Concept
'Aql
Overview
'Aql (Arabic: عَقْل, romanized: ʿaql, lit. 'intellect') is an Arabic term used in Islamic philosophy and theology for the intellect or the rational faculty of the soul that connects humans to God. According to Islamic beliefs, 'aql is what guides humans towards the right path (sirat al-mustaqim) and prevents them from deviating. In jurisprudence, it is associated with using reason as a source for sharia and has been translated as 'dialectical reasoning'.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
And such a division is recognized even by the philosophers. For sometimes they assign four intellects--namely, the "active" and "passive" intellects, the intellect "in habit," and the "actual" intellect. Of which four the active and passive intellects are different powers; just as in all things the active power is distinct from the passive. But three of these are distinct, as three states of the passive intellect…
Aquinas Thomas, Summa Theologica, Part I
States what 'Aql is.
And the reasoning (speaking) soul, if it engages itself upon the sciences, its activity is called mind or intellect, and it is accordingly called speculative or theoretical mind: which I have already described. And if it engages itself upon overcoming blameworthy powers, that entice unto wrongdoing through their excess, unto folly through their abandonment, unto impetuosity through their agitation, unto cowardice…
Avicenna, A Compendium on the Soul
States what 'Aql is.
(5) The use of human reason in religion is of two sorts: the former, in the conception and apprehension of the mysteries of God to us revealed; the other, in the inferring and deriving of doctrine and direction thereupon. The former extendeth to the mysteries themselves; but how? by way of illustration, and not by way of argument. The latter consisteth indeed of probation and argument.
Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning
Close in meaning to 'Aql; the term itself is not named.
Related ideas
Place in the tradition
Part of Empiricism.