It is this form which populates the earth of the imagination which we already spoke about in this proper chapter. Then Allah appointed nourishment for these forms and these spirits. They are the subject of the third question. They subsist by that nourishment. It consists of sensory nourishment and nourishment of meaning.
Sensory nourishment is well known.
It is what the forms of food and drink bear of spiritual meanings, i.e. faculties. Each form, be it lumnious, animal or physical, is nourished by what is suitable for it. It would take too long to give the details of that. All of that is sensory and intelligible. The sensory part of it is what is connected to the Abode of wretchedness, of pains in this world and the Next, and connected to the Abode of happiness of pleasures in this world and the Next.