Heart, Ear, and the Origin of Awareness: A Theological-Philosophical Reading of the Qur'anic Vocabulary of Consciousness, in Dialogue with Contemporary Neuroscience

Abstract

This paper takes as its starting point a recurring feature of Qur’anic vocabulary: verses that consistentlyassociate the faculties of reasoning (‘aql) and understanding with the heart (qalb), and verses that as-sociate genuine, efficacious hearing (sam‘) with consciousness or wakefulness (wa‘y), often placingthe two faculties in relations of equivalence, exchange, or causal dependence rather than in the merelymetaphorical sense sometimes assumed. Taking this textual pattern as a motivating question rather thanas scientific evidence, the paper asks what a philosophy of mind would look like that took the heart andthe ear, rather than the brain alone, as central to the origin of consciousness. It surveys contemporaryneuroscience – the vagus nerve, the anterior insula, and genetic evidence linking cardiac and auditoryfunction – not as proof of the Qur’anic vocabulary’s literal anatomical intent, but as a body of empiricalmaterial with which such a theological-philosophical reading can be brought into productive dialogue.The paper does not claim scholarly authority in Qur’anic exegesis (taf s¯ır) or in neuroscience; it aimsonly to pose the question with enough precision that specialists in either field might take it up