The Shaykh’s clarification of the means that humans, whether righteous or wicked, adopt to gain knowledge of some of the unseen matters, which in their essence are not

The Shaykh : After this type of means, which is exclusive to the believers, we move on to other means, in which there is no difference between those who adopt them, whether they are a righteous Muslim, a sinful Muslim, or an evil jinn; there is no difference, because Allah has made these causes easy for all people without any distinction between their faith and their disbelief. So, whoever takes hold of some of these causes reaches that unseen matter, which was unseen to the general public, and then when some of them adopted that means which Allah (Mighty and Majestic) created, they reached what the others did not reach, so this was called unseen. But! There is another difference: these people we mentioned last, without distinction between Muslim and disbeliever, cannot use these means that Allah has made easy for them to discover what will happen in such a year, on such a day, at such an hour, of that for which Allah has not established a system or a cause. And on this occasion, I give a very simple example: I read it when I was reading *Ma Habba wa Dabba* (What Moves and Crawls): that the farmer can know the age of a tree, not while it is standing on its trunk, but after it is cut from its trunk, where he sees circles within a circle within a circle, and he says: this is its age, meaning: each circle represents a year. This is not knowledge of the unseen. Yes, it is unseen knowledge for the ignorant who do not know the significance of these circles. Likewise, I read in some books of literature that a person can know the age of a person from the lines he sees in his fingernail, where each line indicates a year. This is, of course, among the matters whose knowledge has not spread. But! Who doubts now the accuracy of the news published by astronomers a year or two, or perhaps years, in advance? They make calendars for such a year, on such a day, at such an hour: the sun will be eclipsed in such a country, a total, half, or partial eclipse, distinguishing between one country and another, and likewise the lunar eclipse on such a night, on such a day, total or partial, and so on. They would not have known this had not Allah (Mighty and Majestic) established a system for the rotation of the sun and moon and their connection to the earth through this rotation, and they learned through the causes that Allah made easy for them. Finally, science has reached, or nearly discovered, what is in the womb of a woman, whether it is a male or a female, by this device that resembles the television known today. This is not knowledge of the unseen, but rather through this means that Allah has made easy for them, they discovered what is unknown to others. This is not knowledge of the unseen, but rather it is the discovery of the prevailing reality, the discovery of the created reality. It may be the discovery of what will happen, and this is rare and very few, such as what relates to the solar and lunar eclipses. And it is not of this type either what some of the Dajjals (false messiahs) exploit today, who connect with some of the jinn. The jinn know from the natural reality and the relationships between people more than the human knows. So this human seeks the help of the jinn, who may, for example, direct him to a lost item that is in such a place. This is also not knowledge of the unseen, but rather it is the discovery of reality by the knowledge that Allah has granted them, as we said regarding doctors and astronomers. So Allah (Mighty and Majestic) gave the jinn a type of knowledge by which they surpassed the humans, and they provide their human counterparts with this information. Is this not a discovery of what will happen? No, it is a discovery of what is actual. This, then, has no relation to the unseen knowledge by which Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is distinguished, which is intrinsic knowledge, not acquired knowledge. Rather, as He is the Creator, the Provider, the Giver of Life, and the Giver of Death, He is the Knower of the unseen, and no one shares in that with Him. So the unseen is of two types: an intrinsic type and an acquired type. The intrinsic type is that in which Allah is unique, and the acquired type is that in which Allah distinguishes some of His servants by some of the means we have hinted at. Some of these means are exclusive to the believers, and some are shared with them by the disbelievers.