The Author's Preface and the First Two Introductions

Then let him look at the deep seas, which are gulfs of the Greatest Sea that surrounds the whole earth, so that all the exposed land, the deserts and the mountains, is like a small island in a great sea compared with the water, and the rest of the earth is covered by water. Then let him look at what is in the seas, the animals and the precious stones. There is no kind of land animal of which the sea does not hold the like, and many times over; and it holds kinds that have no counterpart on land. Then let him look at how the pearl is formed in its shell beneath the water; then at how coral grows in the heart of the rock beneath the water: it is a plant in the shape of a tree that grows out of stone. Then at the ambergris and the other kinds of precious things besides it that the sea throws up or that are brought out of it. Then at the ships: how they are driven over the seas and how fast they run before the winds; at the making of their gear; and at the sailors' knowledge of where the winds come from, where they blow, and at what seasons. The wonders of the seas are many, beyond hope of counting. It has been said: "Tell of the sea, and there is no harm in it."¹ But what we have mentioned is enough.

Then let him look at the kinds of minerals laid up beneath the mountains. Some of them can be hammered out, like gold and silver; then let him look at how they are extracted and refined, and how ornaments, tools and vessels are made from them. Then at the minerals of the earth, such as naphtha, sulphur, pitch and the like. The most important of them is salt: if a town were without it, corruption would quickly overtake its people.

Then let him look at the kinds of plants and the sorts of fruits, differing in shape, colour, taste and smell, watered with one water, and We make some of them excel others in taste,² though the soil, the air and the water are one: how out of the stone of a date He has brought forth a palm hung round with clusters of fresh dates, and out of a grain, seven ears, in every ear a hundred grains.³

Then let him look at the land of the deserts and how alike its parts are: when the rain falls on it, it stirs and swells and sprouts every joyous kind.⁴ Then at how many plants there are, how different their sorts, alike and unlike;⁵ then at how many their shapes, colours, tastes and smells, how different their natures, and how many their uses. Not a leaf grows from the earth but it holds some benefit or benefits that human understanding falls short of grasping.

Then let him look at the sorts of animals and how they are divided into those that fly, those that swim and those that walk; and how those that walk are divided into those that go upon their bellies, those that go upon two legs, and those that go upon four;⁶ and at their shapes, forms, dispositions and actions, so that he may see wonders that astonish the mind. Indeed, let him look only at the gnat, or the ant, or the spider, or the bee, which are among the weakest of animals, and he will see what bewilders: how they build their dwellings, gather food and store it up for winter, how skilled they are at their geometry, and how they set up their nets for hunting. There is no animal, small or large, without more wonders in it than can be counted; it is only through familiarity, from seeing them so often, that wonder at them has fallen away.

And the wonders of the heavens and the earth are as God Most High said: Say: Look at what is in the heavens and the earth!⁷ As for the seas, their shores are not known, nor their beginnings, nor their ends.

The Second Introduction: On the Division of Created Things

A created thing is everything other than God, glory be to Him, the Most High. It either subsists in itself or subsists in something else.

What subsists in itself either occupies space or does not. If it occupies space, it is body. If it does not, it is spiritual substance. Spiritual substance is either attached to bodies by the attachment of governing them, and this is the soul; or it is not. If it is not, then either it is free of appetite and anger, and this is the angel, or it is not, and this is the jinn.⁸

What subsists in something else, if it subsists in things that occupy space, is the bodily accidents; if it subsists in separate substances,⁹ it is the spiritual accidents, such as knowledge and power.

The bodily accidents are such that their presence either entails a relation, or entails the capacity for division, or neither this nor that.¹⁰

If the first, the relation is either to being in a place, and this is where; or to being in a time, and this is when; or it is a reciprocal relation, and this is relation proper; or it is one thing acting on another, and this is action; or one thing being affected by another, and this is being acted upon; or it is one thing surrounding another in such a way that what surrounds moves when what is surrounded moves, and this is possession; or it is a configuration of the whole body that arises from the relations of its parts to one another and of its parts to things outside it, and this is position.

If their presence entails the capacity for division, then either it is such that no common boundary arises between its parts, and this is number; or such a boundary arises, and this is magnitude.

If their presence entails neither a relation nor the capacity for division, then either it is conditional upon life or it is not. If it is, then either it depends on appetite and aversion, and this is setting in motion; or it does not, and this is perception. Perception is either the perception of universals — namely sciences, opinions, imaginings and ignorances — or the perception of particulars, namely the five senses.

If it is not conditional upon life, it is the accidents perceived by the five senses: either things perceived by the faculty of sight, such as lights and colours; or things perceived by the faculty of hearing, such as sounds and letters; or things perceived by the faculty of smell, such as fragrance and stench; or things perceived by the faculty of taste, such as the nine flavours; or things perceived by the faculty of touch, such as heat and cold, moisture and dryness, heaviness and lightness, hardness and softness, roughness and smoothness. This is the sum of the divisions of contingent things, and the discussion will proceed through each division of them, if God Most High wills.

Section

The authors of the biographies of the prophets¹¹ relate that it was found in the first book of the Torah that God Most High created a substance, then looked at it with a look of awe, and the substance melted; smoke rose from it and a sediment settled out of it. God, glory be to Him, created the heavens from the smoke and the earth from the sediment. His words, Most High, point to this: that the heavens and the earth were sewn together, and We split them apart.¹²

Know that He, whose power is majestic, created the whole in six days. One of the learned has said that "day" in the language means a thing brought into being, an event, and that the six days here are the ranks of the things He made; for before time there could be no marking out of time. Of the six days, one day was for the matter of the earth, one day for the matter of the sky, one day for their coming to be what they are, and two days for completing them with mountains, stars, souls and the rest.¹³

They say too that everything above the earth is a sky in the sense the language gives the word, for the people of the language say, "Whatever is above you is your sky"; and whatever is beneath the sphere of the moon is earth relative to the spheres. God Most High said: He created seven heavens, and of the earth the like of them,¹⁴ that is, seven. The first is the sphere of fire, the second the sphere of air, the third the sphere of water, and the fourth the sphere of earth; and there are three layers mixed from the first four: the first from fire and air, the second from air and water, and the third from water and earth. Then, after bringing these into being, He ordered by His providence the affair of the minerals, which belong to the inanimate, then the plants, then the animals.

This is the general account of created things. The detailed account of them will follow in two discourses, if God Most High wills.

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