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Reason and spirit

Mohammad Khajavi

pp. 147-154

The debate if spirit and reason in Islamic philosophy is one of the most difficult ones which has not been researched yet. In this article it has been tried to consider the spirit and reason in two aspects: The first aspect is spirit and reason in the view point of the "World of Command" and the second aspect is spirit and reason in the "World of Nature": For describing each of them I refer to Quran verses, Islamic hadiths and the books of dignitaries of gnosticism and philosophy. In Islamic hadiths we have; The first thing that God created was reason. This existent is called "First Intellect" by Aristotelians, "Extending Existence" by mystics and "Mohammadan Reality" by mystic researchers. In quran it is called "Haqq". God stated: I created the skies and the Earth truthfully – be' haqq – Q.6/19. So first intellect is the greatest, closest and the most perfect creature, for this reason another group of mystics call it "the Absolute Being". In Islamic hadiths the prophet Mohammad stated: "The first thing that God created was My light or Mohammadan spirit", or the first thing was Reason. These are the descriptions of one thing, but in different considerations. Ebn e Arabi and Molla Sadra deliberated different aspects of this truth in their works and the result of their words is this: Reason belongs and connects to nothing except to its creator and in its essence there is no non-existence aspects, contingency and inaudibility because for the necessity of God Almighty it has been compensated, so it is called Divine Empire because it is full of light and beneficent and it has no intercourse with evil. God has two worlds: 1-The World of Command 2-The world of Creation. The World of Command is the world of abstractions (angels), and it has no intercourse with material at any time at all. The ultimate perfection of existents particularly the Divine human being is, ascending to the world of abstractions and to the world of command and to be united with the First Intellect. There have been several considerations in the First Intellect containing Supreme Spirit and Universal Intellect. Divine Knowledge consists of Universal Intellect because Universal Intellect is the truth of Divine absolute Knowledge that existents are inscribed in it since the beginningless eternity till the endless eternity that is the Knowledge to all of the existents. All of the heavenly books are issued from this Universal Intellect not from the First Intellect, for this reason it is called "Guarded Tablet" or "Archetypal Book". The former mystics knew the Universal Intellect in the stage of spirit, because they know both of them united. Of course this argument has a whole relation to the Universal Perfect Man who is the epitome of the Iward and Outward Divine Names. Allah-He- Hoo-has two aspects: His reality and inner state is Universal Intellect which identical the Highest Pen-Qalam Aala- and the Supreme Spirit and His inward is Visible World that is the Great Man. It should be stated that there are 5 kinds of spirits: Holy Spirit and Spirit of Faith, these two belong to the World of Command that the theosophists interpretated it as Active Intellect and three other spirits are: spirit of power, spirit of passion and the spirit of corpus (body). In Quran the spirit is interpretated as the Word and this spirit is called "related spirit" for the purpose of the relationships and its radiation on the molds (bodies). Although the formation of human spirit is along with the creation of body, it is not created from anything but it comes into being together with body not for the sake of body, but by God's command and from the World of Divine Command. Essentially ethereal spirit is a shadow of Divine Spirit and carries all the power existing in the body, and comes into existence by the ether of blood circulation in the body. When this ether becomes very fine it will be the locus of the related spirit.Q.15/29. As the human being's animal spirit moderates he will be intellectual and apprehensible, and soul in the world of Divine Command comes into existence from the angelic celestial supreme related spirit, such as Eve's coming into existence from Adam in the world of soul creation, although in the world of creation and sense Her coming into being is physical, but in the world of analogies. Her survival and spirituality is spiritual and she is from the world of Divine Command and since an interest and affection appears between these two, "Heart" comes into being in the world of command, and at this time Reason which is a light radiated from the related, celestial spirit to the Heart and it is the expressive tongue of the spirit and the guide of Heart comes into being towards the spirit.

Publication details

DOI: 10.1007/978-90-481-9612-8_10

Full citation:

Khajavi, M. (2011)., Reason and spirit, in A. Tymieniecka (ed.), Reason, spirit and the sacral in the new enlightenment, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 147-154.

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