Human Happiness and the Role of Religion in Farabi's View

Farabi has discussed the human happiness in many of his works. Humans are composite of souls and bodies, and souls can become immaterial beings, though they are primarily material or hylic. The rational soul can reach to the stages of actual reason and mustafad reason through cognizance of the intelligible (maqulat), and become immaterial beings that can survive without material bodies. The human happiness is his abstraction from matter (immateriality) and conjunction with the immaterial intellects. Since most people cannot grasp this mode of existence and do not know how to achieve it, they should be guided by people who have grasped them, and they are the prophets. The prophet has an intellectual cognizance of happiness and most people have an imaginary cognizance of it. In this paper, I will discuss Farabi's view about the role of the religious instructions of the prophets in human's happiness.