Page:Arabic Thought and Its Place in History.djvu/234

 spite of his errors, his teaching as expounded by al-Farabi and Ibn Sina is the system of thought which comes nearest to Islam (id.). Because of its unavoidable difficulties and the grave errors contained in Aristotle and his Arabic commentators men are not to be encouraged to read philosophy (id.).

There are three different worlds or planes of existence (i.) the  ' alam al-mulk is that in which existence is apparent to the senses, the world made known by perception, and this is in a state of constant change; (ii.) the  ' alam al-malakut, the changeless and eternal world of reality established by God's decree, of which the world of perception is but the reflexion; (iii.) and the  ' alam al-jarabut or intermediate state, which properly belongs to the world of reality, but seems to be in the plane of perception. In this intermediate state is the human soul, which belongs to the plane of reality, though apparently projected into the perceptible plane to which it does not belong, and then returns to reality. The pen, tablet, etc., mentioned in the Qur'an are not mere allegories; they belong to the world of reality, and so are something other than what we see in this world of perception. These three worlds or planes are not separate in time or space, they are rather to be considered as modes of existence.

The theories of the astronomers as to movements of the heavenly bodies are to be accepted—al-Ghazali adhered, of course, to the Ptolemaic system—but these deal only with the lowest plane, the world of sense.