Nazariyyat al-Nubuwwah 'inda al-Farabiy (Prophecy Theory in Farabi's Perspective)

Abstract

After the spread of Islam in a wide area, and the concept of monotheism had been known by most people, another teaching emerged. The teaching was against the principles of monotheism. The teaching that emerged in the second century of Hijra, called for polytheism and was influenced by Hinduistic teaching especially that of reincarnation. One of its teaching was refusal of revelation and prophecy. Since then, the debate on this issue emerged between its supporters and its opponents. At this condition al-Farabi came and try to combine between religion and philosophy. Al-Farabi's concept on prophecy was much influenced by Aristoteles concept of dream. Even though, Al-Farabi raised a different thought from that of Aristoteles. According to Aristoteles, dream can not be part of revelation While al-Farabi saw that human being with his or her imagination could relate to the "heaven", and could uncover the concealed curtain. Furthermore, he saw that a dream could explain prophecy as well as revelation in the far limit. He also saw that prophet had a divine power as result of the revelation he received. From his point of view, it may be concluded that Al-Farabi put himself in the middle position, between reason and revelation and between philosophy and religion.