Recent findings challenge the traditional view that knowledge must be strictly derived from logic, objective deduction, or empirical data. Narratives are proven to be a foundational way humans organize, evaluate, and understand the world. Our study shows that this view, while new in Western thought, has precedents in Persian philosophy. We conduct a comparative analysis of theories of imagination and storytelling in the ideas of two prominent philosophers from these distinct traditions: Farabi and Sartre. Instead of cherry-picking a Western thinker that could be an easy fit for our argument, we chose a Nobelist storyteller. We argue that although both thinkers regard imaginative storytelling as constructive, they explain its function within opposite frameworks. For Farabi, imagination is a bridge between the sensible and the intelligible realms. Stories make high philosophical reality accessible to the general public. In contrast, Sartre sees imagination as a mechanism for escaping reality and confronting nothingness. For Sartre, imaginative consciousness reveals our fundamental freedom by positing objective reality as absent or non-existent. Farabi believes stories serve a cognitive purpose, fostering social cohesion and moral education. Sartre focuses on their irreal aspects, considering imagination a sphere for expressing individual freedom and liberation from the determinism of reality.