The Fleeting Flash of Prophetic Vision

Abstract

This article employs a range of academic methodologies, including intellectual history, comparative literature, and history of philosophy, to explore the philosophical and scriptural origins of the concept of the “fleeting flash” of lightning (Arabic al-barq al-ḫāṭif, Latin fulgor cito pertransiens) employed in Abū Ḥāmid al-Ġazālī’s Intentions of the Philosophers to describe a wakeful kind of veridical vision bordering on prophecy, and to suggest the connection between this fulgor and the “fulgore” striking the mind of the pilgrim in Dante’s Paradiso XXXIII, 141. The contribution investigates the Qurʾānic source for al-Ġazālī’s original Arabic expression, showing its reprises in a highly theological passage of Avicenna’s commentary on Book Lambda of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, as well as in Abū l-Fatḥ al-Šahrastānī’s Book of Religions and Sects. As to the philosophical background of al-Ġazālī’s doctrine, the article considers the relevance of Avicenna’s teachings on psychology, showing in particular how Pietro Alighieri places his exegesis of the final canto of the Commedia under the aegis of the Arabic doctrine of the inner senses, which he took from Albert of Orlamünde’s Philosophia pauperum (an epitome of Albert the Great’s natural philosophy). In conclusion, the article advocates for a cross-cultural and comparative method of intellectual history, capable of highlighting the connections between meteorology and metaphysics in Dante’s poetry and in his diversified potential sources, which definitely include Arabic-Islamic Peripatetic works.