and the sinning soul after death settles in a body from the bodies that matches the kind of sin which it committed, it was the soul of a man so it is now a woman, it was the soul of a human so it is now the soul of a horse or the soul of a dog or the soul of a camel, and so on and so forth.

And Abu al-'Ala al-Ma'arri said in verse:

Three ranks of a lofty king,

And a human and a generation other than human

If the youth did a good deed he ascended,

To the genus of the angels, the best genus.

And if his ambition lowered him he fell

To the genus of the beasts, the worst genus.

And the author, Allah sanctified his soul, said: So man is the middle rank between the two ranks, and the image that gathers the two opposites, and all that is in the universe was found for his need by necessity, and for his sake the messengers came and the laws were legislated, and he is the path between paradise and the fire, and from his rank is the ascent, and the falling, and the salvation, and the destruction, so if he guided himself by the lights of the intellect as we have previously presented and submitted to its commands,