Silsilah Sahihah

Benefits:

Allah Ta'ala has granted human beings the following five means for acquiring knowledge:

❀ Seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing, touching.

❀ These five means are called the five senses (hawas khamsa). The knowledge that a person acquires through these five senses is not called knowledge of the unseen (ilm al-ghayb). Knowledge of the unseen is that which cannot be acquired through these five means.

❀ The knowledge of the particulars and universals of the unseen is possessed only by Allah Ta'ala; in this matter, no prophet or saint shares with Allah Ta'ala, nor has Allah Ta'ala granted anyone this capability. In this verse, only five important matters are mentioned.

❀ Nowadays it is said that the time of rainfall and the gender of the fetus in the mother's womb can be determined?

Dear readers! If one reflects on the definition of knowledge of the unseen, then this question does not arise at all, because by means of certain instruments, by observing certain signs, an imperfect estimation can be presented regarding the occurrence of rainfall or the gender of the fetus in the mother's womb. The true form of knowledge of the unseen would be that, without using any instrument or checking the pulse, someone could inform about a woman that at such and such times, at such and such places, she will give birth to so many children one after another, their appearance will be of such and such kind, these will be their names, whether they will be fortunate or blessed, their complexion will be of such and such type, whether they will be deficient or complete, how long they will live, and so on and so forth. And this capability is possessed by none other than Allah Ta'ala.

You must have observed that the announcements and predictions of the meteorological department sometimes turn out to be incorrect. Another point is that even when they make announcements, they do not specify a small and particular region, but rather determine a large region such as a division, and give information about the possibility of rain or no rain in it; they do not claim anything definitive or absolute.

The real matter is that for centuries, this system of Allah Ta'ala has been running in the best manner. By observing some signs and indications of this system, and by considering the results of these signs in the past, an estimation can be made that in the next twelve or twenty-four hours, such and such is likely or unlikely to happen.

These estimations are part of experience and observation. The status of such estimation is just like the villagers who, by observing the condition of the weather, estimate that it will rain today, because their experience is that after such conditions in the past, it often rains. But what happens is that sometimes, according to their estimation, it does rain, sometimes storms and tempests arise, sometimes dry winds begin to blow, and sometimes the clouds pass by without raining.

As for the matter of Allah Ta'ala, when water takes the form of vapor, Allah Ta'ala knows about every single drop—where it will fall, what its quantity will be, whether it will be harmful or beneficial, and so on.