The Place of Prophecy in Mulla Sadra’s Philosophy of Perception

For Mulla Sadra the station (maqam) and way-station (manzil) of every human being corresponds to the quality of his faculties of perception. In the final mashhad of ash-Shawahid ar-rububiyya, “On Prophethoods and Sainthoods”, he outlines four way-stations of man which correspond to four levels of perception. In the first three levels, man perceives only through the faculties of sense, imagination (khayal) and estimation (wahm). Due to his lack of perception, he is like a worm, a dumb beast or, at best, an intelligent beast. Only in the fourth way-station is man truly human, for he is able to see beyond the perceptual forms offered by the faculties of perception. To reach beyond such forms, one must, however, perfect the corresponding faculties. The station in which these faculties have been perfected is referred to by Mulla Sadra as “the station of angels.” Those who have reached it have reached the limit of human perfection; they are the prophets and saints. For both prophets and saints the faculties of perception have been mended and therefore aid, rather than hinder, “seeing things as they are in themselves” through the intellect. Prophets and saints are able to witness archetypal realities without the intermediaries of study or reflection. Through intensity of hads (metaphysical intuition), the intellect is joined to the heavenly realm (malakut) such that intelligibles are perceived with speed and clarity. All stations and way-stations below this are thus defined by an inability to perceive which results from a paucity of hads. The path of spiritual perfection is thus the path of perfecting the faculties of perception until one is able to see beyond the perceptual forms of sense, imagination and estimation to the intelligibles perceived through the intellect. One who has attained to this, be he a saint or a prophet, perceives the intelligibles in the sensibles and orders the sensibles in accord with the intelligibles.