Qur’an and other scriptures tell us, knowledge of things even the angels and heavenly beings do not have; such is the distinction of being born human. The first level is feeling, that knowledge of touch experienced uniformly by plant and animal life, a fine and sensitive capacity which recognizes a hair on our arm or a particle of dust in the eye, this sensory realization providing what might be the first instrument of experience in our line of defense and protection. The second level of consciousness in this progression is awareness, the transmission of data through receptors to the centers which organize and synthesize the information. Now we are aware that something is touching our arm, something is in our eye, and from awareness the information is sent to the third level, intellect, which solves the problem, gives directives, remove that hair from my arm intellect directs our fingers, get that particle of dust from my eye before the irritation makes me uncomfortable.

Here we encounter our first great divide from the western understanding which usually gives intellect a more exalted role to play in its panoply. Intellect as the problem solver, whether it’s quadratic equations, the architectural drawings for a shopping plaza, a plan of military action or rocket science, intellect is nothing more than a level of wisdom we share with the animal kingdom. The ability of animals to build nests, discover and use tools, make homes, construct dams, raise their young, feed and protect them, all this is essentially no different from the problem solving activities human beings engage. Clearly intellect has an important role to play, but it has for

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