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Mulla
Sadra's Life, works, and Philosophy
Prof.S.M.Khamenei
The Offspring of the Sage
It is written that Mulla
Sadra had two sons and three daughters. His sons were
Mirza Ibrahim and
Nizam al-Din Ahmad, and his daughters were Umm
Kulthum, Zubaydah, and
Ma'sumah. Their dates of bith are as follows:
1- Umm Kulthum 1019H
2- Ibrahim 1021H
3- Zubaydah 1024H
4- Nizam al-Din Ahmad 1031H
5- Ma'sumah 1033H
1- Mirza
Ibrahim
Mirza Ibrahim or Muhammad Ibrahim (who has been said to be titled as Sharaf al-Din and known as Abu 'Ali)(1) is
Mulla Sadra's second offspring and first son. His date of birth is 1021 H. His place of birth has been written to be in
This son is the namesake of his grandfather
(Mulla Sadra's father). From here the love of Mulla
Sadra for his father may be seen; for, the popular tradition according to which the name of father or other beloved relatives was chosen for the offspring was aimed to express the love of offspring for father (or other beloved relatives) and to revive the good name of father.
1-
The introduction
to Ma'adin al-hikmah, P. 15; Shaykh
Aqa
Buzurg Tihrani, Tabaqat-i a'lam al-Shi'ah fi qarn-i 12, P. 379.
In the same way and in order to revive the name of his father, Mirza
Ibrahim named his son (who was titled as Abu
Turab) Sadr al-Din Muhammad. It is this Sadr al-Din (the second) who married
Fayd Kahsani's daughter (his own cousin), and a son was born to him who was called Muhammad Mirza
(Hakim Aqa Muhammad
Mirza Shirazi), whose tongue was cut off by Nadir Shah, and was martyred by him(1)
Hakim Mirza Ibrahim,
Mulla Sadra's son, was a well-versed philosopher, theologian (mutikallim),
jurisprudent, and was familiar with the sciences of his own time. He has been described as follows: "He was a learned scholar, and an eminent theologian, master of most of sciences and particularly mathematics and intellectual sciences"(2).
Mirza Ibrahim who began to study in a period when his father was at the culmination of ripeness, studied under his father; thus he was considered as one of disciples of Mulla
Sadra. The names of his other masters are not known; but it is not unlikely that he had studied under Mulla 'Abd
al-Razzaq Lahiji and
Fayd Kashani, as it was then custom that the disciples who were at higher grades used to teach the apprentices.
Works
Apart from what has been already mentioned, Mirza Ibrahim
was involved in writing commentaries [upon the Holy Quran] as well, and wrote a commentary called 'Urwatal-wuthqa
(which is the namesake of Shaykh
Baha'i's commentary ) (3)
He wrote a commentary upon thsAyat al-kursi (in Persian), and some glosses on
Shahid Thani's Rawdat al-bahiyah (which is well-known as Sharh-i lum'ah), which is said to be incomplete. Probably this book has been written in the last part of his life.
He has written some glosses on Metaphysics of al-Shifa, a commentary on Ithbat al-wajib
of Muhaqqiq Dawani(4)
\ and a book called Hum al-fawa'id- and presented them to Shah
'Abbas II(5).
Some held that his date of death to be 1070 H. (or 1072 H., and even 1060 H.). His date of death has been apparently confused with that of his brother. There is no authentic evidence concerning his date of death.
1-tabaqat-I a'lam al-shi'ah,P.379.
2- Law law al-bahrayn, P. 132; Riyad
al-'ulama, entry "alif
(Ibrahim)
3-It is said that this book has been in fact marginal glosses on Baha'i's commentary
4-Rayhanat
al-adab,
Vol. 2, P. 460
5-Introduction to Fayd's
Ma'adin al-hikmah.
Vol. 1, P. 15.
Though in the books of history he has been considered to be among the theologians-rather than philosophers- and it has been said that unlike his father he was not fascinated by philosophy, all these conjectures may stem from the historians' ignorance and superficiality. For, as we have already seen, Mulla
Sadra' Transcendent Theosophy conquered the last castles of the science of theology and made the latter a subordinate to its own divine and Quranic philosophy. After
that,though to be saved from the accusations made by the opponents of philosophy and to save their prestige and perhaps their lives,
Lahiji, and Mulla
Sadra's offspring, and some of the well-known scholars of the time wrote books on the science of theology and were considered in the public as theologians, the divine sciences taught in this school (the Transcendent Theosophy) and by the master and founder of it
(Mulla Sadra) were so deep that it cannot be accepted that the heirs of that sage, with all their talents, had rendered services for years in that tavern and had not fell drunken, that they had studied philosophy but had become theologians.
As we saw in the disciple-master relationship between Fayd and
Fayyad on the one hand and their master Mulla
Sadra on the other, this relationship was not confined to the mere teaching of theoretical sciences, but the master taught his talented disciples the lesson of love, lovering, and practical wayfaring and knowledge as well. He was in fact their guide
andpir. thus it cannot be accepted that his own offspring remained deprived of such advantages. It cannot be accepted that they had been the sons of the pir-i
mughan and lived in his home, and yet they had not entered the taste of his teaching. As it is said "The lion's child is similar to the lion".
It must be accepted that Mulla Sadra's son, and even all of his offspring, was full-grown Gnostic, wayfarer, and
diluvian sailors. Similarly, it should be considered as an evident fact that they were well-versed philosophers. This is probably the case of his daughters as well, as it can be seen from their biographies.
2-
Nizam al-Din Ahmad
Mulla Sadra's younger son was Ahmad known as Nizam
al-Din. He was Mulla Sadra's
fourth offspring. He was born in 1031 H. in Kashan, and died in 1074 H. in Shiraz.
As it is already said, the thirties in the 11
th
century were the years of
Mulla Sadra's blossoming and productivity. Most of his mystical treatises were written in these years and offered to the people of insight
and
desirous ones. According to the author's research, in these years he had ben
living in
As it has been already said, from Mulla Muhsin
Fayd's autobiography it is understood that his first acquaintance with Mulla Sadra
had occurred in Qum and around 1032 H., i.e. one year after Nizam al-Din was born; and if they were relatives, Fayd visited his master one year ago in
Kashan and there would be no need of acquaintance, and to visit with the master was not considered as a matter of discovery.
Scientific Background and Works
Concerning this Mulla Sadra's son it has been written that he was a
"theosopher" and gnostic. He has been considered to have the taste of poetry, and he has been described as poet and literary man. The book
Midmar-i danish
(in Persian) has been written by him, and apparently he had written another book (which is not available). The shortness of life did not allow him to compile more books in the field of knowledge and literature.
Mirza Nizam al-Din Ahmad had a talented son, whose name is mentioned in some biographies.
We have no knowledge about Mirza Ahmad's residence place. The only thing that is known is that his brother and some of his relatives resided in Shiraz and he himself died in Shiraz
(1)
Abstracts
Simple Knowledge and Composite Knowledge
Dr.G.H.Ebrahimi Dinani Thought and knowledge represent the most obvious aspects of man's identity. There are fundamental differences between human thought and what is called animal perception. In the meaning of thought, the
1-There is another Nizam al-Din Ahmad mentioned in biographies, who is one of Fayd's
grandchildren, and died in 1160 H. Care should be taken to not confuse thisNizam al-Din Ahmad with Mulla
Sadra's son
Man is an existent who, besides having knowledge of affairs, is aware of his knowledge, while an animal's perception of its surroundings is nothing but a simple perception. On the contrary, human thought is a composite kind of perception.
Mulla Sadra is one of the philosophers who has dealt with this problem and in his book "Asfar" has divided knowledge, as well as ignorance, into simple and composite types.
Simple knowledge means perceiving an object without the perceiver's awareness of his perception of object. However, the composite knowledge means perceiving the object while having the perceiver aware of his perception of object. In defining the composite knowledge, Mulla Sadra
has referred to a very important point. He maintains:"the
criterion of obligation and the source of judgement
for disbelief and belief is nothing but the composite knowledge". It is only through the composite knowledge that right and wrong are identified and the differences of rank among people are revealed. Mulla
Sadra also considers the criterion of the prophetic mission to be the realization of the composite knowledge. Therefore, it can be safely claimed that the great philosopher of Shiraz considers reason as preceded transmission, and philosophy as being prior to religion.
The Reality and Nature of Knowledge
Dr . S . M. Muhaqqiq Damad
Islamic Philosophers have treated knowledge from two angles: ontology and epistemology. So far as the former concerns, they have posed the question of whether knowledge exists. As for the latter, they have dealt with the nature and reality of knowledge, that is, the relation between knowledge and the known.
Concerning the former, Islamic philosophers believe that knowledge has a reality. In
Mulla Sadra's view, the soul represents God on the earth and is as creative as He is. God creates the world and bestows objective existence to the creatures. Similarly, the soul gives mental existence to objects in itself through imagination.
The difference is that what God creates enjoys reality, while what the soul creates lacks reality.
According to Islamic philosophy, what exists in our mind consists of the quiddities
of objects. They believe that the relation between the mind and the outside is something beyond correspondence, in fact, is a kind of identity. When we have the very objects in the mind, why should we go after correspondence? "Identity" does not exist among existents but among
quiddities. Of course, quiddities
have two dresses: the mental dress and the external dress. Therefore, mental existence is one kind of existence and external existence is another kind. However, both of them have the same mould or form which is the very
quiddity itself.
According to Islamic theosophy, the mind conceives the external quiddity
and even if we do not have access to the existence of an object, we can perceive its reality through its quiddity.
The Metaphysics of Modalities in Mulla Sadra
Dr .
M .A Ejehi
In Islamic Philosophy, two approaches are of significance in clarifying the existential quality of the three modalities. According to the first approach, advocated by Illuminationist
philosophers, the triple modalities are subjective and mentally-posited attributes. The second approach is advocated by the Peripatetic philosophers and indicates that the triple modalities are among the objective attributes. The second approach has been attributed to Ibn
Sina in current philosophical books.
In this article, the author has refered to Ibn
Rushd as a rigourous advocate of this idea and proves that, Mulla Sadra, although taking the middle course in this regard and referring to it as "incidental compromise", agrees with the Peripatetics' approach. His arguements in this respect are in agreement with those of Ibn Rushd
in his book "Tahafat al-tahafut". In the end, he writes that Mulla Sadra, for justifying his ultimate view concerning the issue of "the concomitant of the claim of the truth of statement and the claim of knowledge", separates his way from Khwajah Nasir al-Din Tusi, who followed the Illuminatiomsts on this issue, and also Imam Fakhr, who believed in the mentally- posited quality of modalities.
The Principle of presupposition and the Predicative Existence
Asgari Solaimani Amiri
The present article pertains to a philosophical and theological principle called "the principle of presupposition". This principle has been the focus of philosophers' attention for a long time, and they have used it in the following discussions:
A) the truth of affirmative propositions
B) the issue of mental existence
C) the non-occurence
of existence as an accident to quiddity
D) the thingness
and stability of the contingent non-existent
Most of philosophers not only agree with this principle, but also consider it as being evident and necessary. In their works, they have usually discussed this principle as a categorical affirmative proposition, and consider the existence of subject as being necessary for its truth.
Accordingly, one might ask whether there is any conformity between this principle and the content of every categorical affirmative proposition.
After presenting Fakhr Razi and
Mulla Sadras' responses to this question, the writer analyses the problem of the principle of presupposition and simple questions concerning the attribution of quiddity
to existence. In justifying this attribution, philosophers are divided in to two groups and the reasons provided by either group are presented in the article.
A Comparative Study of time in Aristotelian Philosophy and the Transcendent Theosophy
A.Shaikh Shoaie
In this article, the writer deals with the concept of time which has occupied philosophers' minds since long ago. The present study is confined to the views of Aristotle and Mulla Sadra. The writer presents a comparative study of their views to make the readers aware of:
A) the
ideas of the two distinguished philosophers of Greek and Islamic philosophy;
B) the depth of Aristotle's influence on Islamic philosophy in general, and the Transendent
Theosophy in particular; and
C) the
range of innovations in the discussion of time in Mulla
Sadra's Philosophy, and the differences between these two prominent philosophical schools.
At the end, the writer briefly concludes that:
Aristotle believes that motion occurs in accidents and, as a result, time is also related to accidents. However, Mulla Sadra is of the view that motion occurs in substance. Of course he does not consider substance as identical with motion.
Although the two philosophers present different definitions of time, they share a common point in the sense that both have included priority and posteriority
in their definitions.
Cosmological Argument in the Western Philosophy
Dr . A. Hesamifar
Translated by: A.
Haqiri Qazwini
"Cosmological argument" is the name of a series of arguments, in which emphasizing on the imperfect existents' need to a perfect one and the impossibility of infinite regression, the existence of that perfect existent is proved. Some versions of this argument are as follows: the argument of motion, the argument of causality, and the argument of contingency and necessity; through all of which the existence of Unmoved Mover, Uncaused Cause, and the Necessary Being is proved relying on the imperfection of moving, caused, and contingent thing.
There were opponents and exponents for the Cosmological argument in the Western philosophy. What is discussed in the present article is the views of some of the most eminent exponents of this argument as well as the critiques made against them. The article begins with Plato's view, and then views of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas (whose view is discussed in more details), Descartes, John Locke, and Leibniz are
quoted.The present article is mostly aimed to introduce the various versions of this argument in the Western philosophy. At the same time, the author has tried, on the one hand, to answer some critiques made against these versions, and on the other, to criticize some defects, which are seen in these versions. |