🔹 Hujjat al-Islam wal-Muslimin Dr. Mohammad-Mehdi Gorjian, Full Professor at Baqir al-Olum University, participated in the International Conference on “The Views and Thoughts of al-Farabi” in Istanbul. In his presentation titled “The Role of the Prophet’s Imaginative Faculty in the Communication of Revelation from the Perspective of al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and Mulla Sadra, and the Presentation of Their Theories to the Holy Qur’an,” he revisited one of the most fundamental links between reason and revelation.
🔹 The academic conference titled “The Views and Thoughts of al-Farabi” was held in Istanbul with the participation of professors from Baqir al-Olum University and a number of academic centers from Iran and Turkey. This scholarly gathering aimed to revisit the intellectual legacy of Abu Nasr al-Farabi and to elucidate his prominent position in Islamic philosophy. The event was warmly received by professors and researchers from both Iran and Turkey.
🔹 In his research, Dr. Gorjian demonstrated that the Prophet’s imaginative faculty is not merely a power of visualization, but rather the mediating link between sacred intellect and human understanding — a faculty through which the simple and transcendent truths of revelation are conveyed to people, without alteration, through the language of symbolism, representation, and analogy.
🔹 According to Dr. Gorjian, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, and Mulla Sadra concur that the descent of the intellectual concepts of revelation into perceptible forms—aimed at persuading and guiding humankind—takes place through this very imaginative faculty. The Holy Qur’an, by emphasizing the notions of parable (darb al-mathal) and representation (tamaththul), affirms this function, underscoring in verses such as “And such are the parables We set forth for mankind…” that the articulation of parables serves as a means to rationalize the truths of revelation at the level of human understanding.
🔹 Dr. Gorjian’s lecture established a new connection between Islamic philosophy and the Qur’anic text — a connection which, as he described, unites the realities of intellect and imagination in the service of understanding revelation. In this view, the Prophet is portrayed as the most imaginative being in the realm of intellect and the most representative in the realm of revelation.
