  It is in this spirit that, following his Islamic predecessors, Maimonides describes the prophet as having both a perfected intellect (for knowing) and a perfected imagination (for guiding, teaching, and leading). For Maimonides, even the paradigmatic prophet Moses—a man whose prophecy is understood by Maimonides as a direct engagement between mind and active intellect without the intermediation of imagination[25] —must be understood as having a perfected imagination. Along these lines, Maimonides, draws a distinction between the philosopher as having a perfected intellect, and the prophet as having perfected intellect plus perfected imagination: