Texts have been transmitted stating that the intellect is in the heart; how is this matter to be understood, and what is your comment?

The questioner : Texts have been transmitted stating that the intellect is in the heart; how is this matter to be understood, or what is your comment, for example?

The Shaykh : I usually understand what is intended by the question, but your question is not clear. How do we understand it? As it came in the text, that is the answer, but what exactly is intended by the question?

The questioner : The question is, for example, a comment or word regarding the issue that the intellect is in the heart. Yes, for example, it is common among some people to say that the intellect is in the head or the brain, and so on. And is the intellect here what distinguishes or by which things are known, unlike the view of the Greeks that it is matter or a tangible body, for example?

The Shaykh : The intellect is like the soul; its reality is not known. This is among the unseen matters. But without a doubt, its center is in the heart, as is explicitly stated in the Qur'an and the authentic Sunnah. However, what usually poses a problem regarding such a matter of faith is that doctors say: the brain is the center of intellect, understanding, and perception, and so on. And as we always say, and always: experimental science, which they call it, if it is certain, is limited. As our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) says explicitly in the Noble Qur'an: . So medical science has reached in its understanding of this issue that the center of the intellect is the brain. But this does not negate that there is another center before that, which is what the Qur'anic text and the Sunnah came with. Like his saying (peace and blessings be upon him) in the well-known hadith: . So what medicine says is confined to the brain, but this means that they did not know what came in the Shari'ah, while the Muslims knew it because of their faith in what came in the Shari'ah. There is no conflict between what is established in medicine and what came in the Noble Qur'an; therefore, some doctors who are weak in knowledge and faith are compelled not to believe in the Qur'anic text, rather the Qur'anic texts and the Prophetic hadiths, and to strain themselves to interpret them figuratively, as is the case with the scholars of kalam regarding some unseen matters. As for us, we say: what they say does not contradict what the Lord of the Worlds said, who created man in the best of forms. And I used to give, for example, while I was in Damascus, to clarify this matter, and I mentioned that here more than once. We have in Damascus water called "Ma' al-Fayyih," and its source is outside Damascus in a village named al-Fayyih. Therefore, the water was named after this village, Ma' al-Fayyih.