The Essence of the concept of hads in Al-Fārābī

Intuition has been a subject of epistemological debate throughout the history of philosophy. Some thinkers are considered to be indisputable members of the intuitionist movement because they openly embrace intuition in acquiring knowledge. Plotinus, Ghazali and Bergson can be given as examples of these thinkers. However, some thinkers, despite being rationalists, have been the target of some criticism because they included intuitive thoughts in their philosophies. Plato, Aristotle, al-Kindī, al-Fārābī and Avicenna can be given as examples of these philosophers. Based on the presence of irrational elements in their philosophies, it is claimed that these thinkers used intuition, which is a mystical power of acquiring knowledge, in their epistemologies. When al-Fārābī is examined in particular among these thinkers, it is seen that there are ambiguous expressions in his works that are indeed susceptible to intuitive interpretation. In fact, many philosophers interpret al-Fārābī's theory of prophethood and his conception of revelation intuitively. In this study, which examines the nature of the concept of hads, which means intuition in Arabic, in al-Fārābī, first of all, the elements that may have an effect on this concept in the philosopher and may constitute a source for it if there is a concept of hads as claimed were emphasized. In this direction, as the first possible source, the subjects of intuition in the epistemologies of Plato and Aristotle, representing the Ancient-Hellenistic period from pre-Fārābī philosophy, and al-Kindī from Islamic philosophy were mentioned. The second possible source element was the religion of Islam, and here, some concepts related to intuition from the two main sources of the religion of Islam, the Quran and the hadiths, were included. Then, the concept of hads was traced in al-Fārābī's works and certain passages from the philosopher's texts that could be evaluated as the equivalent of the concept of hads in the literal and terminological sense were quoted. As a result, three points that can be interpreted as hads in al-Fārābī were identified based on his texts. In explaining these points, the possible sources given in the first section and the relevant passages in the philosopher's texts were evaluated together to discuss the consistency of the intuitionist claims and thus the thesis attempted to reveal the nature of the concept of hads in al-Fārābī.