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The_Savior_from_Spiritual_Error_and_50_Principles, page : 111
namely, the miracles of the prophets,⁸ for the intellectuals cannot arrive at
these at all by any intellectual efforts.
The other properties of prophetic revelation are apprehended only by
immediate experience (Thawq) from the practice of the mystic way, but this
property of prophecy you can understand by analogy as the dream-state. If
the prophet possessed a faculty to which you had nothing comparable and
which you did not understand, how could you believe in it? Believing
presumes understanding. That comparable experience comes to a man in
the early stages of the mystic way. Thereby he attains a kind of immediate
experience, extending as far as that to which he has attained, and by analogy
to a kind of belief or assent into that which he has not attained. Thus, this
single property is a sufficient basis for one‟s faith in the principle of prophecy.
If you come to doubt whether a specific person is a prophet or not,
8[10] This is a little obscure; al-Ghazali appears to regard certain miraculous signs as belonging
to the spheres of medicine and astronomy; perhaps he was thinking of this when he spoke of
events occurring once
these at all by any intellectual efforts.
The other properties of prophetic revelation are apprehended only by
immediate experience (Thawq) from the practice of the mystic way, but this
property of prophecy you can understand by analogy as the dream-state. If
the prophet possessed a faculty to which you had nothing comparable and
which you did not understand, how could you believe in it? Believing
presumes understanding. That comparable experience comes to a man in
the early stages of the mystic way. Thereby he attains a kind of immediate
experience, extending as far as that to which he has attained, and by analogy
to a kind of belief or assent into that which he has not attained. Thus, this
single property is a sufficient basis for one‟s faith in the principle of prophecy.
If you come to doubt whether a specific person is a prophet or not,
8[10] This is a little obscure; al-Ghazali appears to regard certain miraculous signs as belonging
to the spheres of medicine and astronomy; perhaps he was thinking of this when he spoke of
events occurring once