As God has invested individuals with the faculty of reason for the understanding, to some degree, of elementary matters, in the same way God has vested in them a hidden faculty of receiving revelation.
When human reason arrives at the limit of its reach, then at that stage God Almighty, for the purpose of leading His true and faithful servants to the perfection of understanding and certainty, guides them through revelation and visions. Thus the stages which reason could not reach are traversed by means of revelation and visions, and seekers of truth thereby arrive at full certainty. This is the way of Allah, and it is to guide us towards this path, that Prophets have appeared in the world. Without treading this path, no one has ever arrived at true and perfect understanding. But the limited philosopher or intellectual is in such a hurry that they desires everything to be disclosed at the stage of reason.
He does not know that reason cannot carry a burden beyond its strength, nor can it step further than its capacity. He does not reflect that, to carry a person to his desired excellence, God Almighty has bestowed upon him not only the faculty of reason but also the faculty of experiencing visions and revelations. It is the height of misfortune to make use of only the elementary means out of those that God has, out of His Perfect Wisdom, bestowed upon man for the purpose of recognizing God, and to remain ignorant of the rest.
It is extremely unwise to let those faculties atrophy through lack of use and to derive no benefit from them. A person who does not use the faculty of receiving revelation and denies its existence cannot be a true philosopher, whereas the existence of this faculty has been established by the testimony of thousands of the righteous and all men of true understanding have arrived at perfect understanding through this means.
Tuned In to God
Revelation is not, and should not be considered anything supernatural or strange or fantastical by any means. The case of revelation is like that of radio transmission. Do we not listen to invisible radio waves everyday? There is a transmitter and a receiver, but the information is transmitted in an unseen way. All that is needed is that the receiver is tuned to the same frequency of the transmitter. This is very analogous to how revelation works. The transmitter is God, and the receiver is someone who is spiritually tuned to God’s frequency. A righteous soul selected by God for holy communion.
From Ought to be to Certainty
The Gracious and Merciful Lord, Who has invested human nature with the hunger and thirst of His own complete understanding has endowed human nature with two types of faculties for the purpose of arriving at that understanding.
