ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Revelation and Prophethood Miracles of the Final Prophet Furthermore, the view expressed by Dr Iqbal that revelation is a sort of instinct, is also wrong. This view has led him to make several other mistakes. As Dr Iqbal himself is fully conscious, of the fact, an instinct is a purely innate, unacquired and unconscious propensity.

It is a faculty lower than senses and intellect with which the primitive animals such as insects and other animals of a class lower than that of insects have been provided according to the law of creation. With the development of other means of guidance such as senses and intellect, instinct is weakened and becomes dormant. That is why man, who among the animals enjoys the highest degree of thinking power, has the weakest instinctive power.

In contrast, revelation is a means of guidance which ranks higher than senses and intellect and to a great extent is something which is acquired. Above all, it is the highest degree of consciousness, and the field in which it makes discoveries is far vaster than the field in which experimental intellect can work.

In a previous section of this book, while discussing the question of ideology, we have proved that in view of the variety of the individual and social capabilities of man, complexity of his social relations and the dubiousness of the end of his evolutionary journey, the ideologies propounded by the philosophers and sociologists are misleading and bewildering. There is only one way open to man to have a sound ideology and that is the way of revelation.

If we do not accept the way of revelation, we shall have to admit that man is unable to have an ideology at all. The modern thinkers believe that the future line of the development of mankind can be determined through human ideologies only stage by stage. In other words, at every stage only the next stage can be determined, and that too according to the belief of these gentlemen. As for the subsequent stages and whether there exists any final stage at all, nothing is known.

The fate of such ideologies is evident. We wish that Dr Iqbal, who more or less studied the works of the Muslim Gnostics and was especially devoted to the Mathnavi of Rumi, could have gone deeper into these works and found a better explanation of the finality of Prophethood.