The problem of revelation in the philosophy of Eastern Peripatetism and its comparison with mind

RESEARCH ARTICLE The problem of revelation in the philosophy of Eastern Peripatetism and its comparison with mind J Rahil Najafov Doctor (PhD) Journal of “Science, Education and Innovations in the context of modern problems” Baku, Azerbaijan Email: , , orcid id: 0000-0003-2460-6333 Doi Serial                   Keywords Revelation , religion of Islam, moral maturity , Eastern Peripateticism

Revelation is the primary condition, which is the basis of any heavenly religion. In the 7th century, the Islamic religion, and in its person the divine revelation, drew under its influence not only the region to which it belonged - the Arabian Peninsula, but also neighboring states, and became the dominant religion in the lands of a huge empire called the Caliphate. This new religion carried with it educational, ethical and fraternal ideas. The dogmas of the Islamic religion did not stop at changing the lifestyle of the adherents of the religion who believed in it, but also managed to revolutionize their thinking and reasoning. Islamic religion, in each of its verses, agitating for reading in this way gave a kind of greater assessment of science and enlightenment. The result of this was that the scholars of the Islamic region left behind a rich cultural heritage that would benefit the peoples of the world.

Thanks to encouragement of science during In a short time, the peoples of the Islamic region began to experience great development in the cultural and educational sphere. Valuable sources, manuscript samples, and original works were brought and translated from four corners of the world to Mecca, Medina, Baghdad, Basra, and other cities considered the central cities of the Caliphate. This was in fact a general cultural development, a civilization of peoples. In the Caliphate, which had vast borders, a work written in one end of the country was quickly criticized in the other. Muslims who were able to achieve a great leap in all areas, including the scientific sphere, as a result of acquiring the philosophical works of the Greco-Roman and Greek peoples, translated into the Syrian language and their translation into Arabic, very soon became acquainted with the philosophical world. Familiarity with philosophical themes and the spirit of independence and sovereignty recognized by the peoples in the sphere of enlightenment spread so widely that Muslims even began to give philosophical interpretation to their sacred religious books . From the Eastern Peripatetic led by Al-Kindi and Farabi, Ibn Sina, Bahmanyar, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Misgaveh, Ibn Khaldun and others were philosophers, who first raised this question at the problem level and, having expressed their attitude to it, conducted research work devoted to this issue. Eastern Peripatetics tried to find similarities between the essence of religion and philosophy, made efforts to harmonize them. Along with this, they gave a philosophical interpretation of revelation, including the verses of the Koran, explained the dogmas of the Sharia on the basis of philosophical principles. They emphasized that religious prayers, inspired by both the Koran and the heavenly books preceding it, have a symbolic essence, and in fact they instill religious feelings and faith in God.

Discussion

Of the philosophers of the Islamic cultural region, Farabi was the first to compare revelation and reason, and in this comparison he especially emphasized the primacy of reason. The philosopher clearly noted that both the prophet and the philosopher receive knowledge from the same source. The philosopher wrote: “Religious truth and philosophical truth are the same things and both are nourished by divine light through thinking and imagination . ” If after Farabi, his followers attributed revelation specifically to the prophet, Farabi’s philosophy asserted the presence of both thinking and imagination in the source of knowledge of truth seekers in the same proportion. The philosopher, thanks to his work and skill, and the prophet, thanks to his advanced education and, in addition, the choice on the part of God, reunites with this source of knowledge . That is, he considered the formulation of the Divine will to be one of the important factors in the development of a person as a prophet . According to Farabi, the mission of both the philosopher and the prophet is to convey faith in God to the people. However, according to the philosopher, the method and manner of conveying the prophet and philosopher to the people are fundamentally different from each other. Farabi explains the difference in the knowledge of the philosopher and the prophet as follows: “If the thoughts of the philosopher are scattered, then the knowledge of the prophet is whole and decisive.”

Ibn Sina, who was a follower of Farabi and remained faithful to his philosophical principles, clarified the essence of both philosophizing and prophecy, emphasizing the difference in their essence from each other. The philosopher, noting that prophecy is based on three principles - clarity and sharpness of mind, high development of the power of imagination and knowledge of the nature of matter and the ability to control it, in this way actually laid the foundation for a new theory in the philosophy of Eastern Peripateticism - prophecy, i.e. the theory of "nubuwat" . Ibn Sina writes: "The mind of the prophet is a sacred mind and, unlike the philosopher, not needing anything, "receives" revelation from an active mind. This knowledge received is complete and significant, and while the prophet, unlike the philosopher, receives knowledge in a shorter time and in large quantities, the philosopher can receive, can even receive in detail, in a scattered form, after completing a long period of preparation! ... His receipt is not convincing in the absolute sense.”

Philosopher, celebrated by heavenlydesires, has in mind the concept of "angel" known to us from religion. However, one issue needs to be clarified here. The philosopher identifies revelation with the knowledge acquired by the prophet through his work and «emphasizes" that he received it from the active mind of the kind of heavenly destinies. Thus, he actually identifies the philosopher and the prophet equally. However, for the prophet to acquire revelation, it is necessary to go through the stages of intuition, the power of imagination and mental cognition.

Unlike his predecessors, Ibn Rushd, in reconciling the issue of revelation with mental principles, turned to rational methods, giving superiority to the mind, considered its explanation correct by subordinating it to the mind. According to the philosopher, religion and philosophy must be consistent because their goals and intentions are the same: “If there is a discrepancy between religion and philosophy on some issues, then religious issues must be interpreted.”

During the study it also became known that, in comparison with the theoretical views of the Eastern Peripatetics, the scholars of Kalam approached the issue from a different perspective. The scholars of Kalam, having subordinated revelation to the mind, emphasized the need, in contrast to the Peripatetics, to give precedence to revelation in matters that contradict the mind. The leader of the Kalam School, which opposed the Eastern Peripatetics from a critical position, Ghazzali, expressed his attitude towards them, openly admitted that he disagreed with them on a number of issues, and claimed that they were on the wrong position in the method of reconciliation.

Atheism and religion with philosophy.

Gazzali believed that the principles of revelation and philosophical thinking are completely contradictory and that attempting to reconcile them is an incorrect method. According to the scholar of Kalam, philosophers, as a result of using this incorrect method, should be considered to have left religion [154, 274] . In his opinion, it is impossible to find evidence of vision about b from the eternity of the world, neither from revelation, nor from the mind. Because, this is a very obvious question, that matter, in the absence of a force influencing it, has an unchangeable, irreversible nature. And the primary cause is Allah. Everything that is material is subject to creation, change, transformation. And for these influential factors, the presence of a volitional factor is important. For this reason, Allah is also a volitional factor.

The Eastern Peripatetics also responded to Ghazzali's critical thoughts, accusing him of forming a united front of scholars on Kalam against philosophy based only on religious logic. In this matter, Ibn Rushd was particularly active, in the work of Ghazzali «Self-Refutation of the Philosophers" (" تهافت” ٱلفلاسفة ), written in the style of criticism of philosophers, he responded with the work "Self-refutation of self-refutation". In this work, touching upon the issue of revelation, he harshly criticized the position of the Kalam scholars who wanted to use philosophical methods and principles to support revelation, and emphasized the importance of explaining and interpreting revelation by subordinating not the mind to revelation, but revelation to the mind.

It should be noted that the Eastern Peripatetics remained not only within the sphere of influence of the ideas of their Greek predecessors. Along with interpreting the categories and principles of Greek philosophy in the context of the Islamic religion, they also analyzed the principles of the Islamic religion based on revelation in a philosophical sense, and left behind a rich philosophical heritage that the East, as well as the West, can use. use for centuries. They gave new life to philosophy, enriched it with new words, new thoughts. They formed independent theories, new systems, made countless scientific discoveries and inventions. Thanks to the enlightening spirit of the Islamic religion, the scholars of the Islamic region studied and taught not only religious sciences, but also such world sciences as history, astronomy, logic, philosophy, chemistry, and mathematics . Madrasahs, scientific centers opened for this purpose in all parts of the Caliphate, served the training and education of thousands of people who were not Arabs. Among these madrasahs, it is necessary to note the Nizamiyye madrasah, which gave the Islamic world great thinkers and outstanding personalities. It is precisely as a result of such an enlightening step that the scholars who grew up in the Islamic cultural region, along with being philosophers, were also considered experts in natural sciences. Among them, the names of Ibn Sina, Biruni, Ibn Baja, Ibn Hawqal, Nas and reddin Tusi and dozens of such scholars and thinkers can be listed . Their works, even today, without losing their originality, are considered a valuable and irreplaceable heritage for us. But, unfortunately, their number is very small. Because the arbitrariness that began in the Caliphate and the history of the Mongol conquests forced us to close this brilliant page [127; 135].

As a result of acquaintance with the works of the philosophers of Eastern Peripateticism and their vision of revelation and a deep study ofthe topic, the following conclusions were made.

• 1.    According to the Eastern Peripatetics, revelation, inspiration and dreams, as esoteric knowledge, have an intuitive character and in their achievement there is a great role of imagination, and they are also directly connected with the evolutionary level of mental thinking. However, philosophers, even at the evolutionary level of mental thinking, considered the source of all three knowledge to be divine and in these matters insistently emphasized that the origin of personality, the divine will, are the decisive factors. From this it becomes clear that the Eastern Peripatetics, commenting on their philosophical views, tried to a significant extent to harmonize religion with philosophy. For example, if Ibn Sina explained the acceptance of revelation by the prophet, by his passage at the evolutionary stage of mental cognition by means of the transition of the levels of “mind in the form of force”, “mind in the form of action ”, “acquired mind” and finally, the acquisition of knowledge at the stage of “active mind”, in another place he gave a completely different interpretation of this issue. Let us pay attention to this sentence of Ibn Sina: “At the moment of receiving revelation, the mind of the prophet, under the compulsion of psychological pressure, transforms mental truths and terms into living imaginations and symbols” [119, 37]. As can be seen, the philosopher in this interpretation, bringing to the forefront the important role of the psychological factor, emphasized that the divine will is more important than the will and desire of the individual. However, the philosopher in his ideas and interpretations was inclined towards religious motives, and was unable to completely rid himself of their influence.

In the research work, the characteristic style of revelation and the methods and ways of its acceptance in society were clarified, and the corresponding conclusions were investigated and made . According to philosophers, the language and essence of revelation are closely interconnected with each other and complement each other. Of the Eastern Peripatetics, Farabi and Ibn Rushd, especially touching on this issue, emphasized the existence of a difference between the language and ways of expressing revelation and that for this reason there is a need for their “tavil”, that is, interpretation by philosophers.

One of the questions that arose during the study was the thought of the Eastern Peripatetics that the philosopher and the prophet had the same mission. The Eastern Peripatetics claimed that the prophet and the philosopher were trying to find the same truth, i.e. the idea of Allah and the primary being, and the difference between them lies in the ways and methods they chose, the prism of their attitude to the question. However, in contrast to this position, the mutakallims claimed that the prophets, unlike the philosophers, did not choose this path themselves, but were the chosen ones. Starting with Al Kindi, all the eastern peripatetics, one might say, to one degree or another took the initiative to reconcile religion with philosophy. Of these philosophers, Al-Kindi, Farabi, Ibn Sina and Ibn Khaldun, insisting on this issue, emphasized that reconciliation is the most correct method of approach in relation to revelation for philosophers . For example, according to al-Kindi, approaching from the same prism, a philosopher, looking at questions in a philosophical aspect and analyzing them, should not show commitment to neither religion nor philosophy . He writes: “The correct word of the Prophet Muhammad and everything that he brought from God can be questioned by the dimensions of the mind and thought over, these dimensions can only be refuted by ignorant people who deny the mind and defend illiteracy .” [86, 287]. According to the philosopher, philosophy, which encompasses material and moral values, cannot be looked upon with a bad eye. The philosopher, addressing those who expect only empirical knowledge from philosophy, treat it as a theoretical expression of practical knowledge, says: “Both religion and philosophy are sciences of truth” [98, 15] or “Both prophets and philosophers are travelers on the path of truth. And the absolute truth is Allah. If the goals are the same, the means used to achieve the goal may be different and this must be accepted normally. ” [100, 79].

Conclusion

As can be seen, the Eastern Peripatetics did not oppose religion and philosophy to each other, did not study their contradictory properties, on the contrary, they tried to reconcile them, even called them “the science of truths” and accepted them in unity.

The case of revelation and its nature is a moral practice, directly related to the personality of man. The sending of revelation is directly related to the existing way of life of society, political, economic, social and other spheres. For this reason, revelation, sent down in some period of time, sets itself the goal of changing the existing structure of society . According to the position, occupied by the Eastern Peripatetics in this matter, it is precisely this factor that constitutes the purpose of revelation. The prophet, in the fulfillment of this purpose, acts only as an intermediary. If revelation were entirely the product of the personal thinking or imagination of the prophet, then he would not be able to produce fundamental changes in the social, economic, political, in a word, all spheres of society. According to the Eastern Peripatetics, the general character of revelation is capable of changing not only the way of knowledge of the one to whom it was sent from above and enrich the base of his knowledge, information, but also influence the wrong way of life of the people, thinking and abilities, traditions, management system, ethical standards and direct them in other directions .