This man and his followers devote the greater part of their discourse to the natural sciences, for that is the field that occupied their time. With respect to the Divine sciences, however, the statements of the man and his disciples are exceedingly sparse. Ibn Sīnā and those of his ilk, on the other hand, blended their remarks on metaphysics with a large portion of the language used by the theologians of the various religions; thus the philosophers came to possess a body of discourse on matters of divinity. Ibn Sīnā, Ibn Rushd the Younger (Averroes), and others like them then presented those philosophical principles as if they were in harmony with the way of the prophets, giving the impression that their foundations do not contradict the revealed laws.
Yet inwardly they maintain that what the messengers have reported about Allah and the Last Day possesses no real existence; it is, in their view, nothing more than imagination, representation, and illustrative parables intended to communicate to the masses whatever benefit they can derive—even though such notions run contrary to the actual truth. At times they even make the very essence of prophethood consist in this power of imaginative depiction, while claiming that reason itself attests to the soundness of their own principles.
Most people are incapable of combining an understanding of the reality brought by the messengers with an understanding of what these philosophers actually assert; nor do they grasp the necessary implications of the philosophers’ words—implications that, once seen, would make the falsity of their doctrine plain to sound intellect. Many, therefore, adopt these doctrines but alter the terminology, sometimes expressing them in explicitly Islamic language, so that the listener imagines the philosophers’ position to be the very truth with which the messengers were sent and which sound reason affirms.
This was precisely the approach of the authors of the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity and the propagandists of the Qarmatian esoterics, who used the terms “the Preceder” and “the Follower” for the Intellect and the Soul, citing in support the ḥadīth they relate from the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—who, they say, declared: “The first thing Allah created was the intellect.”
As a result, these ideas gained currency among many adherents of Sufism, scholastic theology, devotional practice, and speculative thought—such as the author of Jewels of the Qur’an.