The Author's Preface and the First Two Introductions

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

My success is only through God; in Him I put my trust.¹

Majesty is Yours, and grandeur befits Your glory, O You who subsist through Yourself, who pour out good things, whose existence is necessary, who bestow intellects, who split open² the earth and the heavens; Originator of motion and time, Inventor of the moment and of place; Maker of spirits and of bodies; Appointer of light and darkness; Mover of the governing spheres, who adorned them with the fixed and the wandering stars; who set the earth firm and spread it out for the kinds of animals and the sorts of minerals and plants. May Your praise endure and Your glory be exalted; may Your remembrance be lifted high and Your names be hallowed. There is no god but You. Your mercy is wide, and Your favours and blessings are many.

Pour upon us the lights of Your knowledge; purify our souls from the turbidity of disobedience to You; rain upon us the clouds of Your bounty and mercy; pitch over us the pavilions of Your pardon and forgiveness; and bring us into the keeping of Your care and Your generosity. And bless those of pure breath and dazzling miracles, and above all the lord of the messengers, the leader of the God-fearing and the guide of those whose faces and limbs shine white,³ Muhammad son of ʿAbd Allah son of ʿAbd al-Muttalib son of Hashim, whom You chose for prophethood while Adam was still between water and clay,⁴ whom You sent as a mercy to the worlds, whom You strengthened with Your help and with the believers, and with whom You sealed the prophets and messengers; and bless his brethren among the prophets and the righteous, and his family and Companions, all of them.

The lowliest of servants, Zakariyya ibn Muhammad ibn Mahmud al-Qazwini — may God take him into His care by His favour — says:⁵

When God Most High decreed for me to be far from home and homeland and to be parted from family and dwelling, I gave myself to reading books, following the view of the one who said:

And the best companion in all of time is a book.⁶

I was absorbed in contemplating the wonders of God's handiwork in what He has made and the marvels of His invention in what He has brought into being, as God, glory be to Him, guided us to do when He said: Have they not looked at the sky above them, how We built it and adorned it, and it has no rifts?⁷ But what is meant by looking here is not turning the eyeball towards things, for the beasts share that with man. Whoever sees of the sky nothing but its blueness and of the earth nothing but its dust has the beasts for partners in that, and is in a lower state than they and more deeply heedless, as God Most High said: They have hearts with which they do not understand — down to His words — those are like cattle; nay, they are further astray.⁸

Rather, what is meant by this looking is reflection on intelligible things and contemplation of sensible things, and inquiry into the wisdom behind them and the ways they are disposed, so that their realities may become plain to the one who looks; for that is the cause of pleasures in this world and of happiness in the next. That is why the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace, said: "Show me things as they are."⁹ The more deeply the observer looks into them, the more guidance, certainty, light and realization God Most High gives him. That is why he said, God bless him and grant him peace: "Reflect upon the creation of God."¹⁰

Reflection on intelligible things comes only to someone who is versed in the mathematical sciences,¹¹ after he has made his character good and disciplined his soul. Then the eye of insight opens in him, and he sees in every thing such wonder as he is unable to tell even in part; and were he to tell some little of it to another, the other would deny it. How well the poet put it:

I heard a tale that I had taken
for a phantom of sleep, or the raving of night-talk;¹²
once I had grown used to it, I found it true,
and I have seen thousands of lessons like it.

Of this kind is what God Most High tells in His Book of what passed between al-Khidr and Moses, peace be upon them both.¹³ And of the same kind is what is also related: that Moses, peace be upon him, passed by a spring at the foot of a mountain. He made his ablutions from it and climbed the mountain to pray. Then a horseman came, drank from the water of the spring, and left beside it a purse with silver coins in it. After him a shepherd came, saw the purse, took it and went away. Then an old man came, on whom were the marks of misery, with a bundle of firewood on his back. He put his bundle down there and lay back to rest. It was not long before the horseman returned looking for his purse. When he did not find it, he turned on the old man and demanded it of him, and kept beating him until he killed him. Moses said: "O Lord, how is there justice in these things?" God Most High revealed to him: "This old man had killed the horseman's father, and the horseman's father owed the shepherd's father a debt equal to what was in the purse. Retaliation took place between those two, and the debt was paid. I am wise and just."

By way of hearing and seeing, of reflection and contemplation, I have come upon wonderful wisdoms and strange properties, and I wished to bind them down so that they would stay fixed; I was loath to let them slip from mind, for fear that they would escape.

Section

Whoever looks into this book of mine should picture my toil in gathering what was scattered and piecing together what was dispersed. I have mentioned in it things that the nature of the dull and heedless refuses, but that the soul of the intelligent and clever does not deny. For though they are far from familiar custom and accustomed sight, nothing is too great for the power of the Creator or the ingenuity of the creature.

Everything in it is one of three things. It is either one of the wonders of the handiwork of the Creator Most High, and these are either perceived by the senses or grasped by the intellect, with no doubt in them and no flaw. Or it is a charming story ascribed to those who relate it, in which I have neither she-camel nor he-camel.¹⁴ Or it is one of the strange properties of things, and a lifetime is not enough to test them all; but there is no sense in abandoning all of them because some are doubtful. If you wish to be sure of them, roll up your sleeves and test them. Beware of growing weary, or of being taken in, if you do not succeed once or twice, for that may be because some condition is missing or some hindrance has arisen. Let it be enough for you to consider the lodestone and how it draws iron: if the smell of garlic reaches it, that property is lost, and if you wash it with vinegar the property returns to it. So if you see a lodestone that does not attract iron, do not deny its property; turn your attention to inquiring into its circumstances until the matter becomes clear to you.

Yet I call God to witness that nothing in it is my own invention: I wrote it all down just as I came upon it.¹⁵ If you look at it with the eye of approval, that eye is too dim to see any fault; and if you look with the eye of displeasure, its shortcomings are many.¹⁶ The eye of the noble is blind to faults, and his ear is deaf to failings. How well the poet put it:

So I said to them: "Do not forget generosity among yourselves,"¹⁷
for the eye of the noble sees nothing but the good.

I have named it The Wonders of Created Things and the Marvels of Existing Things (ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharāʾib al-mawjūdāt). Four introductions must be given first to explain these terms, so that the purpose of the book may become clear from them. God it is who grants success in what is right.

The First Introduction: On the Meaning of Wonder

They say that wonder (ʿajab)¹⁸ is a bewilderment that comes over a person because he falls short of knowing the cause of a thing, or of knowing how it produces its effect.

For example, when a man sees a beehive and has never seen one before, bewilderment comes over him because he does not know who made it. And if he knew that it was the work of bees, he would be bewildered all the same: how did that weak creature make these equal-sided hexagons, the like of which a skilled geometer could not make with compass and ruler? Where did it get this wax from which it has made its equal cells, none differing from another, as if poured into one mould? Where did it get this honey, which it has stored up in them as provision for the winter? How did it know that winter would come upon it and that it would lack food then? And how was it guided to cover the honey-store with a thin film, so that wax surrounds the honey on every side, and the air does not dry it out nor dust reach it, and it stays like a jar whose mouth has been sealed with paper?

This is the meaning of wonder, and everything in the world is of this sort. But a person perceives such things in his childhood, when he lacks experience. Then the instinct of reason appears in him little by little, while all his concern is sunk in meeting his needs and gaining his desires. He has grown used to what he perceives and senses, and through long familiarity it has dropped out of his sight. Then, if he suddenly sees a strange animal, or a rare plant, or some deed that breaks with custom, his tongue is loosed in praise and he says "Glory be to God!" — and yet all his life long he sees things that bewilder the minds of the wise and astonish the souls of the clever.

Whoever wants to know the truth of this saying, let him look with the eye of insight at these lofty bodies, at their vastness and solidity, and at how they are preserved from change and corruption until the appointed term is reached; for the earth and the air and the seas, compared with them, are like a ring thrown down in the desert. God Most High said: And the sky — We built it with might, and We are its expanders.¹⁹

Then let him look at how differently they revolve: for relative to us some of them turn like a millstone, some like a sword-belt, and some like a water-wheel;²⁰ some turn swiftly and some turn slowly. Then at the unceasing permanence of their motions; then at how they are held up without pillars to lean on or cords to hang from.

Then let him look at their stars, their sun and their moon; at how their risings and settings differ according to the times, which are the cause of the growth of animals and plants. Then at the course of their stars through stations set in order by a measured reckoning, which neither increases nor decreases. Then at the number of their stars, how many there are, and how their colours differ, for some tend to red, some to white, and some to the colour of lead.

Then at the course of the sun through its sphere in the space of a year, and at its rising and setting each day, so that night and day differ and the times may be known, and the time for earning a living may be told apart from the time for rest; then at how it is inclined from the middle of the sky to the south and to the north, so that summer and winter, spring and autumn come about. Those who have studied the matter agree that the sun is a hundred and sixty-odd times the size of the globe of the earth,²¹ and that in a moment it travels more than the diameter of the earth's globe. Gabriel, peace be upon him, expressed this when he said to the Prophet, God bless him and grant him peace: "Between the moment I said 'No' and the moment I said 'Yes', the sun travelled a journey of five hundred years."²²

Then let him look at the body of the moon and how it acquires light from the sun so as to take its place at night; then at its waxing and waning; then at the eclipse of the sun and the eclipse of the moon. Among the wonders is the blackness that is seen in the body of the moon, about which no satisfying account has been heard down to our own time; and the same is true of the Galaxy, the whiteness called "the seam of the sky" (sharaj al-samāʾ),²³ which lies on a sphere that turns, relative to us, like a millstone. There is no hope of counting a tenth of a tenth of the wonders of the heavens; but in the measure we have mentioned there is an insight for every penitent servant.²⁴

Then let him look at what lies between heaven and earth: the swooping of shooting stars, the clouds, the thunder, the lightning, the thunderbolts, the rains, the snows, and the winds that blow from different quarters. Let him consider the heavy, dense, dark clouds: how they gather in clear air in which there is no murkiness, and how they carry water; and how the winds are made subject, for they play with the clouds and drive them to the places God, glory be to Him, has willed. Then the clouds sprinkle the face of the earth with water, sending it down in separate drops, no drop overtaking another, so that it reaches the face of the earth gently. Had He poured it down in a torrent, it would have spoiled the crops by scouring the face of the earth. And He sends it down in sufficient measure: not so much more than is needed that the plants rot, nor so much less than is needed that growth is not completed, as God Most High said: And We sent down water from the sky in due measure.²⁵

Then let him look at the differences among the winds: some of them drive the clouds, some spread them out, some gather them, some wring them out, some fertilize the trees, some nourish the crops and fruits, and some dry them.

Then let him look at the earth and how it was made steady to be a bed and a cradle; then at the breadth of its sides and the distance of its regions, so that men are unable to reach all its borders, however long their lives, as God Most High said: And the earth — We spread it out; how excellent are those who spread!²⁶ Then at how its back was made a dwelling for the living and its belly a resting-place for the dead. You see it lifeless, and when water is sent down on it, it stirs and swells,²⁷ and brings forth the kinds of minerals, sprouts the sorts of plants, and puts out the species of animals. Then at how its edges are made fast with towering mountains like tent-pegs, to keep it from swaying. Then at how the waters are lodged in its hollows as in storehouses, to come out of them little by little, so that springs burst forth from them and rivers run from them; by these animals and plants live until the rains come down in the following year, and the surplus flows away to the seas for ever.

F. Wüstenfeld (ed.), Zakarija Ben Muhammed Ben Mahmud el-Cazwini's Kosmographie, vol. I: Kitāb ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt (Göttingen, 1849), pp. 3–9.