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1028
TBE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
But inquiring minds who look into and know the truth will say that they are not the senses that do it, because they do not feel at all, neither the eyes see, nor the ears hear, though they may be safe and sound, even when the original thinker is engaged in something else or intoxicated or made insensible by means of chloroform, etc. So far as careful examination and observation show, it is manifest that understanding or knowledge is the part of mujarradat or spiritual things only."
Again, at page 16 :" What we want to prove is simply this, that matter or material things, by themselves are unable to have feelings or understanding. Now think what is it in man which, through the aforesaid holes or windows, gains knowledge of the external world ? The philosophers...make a distinction between the natural functions and the actions of the will. If a fool may not make a distinction between the two, and know not black from white, it will be a deficiency of his own understanding. Find out, then, what is it that go knowledge of the external world and grasps the ideas relating to moral truths ? Now I tell you, it is nafs-i-natiqa, which in the theological language is called soul."
That this is also the view taken by almost all other rational systems of religion has been already demonstrated in this book.
Thus, there is no essential difference between the teaching of other religions and Islam as to the nature of the soul. As regards the question whether animals are also endowed with souls, Al Bayan does not distinctly say, in so many words, that they have one ; but the argument is there to show that they are not soul-less. At page 9 we are told :
These senses are not confined to men only. God's common gift reaches generally not only to all the animal kingdoms, but also some vegetables... The circumstances surrounding the animal kingdom, their instincts, their nature, the methods of nursing their young, the skill with which they collect their food for future wwe, union among their kind, the sympathy they show towards
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