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Maimonides’ Conception of Prophecy in his Concluding Chapters of THE GUIDE OF THE PERPLEXED (III: 50-54) vis-à-vis al-Ghazālī’s in THE NICHE FOR LIGHTS

Mon, December 17, 8:30 to 10:00am, Seaport Hotel & World Trade Center, Backbay 1 Complex

Abstract

This paper presents a comparative study between two approaches to the concept of prophecy taken by Maimonides (d. 1204) and al-Ghazali (d. 1111) in their later writings. While the two prolific thinkers each provides several (sometimes seemingly paradoxical) definitions of the prophetic phenomenon in the course of his intellectual career, I argue that their final stances regarding the notion of prophecy share a common mystical basis in the light of an individual’s spiritual perfection. Maimonides, in last chapters of his magnum opus THE GUIDE OF THE PERPLEXED, brings forth what can be arguably described as his mature intellectual or (even skeptical) stance on the issue. His appropriation of the “ruler-in-his-palace” metaphor bears similarities with what al-Ghazālī depicts in THE NICHE OF LIGHTS as the ultimate station of the wayfarer in his spiritual journey towards the One. In both instances, this crowning stature is said to be occupied by the prophets and hence bear witness to what I call the “mystical” prophecy which takes the individual beyond borders of intellectual perfection.

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