Logos (Islam)

Throughout Islamic history, there have existed several different metaphysical concepts that have been understood to correspond "in many respects" to the logos Christology of Christianity and to the use of the phrase late Greek philosophy. In the writings of many of the most prominent Sunni Islamic metaphysicians, philosophers, and mystics of the Islamic Golden Age, the prophet Muhammad, who is given the title of "Seal of the Prophets" in the Quran, was understood to be "both a manifestation of the Logos and the Logos itself, both the beginning of the prophetic cycle and its end, and, being its end and seal," as one who contained "from an essential and inward point of view the whole prophetic function within himself." This classical identification of Muhammad with the logos emerged out of particular interpretations of specific Quranic verses, sayings of the prophet, and through the writings of the early mystics of Islam. At the same time, the logos concept was also intimately tied in the works of the same authors to other important Islamic cosmological concepts, such as the ideas of ʿaql ("Intellect"), which "resembled the late Greek doctrine of the logos" and represented an Arabic equivalent to the Neoplatonic νοῦς ("Intellect"), lawḥ maḥfūẓ ("Guarded Tablet," in Quran 85:22), ḳalam ("Divine Pen"), umm al-kitāb ("Mother of the Book," in Quran 3:7, 13:39, 43:4), and, perhaps most famously, the Muhammad-related ideas of al-insān al-kāmil ("Perfect Man" or "Universal Man"), nūr muḥammadī ("Muhammadan Light"), and al-ḥaqīqa al-muḥammadiyya ("Muhammadan Reality"). It should be noted, however, that the logos was often presented as "created" in Islamic doctrine, and thus was more akin to Philo's understanding of the phrase than Nicene Christianity.