A Presential Epistemology of Entrepreneurial Opportunity: The Role of Presential Knowledge in Integrating Intuition, Spirituality, and Innovation

The dominant theories of entrepreneurial opportunity-discovery, creation, and allocation-are fundamentally rooted in Western epistemological paradigms that privilege empirical observation, rational deduction, and sensory data. These frameworks, while valuable, fail to account for non-sensory, intuitive, and transcendent modes of knowing that have been systematically developed within Islamic philosophical and mystical traditions. This paper introduces the Islamic epistemological concept of Presential Knowledge (a mode of direct, unmediated, and illuminative cognition) as a critical and overlooked source of entrepreneurial insight. We conduct a deep epistemological analysis of presential knowledge, tracing its formulation in the works of Suhrawardi, Mulla Sadrā, and Tabatabai, and distinguish it from acquired or representational knowledge. We argue that presential knowledge offers a robust theoretical foundation for understanding the non-calculative, intuitive dimension of opportunity "recognition-creation," a phenomenon often anecdotally described as "gut feeling," "vision," or "divine inspiration" by entrepreneurs. By synthesizing Islamic epistemology with contemporary theories of entrepreneurial intuition, effectuation, and spiritual capital, we develop an "Illuminative Opportunity Framework." This framework redefines the entrepreneur not merely as a rational calculator or alert scanner but as a knower-by-presence whose inner purification (tazkiyah al-nafs), spiritual capital, and intellectual intuition (hads) attune them to latent possibilities within the cosmic and social order. We illustrate this framework through cases of mission-driven and spiritually-grounded entrepreneurship. The paper concludes by discussing the profound implications for decolonizing entrepreneurship theory, re-integrating spirituality into entrepreneurial education, and cultivating a new generation of "presential entrepreneurs." The article proposes a research agenda for empirically investigating presential cognition in entrepreneurial contexts through interpretive phenomenological analysis and neurophenomenological methods.

کلیدواژه ها:

Presential Knowledge ، Entrepreneurial Opportunity ، Islamic Epistemology ، Intuition ، Suhrawardi ، Mullā Șadrā ، Spiritual Capital ، Decolonizing Entrepreneurship ، Effectuation ، Hads