  We have seen the Islamic philosophical context of Maimonides' cosmology of separate intellects (the “angels”), with active intellect at the helm of the sublunar world in which we live. For Maimonides—as for his Islamic philosophical predecessors and contemporaries—the active intellect is an important governing principle for the sublunar realm, a cosmic intellectual principle which, in addition to whatever other roles it plays in the workings of our terrestrial realm, plays a crucial role in human knowledge—including prophecy, and in fact serves even as the foundation for a theory of immortality.