Abdal Hakim Murad - The Cambridge Companion to Islamic Theology

182 Yahya Michot
beyond his ontological Fiat. Inspired mainly by Plato’s political philosophy,
Farabı, Avicenna and other classical Muslim philosophers and
theologians considered prophethood necessary as a means to establish a
just society. In contradistinction to this, the necessity of revelation, and
of a divine accompaniment throughout the history of mankind by means
of revealed scriptures, prior to sealing prophethood with Muh _
ammad, is
in Islam a dogma directly related to a proper understanding of the nature
of God Himself.
The Qur’an refers to different types of revelation or divine speech,
not all of which can be linked to prophethood. ‘‘And your Lord revealed
(awh _
a) to the bee: ‘Build your homes in the mountains’’’ (16:68); ‘‘And
We revealed (awh _
ayna) to the mother of Moses: ‘Suckle him!’’’ (28:7);
‘‘And when I revealed (awh _
aytu) to the Apostles: ‘Believe in Me and in
My messenger!’’’ (5:111); ‘‘On that Day, the Earth will tell her news: for
that your Lord will give her a revelation (awh _
a)’’ (99:5). Concerning such
processes in which God addresses the earth, animals or some humans
who are not prophets in order to give them instructions, Ibn Taymiyya
speaks of an ‘‘equivocal’’ (mushtarak) form of revelation which is its
lowest form. 2 This nevertheless demonstrates that God continues to
intervene in the world after its creation not just ontologically but with
His words, which are evidently not exclusively reserved for prophets.
This being so, it would be a mistake to expect the divine revelation
typically to be communicated directly to every human being, through
his or her reason, for example. Such a possibility was envisaged by the
famous philosopher and physician Abu Bakr al-Razı (d.925 or 935). As a
theist denouncing all historical prophets as impostors, he trusted human
reason to be the most appropriate vehicle for God’s ethical will. This
rationalisation and universal dilution of revelation was, however,
deemed as extreme as the simple negation of the phenomenon would
also have been, and Razı’s views were unanimously condemned. Preferring
once again to follow a via media, the orthodox doctrine thus
remained one of a revelation essentially passing through a finite number
of prophets or lawgiving messengers, elected by God so as to act as
intermediaries between Him and His servants. The modalities of this
process of prophetic revelation are alluded to in Qur’an 42:51: ‘‘Itisnot
granted to any human that God should speak to him except through
revelation or from behind a veil, or by sending a messenger to reveal,
with His permission, whatever He wills.’’
According to Ibn Taymiyya, the three ways God speaks to a man can
be understood in the following manner. First, inspiration (ilham) inthe
awakened state or during sleep: the true vision of a prophet is indeed a
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