[26] Our worthy predecessors (may God be pleased with them) have related that one of the islands of India that lies below the equator is the island where humans are created without a father or mother and where trees bear women as fruit. This is the island that Mascūdī calls the Island of Wāqwāq. For this island has the most temperate air of all the regions of the earth and is the most perfect because it is disposed to have the highest light shine upon it. This is contrary to what the majority of philosophers and most eminent physicians believe. They hold that the most temperate part of the inhabited world is the fourth geographical zone. If they say this because they have determined that there is no settlement along the equator due to terrestrial obstacles, then there is something to their statement that the fourth zone is the most temperate of all the remaining regions. However, if they simply mean that what lies along the equator is too hot, as the majority of them actually say, then they are wrong, and demonstration proves the opposite.

It has been demonstrated in the natural sciences that the generation of heat is caused only by motion, contact with hot bodies, and illumination. It has also been shown in these sciences that the sun is not hot in essence, nor does it have any of the qualities of mixtures.