—and one wording states—“When God created the intellect He said to it….”

The meaning of this report is that He addressed the intellect at the very moment He brought it into existence; it does not mean that it was the first of all created things. The word “first” (awwal) functions adverbially, just as in the alternative narration that begins, “When (lamma).” The ḥadith continues: “I have not created any creature dearer to Me than you.” This shows that it was created before other beings. Then He said: “Through you I take, through you I give; for you is reward, and upon you is punishment.” Thus four kinds of attributes are mentioned, while they maintain that every substance in the upper and lower realms has issued from that intellect. How remote one claim is from the other!

Their mistake arises because the word “intellect” in the language of the Muslims is not the same as “intellect” in the language of the Greeks. In Muslim usage, ʿaql is a verbal noun derived from ʿaqala–yaʿqilu (“to understand”), as in the Qur’an: “They will say, ‘Had we but listened or used our reason, we would not be among the companions of the Blaze.’” (Q 67:10); “Indeed, in that are signs for people who reason.” (Q 13:4); and “Have they not traveled through the land so that they may have hearts with which to reason, or ears with which to hear?” (Q 22:46). Here, “intellect” refers to the innate faculty God has placed in the human being by which he apprehends.

As for those philosophers, their Intellect is, in their view, a self-subsisting substance, like a rational being in its own right,