Human beings are unique in al-Farabi's vision of the universe because they stand between two worlds: the "higher", immaterial world of the celestial intellects and universal intelligibles, and the "lower", material world of generation and decay; they inhabit a physical body, and so belong to the "lower" world, but they also have a rational capacity, which connects them to the "higher" realm. Each level of existence in al-Farabi's cosmology is characterized by its movement towards perfection, which is to become like the First Cause; a perfect intellect. Human perfection (or "happiness"), then, is equated with constant intellection and contemplation.[36]
According to al-Farabi, the afterlife is not the personal experience commonly conceived of by religious traditions such as Islam and Christianity. Any individual or distinguishing features of the soul are annihilated after the death of the body; only the rational faculty survives (and then, only if it has attained perfection), which becomes one with all other rational souls within the agent intellect and enters a realm of pure intelligence.[44] Henry Corbin compares this eschatology with that of the Ismaili Neo-Platonists, for whom this process initiated the next grand cycle of the universe.[45] However, Deborah Black mentions we have cause to be skeptical as to whether this was the mature and developed view of al-Farabi, as later thinkers such as Ibn Tufayl, Averroes and Ibn Bajjah would assert that he repudiated this view in his commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, which has been lost to modern experts.[46]
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This piece is very interesting because it is extremelly simillar I fell to the Buddhist concept of Nirvana. Islamically, I think he is trying to tell us to think and contemplate, or as a Buddhist would say meditate. Use our higher faculties and distinguish ourselves from animals. Get closer to nirvana, moksha, heaven, paradise or enlightenment (whatever u choose to call it) by contemplating our own existence. To truly STRIVE to understand our universe, i use the word strive here because understanding is beyond us i feel, and to KNOW this is what we are truly striving for. The only way this is possible is by constant contemplation and awareness of your surroundings, frmo the movement of the sun to the state of your neighbor, to your own physical mechanics.
Wallahu a3lam.
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