Prophet, Soothsayer, and Poet

Discussion about prophecy is always challenging for not only modern scientist, but also Muslim philosophers. I think prophecy is among the most puzzling phenomenon. What is challenging most is the explanation about revelation; why does God who is “speaking wordlessly” communicate with the “lower world” in the “worldly” way. 

One simple and disturbing question is this: is it true that God’s language is Arabic? Does God have any language? Is there ‘sacred language’ in the true sense of the word? Isn’t it that any language belongs in the last analysis to human being?

This matter is very complicated and I make no pretense to any expertise in this case or give the answer. I just enjoy the theories conveyed by philosophers and Muslim theologians on this matter. I recently read the incredible and profound work of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, Al-Mathalib al-‘Aliyah, which sounds rather apologetic.

The book has a specific chapter on the argument to prove the truth of Muhammad’s prophecy. Al-Razi used the analysis of Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Al-Farabi to explain the status and hierarchy of human reason where prophet is at the highest point (al-`aql al qudsi, al-nafs al-qudsiyyah). The implicit substance of this argument is that divine revelation is not revealed randomly to anyone, but to specific person with specific qualifications. Man, who is cognitively incompetent, will never gain revelation. 

In other word, revelation is two sides process between God and human. Despite of the fact that God is the Almighty, He would not treat revelation as roulette game where anyone, randomly, can attain the fortune of revelation. 

The appealing thing is that right after the chapter on prophecy (nubuwwah), there is another chapter on magic, wizard and soothsayer. Al-Razi discussed the phenomenon of magic and soothsaying in detail and depth. Actually, Ibnu Sina before has discussed about most of them. My question is this: why does the chapter on magic and soothsaying come after the chapter on prophecy?

It is obviously, because soothsaying is a similar symptom to prophecy, and both are “mental symptom”. That is why, people of Mecca had accused prophet Muhammad for being a soothsayer (kahin) or wizard. This accusation would not occur unless there is resemblance between both symptoms, even though soothsaying definitely has different characteristic. Prophecy is originated from God, whereas soothsaying is from Devil; although proving that case is not an easy task.

Throughout the history of prophecy, problem of “impostors” or fake prophets who claim of being prophets without any convincing evidence always appears (e.g. the story of Joan of Arc in the Catholic tradition). Anyhow, both soothsayer and prophet claim to attain “inspiration” from the divine source. 

What is more appealing is the fact that Prophet Muhammad has condemned people who come to diviner. A hadith said: “The prayer of one who approaches a fortune-teller (soothsayer) and asks him about anything, will not be accepted for forty days or nights”. Here, the contest between prophecy and soothsaying is apparent. Soothsaying is such a “dark world” that undermines the authority of prophecy. Prophecy always keeps an eye over diviner’s world, or it will subvert the prophet’s authority.

Muslim theologians have attempted to destroy the authority of soothsaying for it is threatening prophecy. No wonder their discussion on soothsaying comes right after discussion on prophecy. 

Another prophet’s competitor is a poet. Just like prophet, poet also claims to attain inspiration. Therefore, Prophet Muhammad was accused of being a poet and the revelation of Quran denied that. Muslim theologians denied the assumption of Quran as poetry because this will leads to the equalization between Quran and poetry. Yet, literally, several verses of Quran are obviously similar to poetry, especially free poetry.

That was the bitter rivalry between Prophet, Soothsayer and Poet. Those three persons seemed to work on the similar cognitive and mental level; the level of inspiration-intuition. To establish their claim, they did not rely on the rational evidence but on a kind of “miracle” from the external world. In the case of prophet we call this miracle as “mukjizat”; in the case of diviner “istidraj”; and in the case of poet, it is “word’s miracle” or magic formula/ thalâsim.

They have never used rational argument to support their respective arguments, although Muslim theologians claimed that Quran -as the evidence of Muhammad’s prophecy- has proposed rational evidences (to me, this claim is not convincing enough).

Prophet, Soothsayer, and Poet represent specific mental articulation in the history of human civilization. It is the expressive-performative articulation of civilization inherited by the Israel prophets (Islam is included in this category).

Across this civilization, there is another civilization which source is neither revelation nor inspiration, but a cold, analytic and individualistic reasoning. This civilization was born in Greek, with no less amazing “prophets” such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. They started from different supposition: it is “skepticism”.

The basic principle of the rational-analytic civilization is this, “doubt first, think, and then believe”, which contradicts the expressive civilization originated from Abraham, “believe first, and then think”. The base of religion is “belief” whereas the base of philosophy is “doubt”. The ethos of both fields is poles apart.

This is a merely simplification over the complicated and complex phenomenon. However, it does not mean that typology of the expressive and analytic civilization is not right. In other word, we witness rivalry between Jerusalem civilization vs. Greek civilization; between Prophet on one hand and philosopher on the other hand. In addition, inside Jerusalem civilization, there is rivalry between Prophet, Soothsayer and Poet.