كتاب الحيوان (Book of Animals)

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...Ishaq, his opponent cannot help but initiate a question to invalidate the argument regarding the "jump" an atomic theory concept, ṭafra, where an object traverses space without passing through intermediate points and the "shattering." Were it not for the objection Abu Ishaq raised with his answer about the jump in this situation, this would be a matter used as an argument for the temporal creation of the world. Abu Ishaq claimed that the burning of cloth, wood, and cotton is merely the exit of their fires from them. This is the interpretation of burning: it is not that a fire came from a place and acted upon the wood, but rather that the fire latent in the wood was not strong enough to repel its opposite. When it connected to another fire and intensified, they both grew strong enough to repel that obstacle. When the obstacle vanished, the fire appeared. Upon its appearance, the wood was partitioned, dried, and crumbled due to the fire's action within it. Your burning of a thing is simply your bringing its fires out of it. He also claimed that the heat of the sun burns in this world by bringing its fires out of things. It does not burn what the accident has solidified and that thickness of moisture, because the things that solidified those parts—of heat, species, color, taste, smell, and sound—do not burn. Burning is only the appearance of fire when its obstacle vanishes. He also claimed that a snake’s venom resides in the snake’s body without killing it. Whenever it is mixed with a body that has no poison in it, it does not kill or destroy. It only destroys bodies that contain poisons obstructed by their opposites. When the snake’s venom enters, it helps the latent poison overcome its obstacle. When the obstacle vanishes, the bitten body perishes. According to Abu Ishaq, most of what destroyed the body was the poison already within it. He said the same regarding the heat of a bath and the heat latent in a human. The faintness that overcomes a person in a bath is not from the "strange heat," but because the strange heat moves the heat latent in the human and supplies it with some of its parts. When it grows strong enough against its obstacle and removes it, the action that was expected from the obstacle occurs through the latent heat. It is like hot water that burns the hand; if cold water is poured onto it, the hot water becomes occupied with the incoming cold water. The person who put their hand in it finds their hand in something that is occupied with something else. When God Almighty repels the substance that is occupied, that occupation is directed toward the one who placed their hand in it, as it cannot be separated from its action. He also claimed that if you extinguished the fire of a furnace, we would find no light but would find much heat. If light did not have a source in the earth to which it could be attributed, and only had a source in the heavens, that would be more appropriate for it. In reality, they are both connected to their essence from the upper world. This heat you find in the earth is only from the...