Ibn Sina's Philosophical Explanation of Religious Experience

This article is an explanatory and analytic review on Ibn Sina’s philosophical view of religious experience. It is an attempt to answer some important epistemological questions about religious experience from Ibn Sina’s viewpoint. The main reference in this inquiry is his al-Isharat wa al-Tanbihat, in which he explains some of his distinctive ideas.The most notable points in this article include the following: the root of hallucinations on the one hand, and that of true visions on the other, the reason why (and how) some true intuitions need interpretation, the process of such occasions while one is asleep or awake, the role of illness and artificial tricks, the role of piety and moral regeneration, and the gradation and hierarchical levels of such experiences, as well as the cause for the contextuality of some (and not all) pseudo-sensory experiences.