 Epistle 40 On causes and effects addresses the crucial problem of the origin of the world. The Ikhwân subvert to religious purposes Aristotle’s teleological approach that “nature does not make anything in vain.” Understanding creation, one of the basic Muslim tenets, is recognized as the highest attainment of knowledge. So, the ancients are defended from the charge of eternalism (cf. III, 356, 11–18) and, for the sake of the masses, creation is even explained through the comparison of God with a confectioner. However the Ikhwân – like the Ismâ‘îlis – adopt Neoplatonic views as the best explication of the origin of the world by God. The world, then, emanates from God through the hypostases of Intellect and Soul. Emanationism is the philosophical expression of creation; it also explains the encyclopaedic structure of the treatises. The various levels of reality down to the three kingdoms of the generated beings (animal, vegetable and mineral) originate continuously through intermediaries from the One. For this reason, by acquiring all the sciences from the lowest to the highest it is possible to attain the common source of everything, the ‘science of God’ in the double sense of pertaining to God and concerning God – the ancient metaphysics (metà ta physikà) no longer indicates what comes “after” physics but what is “beyond” it. Thus, rather than a mere foreign source, Neoplatonism (merged with Neopythagorism) can be considered as the Ikhwân’s proper philosophy. Philosophy as imitation of God continues as the guiding principle of the Ikhwân’s system, together with equal emphasis on divine revelation.