Chapter Two: Awareness and the Divine Human in Sadegh Khademi’s Epistemology

Mental Science and Material Cognition

Beyond the mental science influenced by the body (tan) and the soul (nafs), humanity can attain a more potent and elevated perceptual faculty, characterized by wisdom (ḥikmah) and sagacity, termed cardiac perception or the “finding of the heart” (yāft-e del). Through this faculty, divine revelation and esoteric awareness are apprehended. Khademi asserts, “This perception, named wisdom, is non-acquired, collective, irruptive, instantaneous, and impervious to disruption” (Khademi, 2025, p. 1).¹ Such knowledge resolves the existential dilemmas of the heart and soul, enabling proximity to the Divine.

¹ Ḥikmah in Islamic philosophy denotes sapiential knowledge transcending rational deduction, aligning with Avicenna’s concept of intuitive intellect (Avicenna, 2005).

This marks the inception of supra-rational, divinely bestowed awareness, transcending the ordinary mind’s dominion. The term “science” (‘ilm), associated with the embodied mind, soul, and acquired, rule-bound knowledge, is applied to higher intellective and cardiac wisdom only loosely, without the qualifier of “luminous” (nūrī). The domain of science spans sensory perceptions to rational demonstrations within the realm of meaningful propositions. However, with the emergence of the heart, theoretical understanding becomes sagacious, resolute, and wise, while practical volition gains a steadfast, resilient foundation. Thus, cardiac wisdom constitutes complete awareness and full apprehension of reality as it is, applied as it ought to be, according to human capacity and communal exigencies, aimed at divine proximity—the origin of all perfection and existence—and for discerning divine decrees and obedience. Khademi states, “Cardiac wisdom is complete awareness of reality for divine proximity” (Khademi, 2025, p. 1).²

² This reflects Mulla Sadra’s gradational ontology, where knowledge ascends from sensory to intellective and mystical states (Mulla Sadra, 2008).

Human Cognition and Divine Intuition

In the embodied human, awareness arises through sensory perception and an analytical, meaning-making mind, wherein the faculty of conjecture (wahm) and imagination engage with particulars, and the intellect apprehends universal concepts. This science and awareness emerge from the creative capacity of human material nature and the physical mind. Khademi explains, “Awareness in the embodied human arises through sensory and analytical faculties” (Khademi, 2025, p. 2).

Beyond this material cognition, operative within the physical mind, humanity possesses a higher capacity manifested through the sanctified intellect (‘aql qudsī), the inner heart, and intuitive perception. Awareness, through successive effusions of insights and the dissolution of present consciousness, becomes so refined and translucent that it transforms into immateriality (tajarrud), attaining deeper, collective, irruptive, and instantaneous awareness termed wisdom (ḥikmah). At its zenith, it reaches supra-immateriality and the very essence of truth. Imam Reza (peace be upon him) narrates from the Messenger of God: “No servant sincerely devotes forty mornings to God Almighty but that springs of wisdom flow from their heart to their tongue” (Kulayni, 1987, vol. 2, p. 16, as cited in Khademi, 2025, p. 2).³ This hadith elucidates irruptive, flowing wisdom, discernible through eloquent expression and profound clarity.

³ This Shi‘i hadith underscores the heart’s role as a conduit for divine wisdom, a motif in Islamic mysticism (Ibn ‘Arabi, 2004).

Luminous intellective wisdom is not contingent upon memory or the material mind’s cognitive apparatus, constituting a distinct, autonomous perceptual faculty. Thus, reliance on memory for learning or teaching sciences does not access this realm. Such individuals depend on static, lifeless knowledge and the scope of memory, not on living, active science, let alone supra-science, wisdom, or the spiritual gnosis (ma‘rifah) beyond it. Khademi notes, “Luminous wisdom is independent of material memory” (Khademi, 2025, p. 2).

The Divine Human and Spiritual Ascendance

The “divine human” (insān ilāhī) in Khademi’s discourse, at its highest and most exalted level, is the possessor of spirit, dwelling in a state of supra-immateriality, sanctity, gnosis, truth, affirmation, love, unity, and complete manifestation of the Real. This contrasts with the ego-centric, mental axis confined to physical creation, where immateriality—being gradational—is weak, nascent, and tinged with materiality, proximate to the physical, such that it may descend into matter or ascend from matter into immateriality. Khademi states, “The divine human possesses a spirit transcending physical creation” (Khademi, 2025, p. 2).⁴

⁴ This aligns with Ibn ‘Arabi’s concept of the “Perfect Human” as a microcosm of divine attributes (Ibn ‘Arabi, 2004).

Dependence on material memory characterizes the embodied human whose awareness is mental. In individuals confined to the material soul yet possessing a highly refined substance, limited bursts of mental clarity may occur. If memory is weak, much of the received knowledge remains inaccessible to conscious awareness. Scientific reports of such cases suffice to dispel skepticism regarding irruptive wisdom. The divine human, endowed with divine wisdom, possesses irruptive awareness, articulating realities with ease, generosity, and selflessness. In contrast, memory-dependent scholars lack such expansiveness, ease, and altruism in teaching, constrained by limitation and difficulty in imparting knowledge. Khademi contrasts, “The divine human articulates wisdom with ease, unlike memory-bound scholars” (Khademi, 2025, p. 3).

The heart of the divine human, at its inception, is nourished by the vision of the luminous intellect, becoming a wise, sagacious heart endowed with luminous reason. Intellective vision apprehends meaning through divinely bestowed light, distinct from the heart’s intuitive vision, which directly accesses reality. Cardiac perception is a precise, esoteric intuition. Thus, humans are either confined to the material body and embodied state or possess, beyond the material and apparent, an esoteric, spiritual, and immaterial dimension, whose perception is sagacious and illuminated by wisdom. Khademi elucidates, “Cardiac perception is esoteric intuition” (Khademi, 2025, p. 3).

The Purified Mind and Cardiac Cognition

A flourishing mind, endowed with scientific creativity and the capacity to generate knowledge, when purified of negative emotions, defilement, and imbued with sanctity, health, virtuous character, love, and devotion, becomes increasingly refined, translucent, and simple. It surrenders to the immaterial, sanctified heart’s perceptual faculty, pure reason, and wisdom. Through the heart’s station, with methods of purification, effusion, dissolution, intimacy, and divine gifts, it connects to multiple gradational hearts and ascends to the higher station of spirit and gnosis. Khademi explains, “The purified mind surrenders to the heart’s wisdom” (Khademi, 2025, p. 3).⁵

⁵ This reflects Mulla Sadra’s notion of the soul’s ascent through cognitive stations (Mulla Sadra, 2008).

The heart-receptive mind, through its nexus with the heart, enhances emotional intelligence, collective intelligence, empathy, and affective capacities. In its evolutionary trajectory, the mind can, by attending to its pure, unconditioned essence—free from all constraints—discharge all information, environmental influences, memories, and manifold manifestations through successive effusions. By negating thoughts, dissolving possessions, and achieving self-dissolution, the mind attains silence, surrender, and, through divine grace, accesses the heart’s sanctity and luminosity. This station of mental silence and submission, connecting limited thought to cardiac sagacity, is achieved through truthfulness, absolute renunciation of egoistic desires, and mastery of the soul. Khademi states, “Mental silence enables surrender to the heart’s sagacity” (Khademi, 2025, p. 4).

Metaphysical Epistemology and Divine Unity

In this love-saturated system, the relationship between the apparent and the manifest is established. Phenomena, along with their actions and attributes, are nothing but the active manifestation of the Exalted Truth and His awareness. There is no presumption of separation, duality, determinism, or delegation, but a singular essence that governs each manifestation with love, purity, wisdom, truth, and righteousness. What appears in the manifest draws from and reflects the life, health, knowledge, power, and agency divinely bestowed upon the servant within the contingent material realm (nāsūt). This contingency necessitates duty, collective justice, and a system of reward and retribution. The luminous intellect apprehends this singular proposition, from which all luminous propositions are derived, as encapsulated in the Qur’anic verse: “The command belongs only to God; He declares the truth, and He is the best of arbiters” (Al-An‘am, 6:57, Fouladvand, 2004, as cited in Khademi, 2025, p. 4).⁶

⁶ This verse underscores divine sovereignty in Islamic metaphysics, per Al-Tabari’s exegesis (Al-Tabari, 2001).

The conceptual, conditioned intellect, which prioritizes rational acuity, deems this mode of truth, effusion, dissolution, and realization as indefinable, elusive, and inevaluable, as it pertains to the sanctified, luminous intellect beyond ordinary reason. To apprehend it, one must tread the path of luminous reason. Beyond this lies the realm of supra-ordinary reason, the potent presence of awareness, and the arduous, perilous domain of purity and unity within the discretionary material realm, dominated by deception and falsehood. The sanctified intellect is apprehended only through such presence, a faculty not universally accessible but operative for a select few, hence rarely investigated or elucidated. Khademi notes, “The sanctified intellect is apprehended only through divine presence” (Khademi, 2025, p. 4).

The soul, previously traversing the stages of the commanding, self-reproaching, and inspired states, becomes, in Qur’anic terms, the “soul at peace” (nafs muṭma’inna), free from deception and sophistry, transformed into the heart. The luminous intellect and the wisdom it engenders serve as arbiters of intuitive findings, scriptural data, and conceptual propositions of rational and material reasoning, constituting the logic of their apprehension. Khademi explains, “The luminous intellect arbitrates intuitive and rational knowledge” (Khademi, 2025, p. 5).

Spiritual Discipline and Cognitive Transformation

Steadfast observance of lawful sustenance, abstention from the forbidden, and refining the heart through worship, prayer, supplication, love, selflessness, and transcendence of calculative attachments enable the mind and soul to submit to the heart’s dominion. The embodied human transforms into a cardiac, esoteric being, whose inner heart assumes the mantle of sagacity and gnosis, or surrenders to a divine human endowed with a luminous heart and divinely bestowed wisdom, becoming a seeker of wisdom. Khademi states, “The embodied human transforms into a cardiac being through spiritual discipline” (Khademi, 2025, p. 5).

The vision of the luminous intellect and sanctified wisdom surpasses the conjectures of geniuses. Esoteric and intuitive discovery of the hidden and concealed constitutes subsequent stages of unveiling. At these levels, awareness transcends bodily senses, brain, heart, and physical form, enabling life and consciousness without the body. The sanctified intellect, by its presence and oversight, can, through preparation and conducive conditions, apprehend many realities transparently or, in weaker states, obscurely and generally. Khademi elucidates, “Sanctified wisdom transcends bodily cognition” (Khademi, 2025, p. 5).⁷

⁷ This resonates with Ibn ‘Arabi’s stages of mystical unveiling (*kashf*) (Ibn ‘Arabi, 2004).

The sanctified intellect, a higher manifestation than nature and soul, is supra-mental, endowing the knowing agent with veridical wisdom aligned with reality and truth. In legal contexts, when coupled with rigorous scholarly exegesis grounded in valid texts, evidence, and rational principles, it is scriptural, religious, and divinely sanctioned, rendering the silent text of revelation articulate and relevant through cardiac certitude. Khademi notes, “Sanctified intellect aligns wisdom with divine truth” (Khademi, 2025, p. 5).

Gradational Awareness and Divine Proximity

Awareness, beyond material, sensory, and experiential perception and the conditional, calculative intellect, ascends when the mind eschews tyranny, defilement, hypocrisy, and sin, embracing humility, prayer, supplication, and detachment. Attaining the soul at peace, characterized by tranquility, satisfaction, certainty, truth, and harmlessness, under divine nurturing, enables three higher immaterial stations: first, luminous intellective wisdom; second, cardiac intuitive realization; third, supra-immaterial spiritual gnosis; and fourth, existential unity with the Real, a supra-immaterial, expansive simplicity. Khademi states, “Awareness ascends through luminous, cardiac, and spiritual stations” (Khademi, 2025, p. 6).⁸

⁸ This mirrors Mulla Sadra’s fourfold journey of the soul (Mulla Sadra, 2008).

These stations transcend sensory and experiential perception, apprehended through intimacy, love, and relational capacity. The esoteric, hidden, and unified essence of the human spirit, unencumbered by egoism, arrogance, or isolation, ascends through connection, coexistence, and collective engagement, achieving greater penetration into the esoteric and proximity to the Divine, yielding profound joy. The significance of relational essence is paramount, as all material, imaginal, and intellective phenomena emanate from and are intrinsically connected to the Exalted Truth, endowed with innate awareness and affinity for Him. Khademi explains, “Relational essence enables divine proximity” (Khademi, 2025, p. 6).

Methodology of Wisdom and Divine Command

These stations lie beyond the conceptual intellect’s grasp, accessible only through commensurate faculties: the heart, spirit, and pure love. The sanctified intellect, free from egoistic defilement, is attained through the heart’s love, self-negation, and mental silence. This path is not traversed through mere ritualistic worship, which refines external behavior, nor through prolonged asceticism, which cultivates ethical virtues, but through prayer, supplication, and the devotion of the lovers, achieving complete dissolution, negation of veils, and absolute detachment from self, others, and the Divine. This ensures transcendence of self and union with the Divine, encapsulated in the ethos: “Only the Exalted Truth endures; He alone is love, the sustainer, and the inheritor of all.” Khademi states, “Wisdom is attained through dissolution and detachment” (Khademi, 2025, p. 7).

In negating attention, no selfhood, awareness, or mentality remains, distinct from negation, which retains the negating agent and awareness. As noted in the book’s preface, “The command belongs only to God; He declares the truth, and He is the best of arbiters” (Al-An‘am, 6:57, Fouladvand, 2004, as cited in Khademi, 2025, p. 7). Command, rooted in recognizing truth through the essence and reality of entities via direct, descending insight, produces personal, veridical judgments, affirmations, and intrinsic certitude, characterized by transparency, assurance, intimacy, and luminous cardiac proximity to the Real. Knowledge in any science is attained through its judgments. The Qur’an emphasizes that command and judgment belong solely to God, accessible through luminous wisdom and proximity, achieved through detachment and negation of attention, as affirmed in: “He grants wisdom to whom He wills, and whoever is granted wisdom is given abundant good; none heed this save those endowed with insight” (Al-Baqarah, 2:269, Fouladvand, 2004, as cited in Khademi, 2025, p. 7).⁹

⁹ This verse highlights wisdom as a divine gift, per Al-Tabari’s exegesis (Al-Tabari, 2001).

Wisdom is transmissible through a divinely ordained method (*aytā*). This method fosters specialized, research-driven, generative, expansive, and transformative learning, cultivating seekers and scholars, unlike conventional teaching, which is restrictive, dependent, and informative. The Qur’anic term “those endowed with insight” (ūlu al-albāb) refers to those with generative inner faculties, luminous intellective vision, resolute will, and creative knowledge production. Khademi notes, “Wisdom’s transmission is generative and transformative” (Khademi, 2025, p. 7).

The heart, in its irruptive, integrated knowledge, is autonomous, independent of the active intellect of Peripatetic or Sadrian philosophy or Plato’s ungrounded forms. It is self-sufficient in producing sagacious awareness, apprehending all openings, determinations, effusions, and emergences within and from itself, without external reliance. Thus, heart-attainment is the key to omniscience and irruptive self-awareness. Khademi concludes, “The heart is the key to omniscience” (Khademi, 2025, p. 8).