Chapter Fifteen — On Prophethood and Messengership and What Follows Them of Revelation, Inspiration, the Veridical Dream, the Miracle, the Preternatural, and the Charism

It has already passed — and it is likewise granted — that individual human beings, in respect of the innate nature (al-fiṭra), fall into three classes. The first: the one balanced in constitution by innate nature; it was said earlier that these reach in the end the utmost perfection, each according to his degree. The second: the one deviant in constitution by innate nature; it has passed that these reach the utmost wretchedness, each according to his degree. The third: the one intermediate in that, together with what lies next to it toward the extremes; the state of these differs, as regards their falling upon the path of felicity or of wretchedness, according to their upbringing and according to the views that reach them from outside their own souls. It is possible, should a complete upbringing occur, that the people of this rank should join the people of the first rank in felicity, or follow closely behind them.

Then, it is established in metaphysics that the First Real, exalted is He, is perfect in providence and tenderness, unbounded therein; so every perfecting whose occurrence is possible, in respect of the return to God, exalted is He, is necessary. It is therefore necessary to guide those of humankind who are receptive to guidance, by directing them to the way that leads to Him, exalted is He, and by employing therein incitement, and the true promise and threat; for any way other than this lies outside of choice and is at odds with this acquired felicity. Moreover, those of the first class who are not of the high degree benefit from it too, in a manner resembling how the people of this [intermediate] rank benefit. Likewise the people of the second class benefit through their denial of it, so that they may be perfected in their wretchedness; for the perfecting of the essentially wretched through their denial, and of the essentially felicitous through their submission, is no less integral to the order [of things] than the perfecting of the intermediate. In sum, it is necessary that a guidance to the way should occur through a chosen ordering; but that this should be by way of the inward, from each person to himself — in other words, by the sending of the Angel to those subject to obligation themselves — entails an impossibility, since it has been posited, according to the exposition already passed, that those who are not of the first class do not reach this rank of seeing the Angel. It has been shown in metaphysics that between our world and the First Real, blessed and exalted, there are established intermediaries; and the sum of all this yields that this charge and guidance must, of necessity, descend upon the people of the first class among the friends of God: if it is confined to his own noble soul he is called a prophet, and if it embraces both him and others he is likewise called a messenger.

Then, the knowings of the human being are theoretical and practical. The theoretical are the true views bearing on the First Originator — glorified be His name — and His names and attributes, and His beautiful acts, and the near angels (al-malāʾika al-muqarrabūn), and the order of creation at its origin and its return. The practical are the true views bearing on what is required of the soul's perfections in relation to realities — and these are the moral traits of the soul. There are also bodily perfections, general and particular, by which the perfections particular to the soul are safeguarded, so that it may live therewith the requisite life in this lower world — specific perfections from the domains of appetite and anger. These are the perfections bearing on the soul from the body alone; from it together with a limited group, who are the household; and together with all people, who are the folk of the quarter, the town, the kingdom, the region, and the world. There are also acts by which these beautiful settled dispositions are attained and safeguarded; without them these would not become fixed, in view of what passed earlier — that a settled disposition does not endure when acts unsuited to it occur. So it is shown that the views [descending] upon the messenger — which are named the sacred law (al-sharīʿa) — must comprise all of that. Thus there are set forth in it the views whose acceptance is obligatory concerning God — mighty and majestic — His names and attributes, and the ordering of His creation at the origin and the return. Then there are set forth the true views concerning the soul's moral traits, its virtues and its vices. Then there are set forth the laws that delimit household and civic association, distinguishing the permitted from the forbidden, in a manner suited to the true knowings — for perfection here is intended for the sake of the other, and so is measured to its measure. Then there are set forth the acts bearing on the safeguarding of the knowings, which are named the acts of worship, comprising the kinds of submission and humility, and the practice of reverence toward Him, exalted is He, and what attaches to them of personal deeds. These are what the sacred law comprises; the rest — the sciences, the crafts, and states outside of it — [it does not include], except when a soundness or a corruption is bound up with them, such as the need for some medicine, some geometry, and the other trades and crafts. So it has become clear, from all that has passed, that it is necessary that there be a messenger in the world, and that it is necessary that there descend upon him a sacred law comprehensive of the laws of both knowledge and action together.

Then we say: this matter varies in strength and weakness according to the difference of people, with the passage of time, in their readiness to receive the sciences and the perfections — as its exposition has passed. It is therefore necessary that the sacred laws differ according to the times, and that the later religion be abrogating of, and completing, the earlier.

Then we say: since the human being is, by innate nature, changeable in his views and mind-dependent constructs — as we alluded to before and established in the book of *al-Iʿtibārāt* — it is necessary that the sacred law be, in every age, preserved with some of the people: those able to resist change, that is, whose soul is infallible, kept in connection with the higher principles and worlds. And he is the one named the Imām, who preserves the sacred law, practices it, and calls to its practice as far as possible, like the messenger. This is so, given that truth is in every age vanquished, while what is foremost in the innate nature and entrenched in the soul is the following of caprice, the love of this world, the displaying of falsehood in the form of truth, and other such clashes and rivalries. So it has become clear from this that the existence of some imamate (al-imāma), like the messengership, is necessary, and that no age of the world is free of it — whether separately from the messengership, in which case it is admissible that messengership and imamate be joined together in one human being, or that they be separate, that is, that there exist an Imām without a messenger present.

Then we say: since, for everyone, truth is not distinguished from falsehood, nor veracity from mendacity, save by demonstration (al-burhān) alone — for demonstration, that is, the decisive proof, is not attained by the common people, nor indeed by the elite either; and even were they to attain it, their souls would not come to rest, on account of hidden, subtly derived misgivings — there is then required in the messenger the power to display a matter outside the ordinary course (khāriq al-ʿāda), whereby it is inferred that his soul is connected to and nursed by the higher world, at the challenge; and this is what is named a miracle (muʿjiza). It is necessary that he not be overcome in it, in accordance with the providence, at the challenge. Moreover, it has passed that all the kinds of disposal in this world may issue from the perfect friends of God; and it is also necessary that the universals of what he claims accord with plain reason. All this is manifest and evident from the foregoing principles.

Then we say: you have come to know that the prophets are the perfect friends of God by innate nature, and that what descends upon them from the side of the First Real, exalted is He — asleep and awake — is of three kinds: (1) universal luminous matters; (2) particular luminous matters; (3) particular sensory matters. And the first is the inward of the second, and the second is the inward of the third. So the sacred law descends upon them as universal knowings, either from God, exalted is He, without intermediary, or by the intermediacy of one of the immaterial lights — the near angels (al-malāʾika al-muqarrabūn) in their original forms. Or it descends as particular luminous knowings, by the intermediacy of the imaginal souls — the embodied angels — who cast the knowings to them, in particular form, by audible speech or in some other manner. As for the particular sensory knowings, their state therein is close to the state of the rest of people: they receive what is cast to them by way of what they are able to understand of parables and similitudes — for that is the path in the descent of universals to the particular. And this has passed by way of exposition.

Then we say: these received knowings may differ in the manner of their reception according to the difference of the prophet's states. Some of them are received in sleep; some are received in waking. Some are such that their cause is witnessed, like what is received from the First Real, exalted is He, without intermediary, or with an intermediary together with the witnessing of it — that is, the seeing of the instructing Angel — or otherwise; and this kind is sometimes named revelation (waḥy). And some are such that their cause is unknown, being merely cast into the soul; and this is sometimes named inspiration (ilhām). Of this latter kind is the call of the caller, though it is not called inspiration.