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<p>In this article, I examine the conception of religious language advanced by two of the most influential Islamic philosophers, al-Fārābī (d. 339/950) and Avicenna (d. 428/1037). I argue that from their perspective, the language of revelation is intrinsically metaphorical, a characteristic stemming from the very nature of revelatory experience, which originates in the prophetic imaginative faculty and is embodied in sacred texts. I examine the mechanics of revelation as the outcome of contact between the material imaginative faculty and the immaterial intelligible realm, and posit the strong alignment and conceptual affinity between their epistemic framework and core tenets of conceptual metaphor theory. I posit that revelation in al-Fārābī’s and Avicenna’s accounts should not be understood as symbolic in the traditional sense—that is, as one concrete concept standing in for another. Rather, revelation is the product of a <i>cognitive</i> function through which the transcendental and immaterial is materialized; it is, as such, the bridge between two distinct domains that is unrestricted in its form, and untranslatable in its content.</p>

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Religious Language in the Philosophy of al-Fārābī and Avicenna: A Conceptual Metaphor Approach

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年7月30日

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  • Zahra Delavar Abrebekooh

摘要

In this article, I examine the conception of religious language advanced by two of the most influential Islamic philosophers, al-Fārābī (d. 339/950) and Avicenna (d. 428/1037). I argue that from their perspective, the language of revelation is intrinsically metaphorical, a characteristic stemming from the very nature of revelatory experience, which originates in the prophetic imaginative faculty and is embodied in sacred texts. I examine the mechanics of revelation as the outcome of contact between the material imaginative faculty and the immaterial intelligible realm, and posit the strong alignment and conceptual affinity between their epistemic framework and core tenets of conceptual metaphor theory. I posit that revelation in al-Fārābī’s and Avicenna’s accounts should not be understood as symbolic in the traditional sense—that is, as one concrete concept standing in for another. Rather, revelation is the product of a cognitive function through which the transcendental and immaterial is materialized; it is, as such, the bridge between two distinct domains that is unrestricted in its form, and untranslatable in its content.