Rational Explanation of Revelation from Ibn Sina’s Point of View

Document Type : Scholarly Article

Authors

1 PhD in Islamic Philosophy /Tarbiat Modares University

2 Associate Professor, philosophy & theology department, Tarbiat Modares University

Abstract

Providing a rational explanation of the process of revelation is a common viewpoint which has been proposed by the Islamic philosophers. Offering a plan of human thought and reasoning system, Avicenna, as one of the pioneers of Islamic philosophy, attempted to include the process of receiving revelation by the prophet in this scheme; so that he proved revelation as having full rationality which is only available for the prophet. Avicenna's approach in epistemic explaining of revelation becomes clear in dealing with other philosophical approaches. For example, al-Farabi associates revelation to the Prophet's power of imagination and distinguishes sage and prophet in this way: the sage is connected to the active intellect by education in the level of acquired intellect, while the prophet comprehends these facts relying on his power of imagination without education. So we can conclude that in terms of intellect actuality, a sage is higher than a prophet. However, in view of Avicenna, recipient of revelation is the sacred intellect of the prophet which is the greatest human intellectual capacity and is available only to the prophet, and never the sage and philosopher have the ability to achieve this level.

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