  The activating cause needed to bring man from a state of potential to a state of actual knowing is the active intellect (sometimes translated as “agent” intellect). Rooted in Aristotle's own account of soul at De Anima 3.5 (BWA, 591), this idea stands as a cornerstone to Islamic—and Maimonidean—philosophical theories of epistemology, prophecy, and even afterlife and immortality. How to best interpret what Aristotle is actually trying to say at De Anima 3.5 need not concern us. Looking, rather, for the features of Aristotle's text which served as a basis for various Islamic philosophical accounts of active intellect, we find Aristotle's description of a “separable ” (BWA 592), essentially “active” (BWA 592) intellect “without [which] nothing  thinks,”[19]  an “impassible,” and “unmixed” state of intellect, furthermore described by Aristotle not only as “immortal and eternal” (BWA 592) but as the perfected reality of the human mind once it is “set free from its present conditions ” (BWA 592). 