Human Intellect

1. Man’s ability to think

God distinguished man from all the other animals by an ability to think.

Perception - that is, consciousness, on the part of the person who perceives, in his essence of things that are outside his essence - is something peculiar to living beings to the exclusion of all other beings and existent things.

Living beings may obtain consciousness of things that are outside their essence through the external senses which God has given them:

• hearing
• vision
• smell
• taste
• touch.

Man’s advantage over the other beings is that he can perceive things outside his essence through his ability to think, which is something beyond his senses.

• It is the result of (special) powers placed in the cavities of his brain.

With the help of these powers, man:

• takes the pictures of the sensibilia
• applies his mind to them
• abstracts from them other pictures.

The ability to think is:

• the occupation with pictures that are beyond sense perception
• the application of the mind to them for analysis and synthesis.

Af’idah or “hearts” is the plural of fu’dd.

• It is written in the Qur’an: “He gave you hearing and vision and hearts.”
• It means here the ability to think.

The ability to think has several degrees.

1. The first degree is man’s intellectual understanding of the things that exist in the outside world in a natural or arbitrary order. In this way, he may try to arrange them with the help of his own power.

This kind of thinking mostly consists of perceptions.

It is the discerning intellect, with the help of which man obtains the things that are useful for him and his livelihood, and repels the things that are harmful to him.

2. The the experimental intellect

The second degree is the ability to think which provides man with the ideas and the behavior needed in dealing with his fellow men and in leading them.

It mostly conveys apperceptions, which are obtained one by one through experience, until they have become really useful.

3. The speculative intellect

This is the ability to think that provides the knowledge, or hypothetical knowledge, of an object beyond sense perception.

It consists of both perceptions and apperceptions.

They:

• are arranged in a special order, following special conditions
• provide some other knowledge of the same kind, that is, either perceptive or apperceptive.

They are again combined with something else, and again provide some other knowledge.

The end of the process is to be provided with the perception of existence as it is, with its various genera, differences, reasons, and causes.

By thinking about these things, man achieves perfection in his reality and becomes pure intellect and perceptive soul.

This is the meaning of human reality.