Introduction: On the First Existential Question

The human being is distinguished from the rest of existents by his possession of a self-awareness that transcends the purely biological dimension; he is a “questioning” creature laboring under a perpetual epistemic anxiety, driven irresistibly to search for decisive answers to three great questions that determine the reality of his existence: From where? In what? And to where? (the origin, the purpose, and the destiny).

The attempt to answer these questions led humanity throughout history to formulate diverse courses, yet pure demonstrative reason, upon tracing its rigorous premises, reveals the inevitability of the existence of an epistemic line and a channel of communication that begins with the Creator and descends to the creature. This existential line is what we call “prophethood and the message,” as the necessary intermediary for realizing the purpose of creation, and for bringing the human being out of the confines of his bewilderment and natural deficiency into the horizon of complete guidance.

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1. The Demonstration of the Necessity of the Message (the Human Being’s Need and Divine Grace)

Reason proceeds, in establishing the necessity of the message and the sending, from a logical judgment that links “the wisdom of the Maker” with “the deficiency of the creature,” and it manifests in two principal courses:

1. The Proof of Wisdom and Purpose (the Negation of Futility)

• The first premise: it is established by philosophical proof that Allah, glorified and exalted, is absolutely wise, and futility does not issue from the Wise; every one of His acts necessarily entails a purpose and an aim.

• The second premise: the purpose of the creation of the human being is the attainment of his epistemic and moral perfection, and the winning of eternal felicity resting on the knowledge of the True Creator and His worship.

• The third premise: the human intellect, though it grasps the universals of matters (such as the goodness of justice and the ugliness of injustice), is deficient and incapable, by itself, of knowing the details of the path leading to perfection, and of piercing the wall of death to know the unseen matters, the destiny, and the manner of drawing near to Allah.

• The conclusion: were Allah to leave humans without direction, the attainment of the purpose for which they were created would be impossible for them, and this would be a contradiction of the Creator’s objective, leading to the futility of creation, which is impossible for the Wise. Therefore, reason requires the existence of a divine message that clarifies the features of the path.

2. The Proof of “the Unity of the Source” and the Repelling of the Chaos of Man-Made Religions

The existential truth is one and does not multiply; the universe is built upon a unified, firm design system. And since “the purpose of creation” follows the will of the Maker, not that of the made thing, the only party qualified to clarify this purpose is the Creator Himself.

Were the matter left to humans to formulate their rituals and theories about the purpose of existence, every individual would legislate according to his caprice, delusions, and narcissism, leading to a lethal relativism and an overwhelming epistemic chaos in which God turns into an idea manufactured to the measure of the human mood. Therefore, divine wisdom required the existence of a single, official, decisive source that represents the speech of the Creator directly, by which the bewilderment of minds is cut off and by which the direction is unified.

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2. Prophethood in the Balance of Philosophy

Prophethood and the message were not a mere transmitted theological idea; they were the axis of study for the great philosophers of history, who analyzed their nature as a bridge between the world of the unseen and the world of the witnessed.

1. The Greek Philosophers

Despite their not being contemporaries of an Abrahamic monotheistic message in the precise sense, the leading figures of Greek philosophy investigated deeply the mechanism of receiving the higher wisdom and the existential intermediation for the guidance of humanity.

Plato (c. 427–347 BCE)

Plato holds, in the dialogues “The Republic” and “The Laws,” that the wise man or the inspired lawgiver is the person able to break free from “the cave of matter” and to ascend with his spirituality and intellect to the world of the Forms — that is, the world of the eternal absolute realities — and then to return to be an intermediary of guidance and organization for the virtuous city.

In the dialogue “Timaeus,” he advances the idea that the recipient of divine inspiration passes through a state of “election and spiritual annihilation” that enables him to be, as it were, a “translator” (Hermeneus) of the will of heaven and to bring it down into laws that protect people and reform their souls.

Plotinus (c. 204–270 CE) and Neoplatonism

Plotinus founded the theory of “cosmic emanation,” in which he holds that existence springs and flows from “the One” gradually through the universal intellects and souls. In this school, the prophets and the great sages are viewed as the rare, prepared human souls that possess a “spiritual magnet” piercing the veils of dark matter to receive the luminous emanation directly from the universal intellect, and then rebroadcasting this light in the form of teachings and guidance for ordinary humans veiled by the density of matter.

2. The Western Philosophers

In the modern and contemporary era, the philosophers of the West investigated prophethood as a historical and moral instrument for linking the Absolute (God) to the relative (the human being).

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716 CE)

Leibniz holds that God deposited in the human intellect moral and innate truths, but that raging emotions and material desires blind the minds of the masses to them. Here the function of prophethood and the message emerges, for Leibniz, as a “historical accelerator and awakener”; the prophet is the intermediary who presents guidance and rational alerting in a clear and concise mold, thereby sparing humanity the thousands of years it would otherwise have spent in empirical floundering to arrive at the basic moral laws.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814 CE)

Fichte studied the phenomenon of prophethood from the angle of “spiritual genius,” and regarded the prophet as a central figure possessing an absolute and exceptional sensitivity toward “the divine and moral will.” The prophet, for him, is not a mere epistemic conveyor; he is a driving energy and an existential intermediary who annihilates himself and whose consciousness detaches completely from narrow personal interests, so as to become a living embodiment of the highest moral law, capable of shocking societies and bringing them out of their animal state into spiritual ascent.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834 CE)

Coleridge and the philosophers of the spiritual school distinguished between two ranks of consciousness: “the narrow logical Understanding” shared among humans, and “the comprehensive universal Reason,” which is the penetrating insight. Coleridge holds that the prophet is the loftiest intermediary of guidance because he enjoys this “universal Reason” at the peak of its purity, which renders him able to see the unity latent behind nature and to connect with the Creator, then to formulate this comprehensive vision in the form of teachings and stories suited to the perception of ordinary humans.

3. The Muslim Philosophers

The Muslim philosophers elevated the theory of prophethood to the summit of demonstrative maturity, interpreting it philosophically through the structure of metaphysics and the ontology of existence.

It must be noted here first that “the intellect” (al-aql) in their philosophical usage does not mean the common colloquial meaning — that is, mere thinking, mental calculations, or everyday human intelligence — but the intellect, for them, is “an immaterial substance and an existential light subsisting by itself, transcending matter, and representing a source of the universal and existential truths.”

al-Farabi (260–339 AH / 872–950 CE)

al-Farabi is regarded as the one who laid the cornerstone of the philosophical theory of prophethood; he holds that the prophet is “the head of the virtuous city” by existential entitlement. The prophet connects with the “Active Intellect,” the luminous spiritual substance that is the intermediary between the world of the separate intelligibles and the world of the earth, through two faculties: his intellective faculty, which reaches the rank of the “acquired intellect,” the highest degree of intellectual abstraction where the soul becomes a polished mirror uniting with the higher truths; and his extraordinary imaginative faculty, which imitates the abstract meanings in visual and auditory forms. Thereby the prophet is the existential channel that translates the truths of the unseen into a guiding Sharia for all.

Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (370–428 AH / 980–1037 CE)

Ibn Sina deepened this proposition, demonstrating the inevitability of prophethood socially and existentially. The human being cannot live without civil association, and association needs a law (Sharia), and the law needs a lawgiver (legislator). This legislator must be distinguished from other humans by “the holy intellect,” which is not ordinary intelligence, but a supreme existential faculty and a divine light effused upon the soul, which grants the prophet “the intuition of the universal truths” and the attainment of epistemic conclusions all at once, in the blink of an eye, without need for human learning or the arrangement of temporal logical syllogisms — so that the effusion of guidance descends from Allah through the intellect of the prophet to humanity.

al-Suhrawardi (549–587 AH / 1154–1191 CE) (Founder of the Philosophy of Illumination)

Shaykh Shihab al-Din al-Suhrawardi holds that prophethood is the peak of “deiformity and luminous illumination.” The intellect, for him, is an immaterial light, and the prophet is the person whose soul was cleansed of the dusk of matter and its darknesses, so that the lights of the “dominating lights” and the world of the dominion (malakut) shone in his heart. The prophet, for him, is the deiform sage who combines rigorous rational demonstration with direct illuminative witnessing, so as to be the intermediary of light that dispels the darknesses of ignorance in the world of creation.

Ibn Arabi (560–638 AH / 1165–1240 CE) (Founder of the School of Philosophical Gnosis)

The Greatest Shaykh is regarded as the true founder of the concept of “the the Perfect Human” in its philosophical and existential inner sense. The perfect human, for him, is not merely a person “righteous or morally refined” in the near sense; he is “the all-comprehensive cosmos and the abridged copy of the whole of existence”; he is the only being who deserved to be a mirror in which “all the divine names and attributes” are manifested. Prophethood and the message, for Ibn Arabi, are the manifestation of this determination; the prophet is the perfect human who represents the isthmus (barzakh) and the absolute intermediary between the Real (the Creator) and creation (the created things), and were it not for him the system of emanation and guidance in this world would not be upright.

Mulla Sadra (979–1050 AH / 1571–1640 CE)

In the school of “the Transcendent Philosophy” (al-hikma al-muta’aliya), Mulla Sadra fused these visions, demonstrating that the prophet is “the perfect human” who traversed the stages of the existential journey and wayfaring through “the four intellectual journeys.” After journeying with the truths from creation to the Real, he returns in his final journey from the Real to creation by the Real, reciting the revelation and the legislation. The prophet, for him, represents the peak of the existential development and intensification of humans, where his intellect and soul unite with the higher world in a real union, so that his inner becomes an immaterial dominion and his outer a material human, and his acts and legislations become a direct extension of the divine effusion and its guidance for the perfection of the deficient human souls.

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3. The Reality of the Existential Distinction of the Messenger (Dismantling the Delusion of the “Postman”)

A methodical and conceptual note: it should be pointed out precisely, before entering into the details of this section, that the philosophical and demonstrative analysis here does not revolve around the person of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his family) in particular, nor is it confined to him as a personal historical event; rather the study is directed principally at “the office of prophethood and the station of the message” as an existential rank and a general channel of communication between the Creator and the creature.

This existential station of “the intermediary” is not a static or equal rank; the prophets and messengers all possessed the essential attributes and qualifications that define the office of prophethood, yet their existential ranks and stations are disparate according to the nature of philosophical gradation; it is a graded reality whose degrees differ in strength and intensity, in nearness and epistemic and existential perfection, from one prophet to another. And in this existential gradation, human perfection reached its towering summit and its most complete, absolute manifestations — above which there is no rank — in the person of the greatest and final Messenger (peace be upon him and his family), who was the highest instance and the most complete exemplar of this general station.

Among the common epistemic errors and superficial deviations into which some readings fall — errors that were not confined to the irreligious propositions alone, but that crept and befell even the awareness of many who proclaim their following of the Messenger, indeed of those who were his contemporaries, accompanied him in time and place, and lived with him — is the imagining that the Messenger is a wholly “ordinary person” from the existential and intellectual standpoint, whom Allah chose merely for an abstract moral attribute, namely that he “does not lie,” and that his task is confined to receiving the message and conveying it with a dry neutrality like a “postman” who carries a letter whose essence he does not comprehend and which does not affect the foundation of his being.

This deficient understanding is not the product of the modern age; it is an extension of an ancient historical deficiency; for the noble Quran is full and rests, in a large part of it, upon narrating the stories of the peoples who dealt with their prophets with this disdain and ignorance of the station, without any appreciation of their existential rank; so they were insolent toward them, outbidding them in understanding, knowledge, and pure life experience, regarding them as mere incidental humans who resembled them in the instruments of perception.

This epistemic confusion arises from the failure to distinguish between the “apparent humanity” of the prophet as a body governed by the laws of matter and moving in the orbit of daily life, and the “infallible existential reality” that qualifies him to be a steadfast isthmus between the absolute and the relative.

In dismantling this delusion, demonstrative reason judges that the role of the divine intermediary necessarily requires superior essential qualifications exceeding mere simple moral trustworthiness in its popular sense, and they manifest in three detailed dimensions:

1. The Existential and Bodily Distinction (Existential Guardianship)

The soul of the Messenger is not like the souls of the rest of humans, wholly governed by the natures of matter and its laws; rather it is a soul that reached, in luminous power and spiritual purity, a rank to which external matter submits and to whose will it yields.

To clarify and philosophically interpret this matter: Ibn Sina, and with him Mulla Sadra, hold that the ordinary human soul was made with a confined power and influence; it cannot manage, move, or affect anything but its own body (such as moving the hand or willing to walk). As for the soul of the Messenger, because of its existential intensification and its supreme purity, the scope of its influence transcends the limits of its own body to connect with the higher power, so that it becomes able to affect directly the matter of this vast universe and its elements by the permission of Allah.

This influential extension of the soul is the philosophical depth by which these two philosophers interpret the occurrence of miracles; they are not a mere display outside the system, but a direct effect of the sway of a complete higher soul that exceeded the limits of the power of ordinary humans, so that Allah gave it the ability to control the phenomena of matter and to subdue them, to be a certificate of authenticity indicating the truthfulness of the embassy and the guidance.

2. The Intellectual and Epistemic Distinction (the Holy Intellect and Instantaneous Intuition)

Ordinary humans acquire their knowledge through deficient instruments: the five senses, then the error-prone intellectual abstraction, and gradual learning (premises, then conclusions). As for the Messenger, he possesses an exceptional intellectual rank called philosophically “the holy intellect.”

This intellect is distinguished by immediate, instantaneous intuition; it needs neither a human teacher nor the arrangement of logical syllogisms extended over time. The consciousness of the Messenger connects with the unseen “Active Intellect,” so that the cosmic truths — universal and particular — are engraved upon it all at once, in the blink of an eye, with the highest degrees of certainty and epistemic clarity. It is an encompassing intellect, transcending time and place, built to be a source of knowledge, not a consumer of it.

3. The Psychic Distinction and the Superior Imagination (the Formulation of Formal Revelation)

The postman conveys a text he may not comprehend; the Messenger, however, is the greatest translator and comprehender. The greatest challenge in the message is: how do you convey the infinite abstract divine truths to finite human minds veiled by matter?

Here the psychic power and the extraordinary imagination of the Messenger emerge. He receives the revelation immaterially and abstractly in the rank of his intellect, then his superior, pure imagination — untainted by delusions or psychic inclinations — undertakes the “translation and conversion” of these lofty higher meanings into forms, sounds, parables, stories, and a miraculous eloquent language, such as the witnessing of the angel and the hearing of the address.

This eloquent and psychic capacity is the instrument of mass guidance; for were it not for this superior imagination of the Messenger, the sciences of the unseen would remain abstract and isolated, and the guidance and direction of the generality of creation would be impossible.

Summary of the outcome: the Messenger is “the perfect human” whom Allah chose because his existential structure — in intellect, soul, and constitution — is the only one qualified and prepared to bear the weight of the divine manifestation and the unseen address. He represents “the isthmus of isthmuses” and the indispensable existential bridge; so that guidance may descend from the world of divinity and the dominion, and be formulated in a human mold able to lead the human being toward his existential purpose.

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4. Why Must the Messenger Be a Human? (The Demonstration of Homogeneity and Exemplarity)

After establishing the necessity of the epistemic channel and the exceptional qualifications of the person of the Messenger, reason imposes the question of the external embodying mold of its bearer: why did the Creator choose a bearer of the message from the human species, in his outer form, and not make him an unseen being like an angel?

1. The Proof of Possibility and Emulation (Practical Exemplarity)

The purpose of the message is not the casting down of dry texts; it is their conversion into an applied model in the reality of the earth. Were the Messenger an angel who does not hunger, does not desire, does not tire, and does not fall ill, it would be incumbent upon humans to object, saying:

“You do this because you are a luminous angel, but we are humans governed by bodily desires and material points of weakness.”

The Messenger’s being a human in the mold of his daily life — he is patient, forgives, struggles against his instinct, and feels pain — proves practically and rationally that the divine method and its legislations are entirely applicable within the limits of human capacity, and thereby the excuse falls and the purpose of the sending is realized, which is exemplarity and emulation.

2. The Proof of Epistemic Communication (Congruence)

Reception and understanding require a homogeneity and congruence between the sender and the receiver. The pure luminous angelic nature exceeds the capacity of the sensory and nervous apparatus of ordinary humans, and seeing it in its reality causes a shock and a stunning astonishment that prevents awareness and comprehension.

For humans to be reassured, to listen, and to understand the address without terror or an astonishment that stuns the minds, the bearer of the message must, rationally, be congruent with them in species and outer form; he eats food and walks in the markets, while his inner remains connected to the dominion.

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5. Devotionally-Fixed Worship and the Inevitability of a Unified Law

Based on the foregoing, the aim of the Messenger and the message is the realization of the purpose of creation, which is the knowledge of Allah. And for this knowledge to be translated behaviorally and for perfection to be realized, worship is indispensable. Here a deep rational and gnostic rule emerges:

“None knows the path but he who has crossed and arrived, not he who stands at the beginnings.”

Humans, at the outset of their journey, are veiled by matter, ignorance, and the beginnings of sensory knowledge, whereas the Messenger is the one for whom Allah pierced the veils of matter by revelation, so he “crossed and arrived” and witnessed the reality of the existential system. And since worship is the proclamation of submission to the Worshipped, then were the human to invent it of his own accord, he would in reality be worshipping his caprice, his limited mental conceptions, and what he desires. Therefore, worship must be “devotionally fixed” in the manner and structure designed by the Maker, who knows the secrets of the soul and its welfare, and who informed His entrusted messenger of it.

And so that this epistemic and devotional “catalog” may remain crossing the generations and the centuries without being extinguished in the chaos of oral narrations or exposed to distortion with the passage of ordinary time, divine wisdom decreed that it be cast in the mold of a written law, unified, and fixed in its wording and meaning from Allah, to be a supreme, absolute constitution to which all submit and by which the direction is unified — which was embodied in the heavenly Books and the messages supported by inherent inimitability, to be the enduring and continuous certificate of authenticity for the truthfulness of the intermediary and the preservation of the instrument of guidance.

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Conclusion

Building on the foregoing, this comprehensive demonstrative and philosophical study concludes that prophethood and the message are not a mere religious option or a passing historical event; they are an absolute existential and epistemic necessity required by the wisdom of the Maker and made obligatory by the need of the creature.

The Messenger is not a mere mechanical conveyor or a “postman” chosen only for his moral truthfulness; he is “the perfect human” and the most complete intermediary in whom the highest ranks of the holy intellect and existential distinction met and were integrated by the effusion of divine revelation, so as to become the unique conveying channel that carries humanity from the darknesses of ignorance and the deficiency of the natural intellect to the lights of guidance and perfection.

For by the message the directions of minds are unified, by the humanity of the Messenger practical exemplarity is realized, and by the unified law of truth the chaos of caprices and man-made inclinations is repelled, so that, in the end, the true and lofty purpose of creation may be realized.