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SpiritualRoadmapbyGhazali, page : 101
Allah Most High however, has favored His creatures by giving them something
akin to the special faculty of prophecy, namely dreams. In the dream-state a man
apprehends what is to be in the future, which is something of the unseen; he
does so either explicitly or else clothed in a symbolic form whose interpretation is
disclosed.
Suppose a man has not experienced this himself, and suppose that he is told
how some people fall into a dead faint, in which hearing, sight, and the other
senses no longer function, and in this condition perceive the unseen. He would
deny that this is so and demonstrate its impossibility. „The sensible powers‟, he
would say, „are the causes of perception or apprehension; if a man does not
perceive things like the unseen when these powers are actively present, much
less will he do so when the senses are not functioning‟. This is a form of analogy
which is shown to be false by what actually occurs and is observed. Just as
intellect is one of the stages of human development in which there is an `eye‟
which sees the various types of intelligible objects, which are beyond the ken of
the senses, so prophecy also is the description of a stage in which there is an
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akin to the special faculty of prophecy, namely dreams. In the dream-state a man
apprehends what is to be in the future, which is something of the unseen; he
does so either explicitly or else clothed in a symbolic form whose interpretation is
disclosed.
Suppose a man has not experienced this himself, and suppose that he is told
how some people fall into a dead faint, in which hearing, sight, and the other
senses no longer function, and in this condition perceive the unseen. He would
deny that this is so and demonstrate its impossibility. „The sensible powers‟, he
would say, „are the causes of perception or apprehension; if a man does not
perceive things like the unseen when these powers are actively present, much
less will he do so when the senses are not functioning‟. This is a form of analogy
which is shown to be false by what actually occurs and is observed. Just as
intellect is one of the stages of human development in which there is an `eye‟
which sees the various types of intelligible objects, which are beyond the ken of
the senses, so prophecy also is the description of a stage in which there is an
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