aristotle is not known to investigators because of what is in it of opinions far from investigation and proof bears witness to that for you, browse it if I was one of the people of steadfastness. And among these industrial laws for extracting the unseen, as they claim, is the Zayarija called Zayarija al-Alam, attributed to Abu al-Abbas Sidi Ahmad al-Sabti, one of the prominent Sufis in Morocco. It was in the late sixth century in Marrakesh and during the reign of Abu Yaqub al-Mansur, one of the kings of the Almohads. It is a strange work in terms of industry. Many of the elite are fond of benefiting from it with its well-known, mysterious work, so they incite people to solve its code and uncover its mystery. And the image in which they work is a great circle inside of which are parallel circles for the spheres, elements, components, spiritualities, and other kinds of beings and sciences. Each circle is divided into sections of its sphere, either the zodiac, or the elements, or other, and the lines of each section pass to the center, and they call them the strings. On each string are successive letters placed, including the bridles of the bridles, which are the forms of numbers among the people of the offices and arithmetic in Morocco to this day, and the dusts of the familiar ones inside the zayarija. And between the circles are the names of the sciences and the locations of the universes. And on the surface of the circles is a table with many intersecting houses in length and width, comprising fifty-five houses in width and one hundred and thirty-one in length. Its sides are populated with houses, sometimes with numbers and other times with letters, and the sides are empty of houses. The proportion of those numbers in their positions is not known, nor the division that determined the populated houses from the empty ones. The edges of the zayarija are verses of long meter on the rhyme of the accusative lam, which include the image of the work in extracting what is required from that zayarija, except that it is a kind of riddle in its lack of clarity and clarity. And in some aspects of the zayarija there is a verse of poetry. It is attributed to one of the great scholars of history in Morocco, Malik bin Wahib, one of the scholars of Seville, who was in the Lamtuni state. The text of the verse: A question of great character, I have acquired a secret, then strange doubts, its grandfather has controlled it, for example.

This is the house that is used by them in work to extract the answer from the question in this Zayarijah and others. So if they wanted to extract the answer to what is asked about from the issues, they would write that question and cut it into letters, then they would take the ascendant for that time from the zodiac signs and its degrees and they would go to the Zayarijah and then to the chord surrounded by the ascendant sign from its beginning passing to the center then to the circumference of the circle opposite the ascendant. They would take all the letters written on it from its beginning to its end and the numbers drawn between them and make them letters according to the Abjad calculation. They might transfer their ones to their tens and their tens to their hundreds and vice versa in them as required by the law of work with them and they would put them with the letters of the question and add to that all that is on the chord surrounded by the third sign of the ascendant from the letters and numbers from its beginning to the center only, they would not exceed it to the circumference and they would do with the numbers what they did with the first and add them to the other letters, then they would cut the letters of the house that is the origin of the work and its law with them and it is the house of Malik bin Wahib mentioned above and they would put them aside then they would multiply the number of degrees of the ascendant by the axis of the sign and its axis with them is the distance of the sign from the last ranks opposite to what the axis is on For the people of the art of arithmetic, it is the distance from the first ranks, then they multiply it by another number which they call the greater exponent and the original cycle, and they enter what they have collected from that into the houses of the table according to known laws and mentioned works and numbered cycles, and they extract letters from them and drop others and they compare with what they have in the letters of the house and transfer from it what they transfer to the letters of the question and what is with it, then they subtract those letters in known numbers which they call cycles and they extract in each cycle the letter at which the cycle ends and they repeat that with the number of cycles specified by them for that, so the last of them comes out as disconnected letters and they are composed in succession so that they become words arranged in one house according to the meter of the house with which the work is compared and its rhyme, which is the house of Malik Ibn Wahib mentioned above, as we mention all of that in the chapter on the sciences regarding the method of working with this zayarija, and we have seen many of the elite rushing to extract the unseen from it with those works and they think that what happened from the agreement of the answer to the question in the agreement of the discourse is evidence of the agreement of reality, and that is not correct because it has passed to you that the unseen is not perceived by an artificial matter at all, but rather the agreement in it between the answer and the question in terms of understanding and agreement in the discourse so that the answer is straight or In accordance with the question and the occurrence of that in this industry in breaking the combined letters of the question and the strings and entering into the table with the combined numbers from multiplying the imposed numbers and extracting the letters from the table with that and subtracting others and repeating that in the counted roles and comparing all of that with the letters of the house in succession is not reprehensible and it may happen that some of the intelligent people see a proportion between these things and he gets to know the unknown so the proportion between things is the reason for obtaining the unknown from the known obtained by the soul and a way to obtain it especially from the people of sports because it benefits the mind with strength for analogy and an increase in thought and the explanation of that has passed more than once and for this meaning they attribute this Zayarijah mostly to the people of sports so it is attributed to Al-Sabti and I have come across another attributed to Sahl bin Abdullah and by my life it is from the strange works and the amazing suffering. The answer that comes out of it, the secret of its coming out in verse, appears to me to be the correspondence with the letters of that verse, and for this reason the verse is in accordance with its meter and rhyme, and this is indicated by the fact that we found other works of theirs in such a way in which they omitted the correspondence with the verse, so the answer did not come out in verse, as you will see when discussing that in its place. Many people’s perceptions are too narrow to believe in this work and its penetration into what is required, so they deny its validity and think that it is from the imaginations and illusions, and that the one who works with it establishes the letters of the verse that he organizes as he wants between the letters of the question and the strings, and he does those crafts without proportion or law, then he brings the verse and makes it seem that the work came in two organized ways. This calculation is a corrupt imagination that the minds have been led to by understanding the proportion between the existents and the non-existents and the disparity between the perceptions and the minds, but it is the nature of every perceiver to deny what he is not able to comprehend, and it is sufficient for us to refute that by observing the work with these crafts and the definite intuition, for they came with a continuous work and a correct law in which there is no doubt for the one who practices that who has intelligence and intuition.

If much of the comparison in the number, which is the most obvious of the obvious, is difficult for the understanding to comprehend due to the distance and obscurity of the proportion in it, then what do you think of something like this with the obscurity and strangeness of the proportion in it? Let us mention a question of comparison that will make clear to you something of what we have mentioned. An example of it is if it is said to you: Take a number of dirhams and make for each dirham three coins, then add the coins you took and buy a bird with them, then buy birds with all the dirhams at the price of that bird. How many birds were bought with the dirhams? The answer is that you say they are nine, because you know that the coins of the dirhams are twenty-four and that three is its eighth and that the number of eighths of one is eight. So if you add the price from the dirhams to the other price, then all of it is the price of a bird, so they are eight birds, the number of eighths of one, and you add to the eight another bird, which is the one bought with the coins taken first and at the price you bought with the dirhams, so it is nine. So you see how the answer implied by the secret of the proportion between the numbers of the question came out to you, and the imagination is the first thing that throws this and the like at you, it only makes it from the category of the unseen that cannot be known. And it became clear that the proportion between matters is what removes the unknown from them. Its known and this is only in the facts that occur in existence or knowledge. As for future beings, if the reasons for their occurrence are not known and no true news is proven about them, then it is a mystery that cannot be known. If that becomes clear to you, then the actions that occur in the Zayarijah are all in extracting the answer from the words of the question because, as you have seen, it is the deduction of letters in an order from those same letters in another order. The secret of that is only from a correspondence between them that some see without others. So whoever knows that correspondence, it will be easy for him to extract that answer according to those laws. And the answer indicates in another position from the subject of its words and its structures the occurrence of one of the two sides of the question, from negation or affirmation. This is not from the first position, but rather it goes back to the correspondence of speech to what is outside. There is no way to know that from these actions. Rather, humans are veiled from it, and God has kept His knowledge to Himself. God knows, and you do not know.

Read Ibn Khaldun’s Muqaddima–A New English Translation #