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The_Savior_from_Spiritual_Error, page : 110
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
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
of prophecy.
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
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
of prophecy.