An Inquiry into Farabi's View about Prophethood

The question raised in the present research is: what concepts does Farabi use in his exposition of the idea of prophethood? Not all disciplines can give an explanation for the relationship between the terrestrial world and celestial world and explain how they are related with one another. The intellectual faculty is unable to understand it. Revelation and prophethood, being the only source of relation between the earth and heaven, are regarded as theological subjects. Farabi uses a philosophical and intellectual approach for expounding it. He explains prophethood by relying on Aristotelian psychology and considering two faculties of the soul, i.e. reason and fancy. Simple and valuable ideas about this kind of relation are detected in Farabi's philosophy. In this regard, he has tried to resolve the problem about the relationship between the philosopher and prophet. According to him, soul has a single inseparable reality; it has hierarchical degrees and faculties which put the body in motion. Therefore, reason and fancy have one single system called "soul". This means that the philosopher and prophet are one person with two particular characteristics. The research’s main finding is the scrutiny of Farabi's answer to the question about the kind of relation that exists between the soul and the celestial world (Holy Spirit).