Eighth to the Sixteenth Century - Rashid Islamic Center

Primary Sources • 257causal power of burning, then there is nothing to distinguish it fromother things such as water or earth. Consequently, we can no longerdifferentiate one thing from another in any real sense. This amountsto a destruction of peculiar and distinctive nature of individualsubstances and hence we can no longer have any real knowledge of thenatural world. Thus, the removal of the cause-and-effect relationshipleads to the removal of the possibility of knowledge of nature.zAbout the Natural SciencesGhazali says:The so-called natural sciences are many, and we shall enumeratetheir parts, in order to make it known that the Holy Law does notask one to contest and refute them, except in certain points we shallmention. They are divided into principal classes and subdivisions. Theprincipal classes are eight. In the first class are treated the divisibility,movement, and change which affect body in so far as it is body, andthe relations and consequences of movement like time, space, andvoid, and all this is contained in Aristotle’s Physics. The second treatsof the disposition of the parts of the elements of the world, namelyheaven and the four elements which are within the sphere of themoon, and their natures and the cause of the disposition of each ofthem in a definite place; and this is contained in Aristotle’s De coelo.The third treats of the conditions of generation and corruption, ofequivocal generation and of sexual generation, of growth and decay,of transmutations, and how the species are conserved, whereas theindividuals perish through the two heavenly movements (westwardsand eastwards), and this is contained in De generatione et corruptione.The fourth treats of the conditions which are found in the fourelements through their mixture, by which there occur meteorologicalphenomena like clouds and rain and thunder, lightning, the haloround the moon, the rainbow, thunderbolts, winds, and earthquakes.The fifth treats of mineralogy, the sixth of botany. The seventh treatsof zoology, which is contained in the book Historic animalium. The