ABSTRACT
It is in the nature of rational thought and the whole process of reasoning to depend on a principle or source other than itself. For modern European philosophy this source has been for the most part the sense experience of everyday life or the sentiments and emotions related to the life of the senses. These elements the modern philosopher has sought to analyse and systematise with the aid of his rational faculties. The situation in traditional philosophy in general and Islamic philosophy in particular is far different because here the source outside reason upon which reason relies and whose content it seeks to analyse is either revelation or an experience of a spiritual order situated beyond the limited experiences of common everyday life. This spiritual experience, like revelation, stands above and ‘comprehends’ reason (in the original Latin sense of the verb comprehendere, which means to embrace or encompass) rather than being ‘comprehended’ by it. Revelation and realisation of a spiritual and intellectual character are in fact the principles of reason, while at the same time they provide reason with the ‘material’ which is then analysed and systematised in order to be discursively known.
