This term is used extensively by Shaykh al-Ishrāq...

This term is used extensively by Shaykh al-Ishrāq, and in various books of his he uses ‘intellectual i‘tibārī’ with this meaning. Another sense of i‘tibārī is specified for legal and ethical concepts, which in the language of recent scholars are called ‘value concepts’. In a third sense, only concepts which have no external or mental instances and which are constructed with the help of the faculty of imagination are called i‘tibārī , such as the concept of a ghoul.

These concepts are also called ‘fantastic’. I‘tibārī also has another sense to be contrasted with fundamentality ( aṣālat ) which is employed in discussions of the fundamentality of existence ( aṣālat wujūd ) or fundamentality of whatness ( aṣālat māhuwiyāt ), and which will be mentioned in its proper place. Here it is appropriate to explain i‘tibārī in the sense of value, although detailed discussion of the subject must be sought in the philosophy of ethics or the philosophy of law.