It is clear that there are numerous benefits in the sun’s rising, but since it is tied to a regular law, supplications are not offered for its rising and thanks are not given. And since because of  the law  it is a part of human knowledge that  it  will rise again tomorrow, it is not  counted  among the matters of the Unseen. But the particular occurences of rain do not  follow any law, so men are all the time obliged to take refuge at the divine court with prayers and supplications. Human knowledge has been unable to specify the times of precipitation, men therefore consider it a special bounty proceeding from the treasury of mercy alone, and truly offer thanks.

In consequence the verse includes the time rain falls among “the five hidden things.”  Deducing the preliminaries of rain with instruments in observatories and specifying the  times of precipitation is not knowing the Unseen, but knowing by studying some of its preliminaries when it has emerged from the World of the Unseen and drawn close to the Manifest World. When the most hidden events of the Unseen occur, or when they are close to occurring, they may be perceived through a sort of premonition. But that is not knowing the Unseen, but knowing that something exists or is close to  existence. In fact, I sometimes  perceive the rain twenty-four hours before  it  arrives  due  to  a  sensitivity in  my  nerves.  That  is  to  say,  the  rain  has preliminaries, forerunners; they make themselves felt through  a  sort of dampness, making it known that rain is to follow. Just like a law, this situation is a means of reaching matters  that  have  left  the World  of the Unseen but  not  yet  entered  the Manifest World. But to know when rain will fall that has not yet set foot in the Manifest  World, nor left through a particular divine wish the treasury of mercy, is peculiar to the One All-Knowing of the Unseen.

THE SECOND MATTER

Learning by means of X-rays whether a child in the womb is male or female is not  contrary to  the  meaning  of  the  verse,  “And  He  Who  knows  what  is  in  the wombs,”(31:34) which refers to the Unseen. For what is intended by the verse are the preliminaries of the child’s particular capacity and the appointed course of its life, which it  will acquire in the future, and even the wondrous stamp of the Eternally Besought One on its face – the child being known in this way is particular to the One All-Knowing of the Unseen.17  Even if a hundred thousand X-ray-like minds of men were to combine, they still  could not discover its true features, each of which is a mark distinguishing the child from all the other members of the human race. So how could they discover the non-physical features of its abilities, which are a hundred times more wondrous than its physical features.

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17 See, Bukhari, Bad’ al-khalq, 6; Anbiya’, 1; Muslim, Qadar,1.