Mulla Sadra's Life, Works, and Philosophy
Prof. S. M. Khamenei
We must confess that Mulla Sadra and his students went through very hard times at least for a century. If we bring our hearts together with such true philosophers and gnostics and try to think like them and share their sufferings, we will be able to see the difficulties they endured and the dark atmosphere of the society of that time by the eyes of our hearts. They lived in a period in which one could not survive and stand the hardships unless through having steadfastness and a strong will power, desiring Almighty God's satisfaction, and sacrificing oneself for the human society.
A very subtle point that should be taken into consideration here is the conscious and deliberate interference of the governments of the time in the lives of these prominent thinkers. A possibility that is very close to reality is that Safawid kings, particularly Shah Abbas, intentionally tried to make the scholars of that time stand against each other.[1] Causing conflicts between jurisprudents and mystics, jurisprudents and Akhbaris, theologians and philosophers, both of them and gnostics, and even making jurisprudents stand against each other (for example, the story of the Friday prayer in the Safawid era, particularly, in Fayd Kashani's time and the conflicts over Shar'i problems) were different from people's confrontations over gaining high positions, Friday prayer, congregation prayer, religious endowments, and monthly and annual taxes.
This so-called "policy" was employed by governments in the very early centuries of Islam and reached its peak in the Abbasid period. In that time, there were a great number of corrupt rulers whose beliefs, acts, and behaviors bore no similarity to those of the Prophet (pbuh) and Rightly-guided Caliphs. They spent their time drinking and womanizing, killed Muslims very easily, and used Muslims' public treasury and property for their animal desires or divided them among their own relatives, friends, and servants.
However, the alertness and sublime thoughts of the Muslim society could not bear these so-called and self-claimed successors of the Prophet (pbuh). Their cries of "protect Islam" and "protect the Imams" made people rise and stand against the rulers and pull them down their royal and imperial thrones. Therefore, the kings and rulers of that time made Muslims fight their neighboring countries and, mainly, revolutionary groups such as those following Shi'i and Iranian movements as much as possible. They also caused some wars among Arab tribes, and since their domain of act was limited, they tried to forge some religions themselves and make theological and jurisprudential schools face each other. In spite of officially recognizing the four non-Shi'i schools of thought , they created such oppositions among them that, every once in a while, the followers of one of these Sunni schools of thought rose against those of other schools of thought, shed the blood of other Muslims, and enslaved their wives.
An example in this regard is the terrible war of 553 AH in Neishabur among the Hanafites and Shafi'ites. The advocates of these two religions attacked each other like beasts, put fire to houses, bazaars, mosques, and schools, and slaughtered so many of each other that the fatalities were no less than those of Mongol's attack.[2]
In 716 AH, the fire of war also blazed among Shafi'ites and Hanbalites. Here, too, they looted or put fire to each other's property and captivated women and children. Disseminating the permissibility of killing Muslims and shedding their honorable blood and provoking one religious group against another concerned mainly the Shi'i school of thought. This is because creating oppositions between Sunnite schools of thought and Shi'ism and killing their followers prevented Muslims' unity with each other and diverted their attention from the inefficiency of their rulers. The oppressive governments that did not observe any Islamic principles thought that with the massacre of Shi'ites, i.e. the followers of the Prophet's Household, who always acknowledged the ruling of Muslims as their own natural right and were known by people as Riza-i al-Muhammed, the roots of opposition and opponents would dry out in their realms of power and they would get rid of the main threat to their authority.
This very policy of the apparently Muslim rulers of previous centuries has unfortunately grown deeper roots in the world, and we can still observe its impacts upon Muslim societies. Even today, there are some governments in the East and the oppressive West that benefit from the disagreements among religions and, by intensifying them in different ways and specific situations, make Muslims fight each other. Moreover, by deceiving people and provoking false emotions in them, they divide the Muslims of the world into various groups, and, as a result, we can see that sometimes in the same country or even in the same city, Islamic brothers shed each other's blood and, therefore, anger the Almighty and torment the holy spirit of the Prophet (pbuh).
This policy has always existed in the world and will continue to exist as long as there are corrupt and wicked people in the world. The prophets and philosophers came to destroy the unstable foundation of satanic politics and replace it with a firm political structure in its divine sense. In reaction to all the cruelty and misery imposed upon him, Mulla Sadra wrote Se asl, in which he advised his enemies in a fatherly and even prophet-like manner to stop their evil acts. If he had not been ordered by the Heavenly Commander, he would have never started writing and speaking about faith-related truths and the Transcendent philosophy. The writer believes that, in spite of his profound belief in his master's principles, such as the trans-substantial motion and the immateriality of imagination and Transcendent Philosophy, one of Fayyad Lahiji's reasons for pretending to be a theologian in practice and rejecting some of Mulla Sadra's theories was to prevent disagreements and conflicts among Muslims, particularly the followers of the newly-risen Shi'ism of the Safawid era, rather than fearing to talk about his beliefs and not having faith in the basic foundations of Sadrian Transcendent Philosophy.
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The character of Mulla Abdulrazzaq Lahiji or Fayyad, although not of the same level with Mulla Sadra's, was as high as those of the prominent scholars of the history of philosophy, gnosis, and even literature and poetry in Iran. Due to time and space limitations, we cannot discuss his character, school, and poetry in detail. However, we will provide a short explanation in this regard below:
1. Character: If we wish to refer to a mould or type for Fayyad's character, the best will be that of all the people who studied under Mulla Sadra. His students were always a group of pious people who had left tens or even hundreds of cumbersome spiritual tests behind, gained victory over the evil enemy, experienced long periods of very difficult ascetic practices and 40-day fasts. They were also inspired by the divine light of gnosis, suffered from the pain of longing for the love of the Pure Beauty, and burnt their spirits for a lifetime so that the luminosity of their wisdom and certitude brightened the way of humanity towards the truth.
These men were firmer than mountains. They did not react to the idle talks of slanderer and did not break with the strikes of any axe-man. We can observe the description and eulogies of such men in the Holy Qur'an, Nahj al-balaqah, and some of the supplications of Imam Sajads' Khamsah 'ashar. Like jewels, whether under the ground or on the crown, they are more invaluable than any possession other than contentment.
This mould represents the characters of Fayyad, Fayd, and all the thinkers similar to them. However, each of them had his own specific characteristics, and one cannot deny the effects of race, lineage, mother land, historical period, training, masters, and places of study on the development of their personality.
Fayyad was a man who, in addition to being a master of philosophy, theoretical and practical wisdom, and spiritual wayfaring, enjoyed an essentially pious soul that favored seclusion but tried to conceal it by mixing and socializing with his students. The beauty of his personal conduct was intertwined with the beauty of his social behavior. As some of his contemporary historians have written:
... he had adorned his knowledge with jewels of practice. He spoke sweetly and brightened the gatherings with his pleasant works. In spite of his purity of the soul, he socialized with different groups and talked with young people enthusiastically. He always remained a pious man and never used slanders against anyone or became involved in corruption...[3]
He was spiritually so rich that, in spite of his friendship with men of high position and government members, he never lost control or forgot his real self and preferred the corner of school - and perhaps dervish monasteries - to kings' courts and ministers' palaces. He enjoyed such breadth of view and certain soul that he left hundreds of events and accidents behind in a heroic manner, and the waves of misfortunes never made him deviate from the right path.
Nevertheless, we are still unable to describe him completely and must admit that there have always been some men in this world whose character can never be fully known or put into words.
Abstracts
Politics and the Transcendent Philosophy
Seyyed Mohammed Khamenei
The theme of this Congress is political philosophy, or philosophy, in the transcendent Philosophy; i.e. in Mulla Sadra's view. Here, I do not intend to discuss politics in Mulla Sadra's philosophy. This will be done by the distinguished scholars and speakers taking part in this congress, and we hope that similar studies continue in future in other forms. My main intention here is to pave the way for beginning of this discussion and to encourage all the people dealing with philosophy to study and analyze this topic. Such issues have always existed in philosophy during the last several centuries of its life, and if we explore the depth of the history of philosophy, we learn that they were always the focus of attention of related gatherings. For some reasons they were studied first in Greece and later in other places in an academic fashion.
Key words:
practical wisdom politics
Mulla Sadra The Transcendent Philosophy
political philosophy the most perfect cosmos
Politics in Akhlaq-e Naseri
Muhammed Khwansari
Key words:
politics Khwaja Nasir al-Din Tusi
Akhlaq-e naseri political philosophy
practical wisdom
The Meaning of Political Philosophy in Mulla Sadra
Sometimes, various issues in political philosophy are studied following a political approach or other approaches. However, political philosophy should sometimes be studied from a divine perspective such as the Transcendent Philosophy, which is a superb example in this regard. In this paper, it has been tried to discover the meaning of political philosophy in this school.
Political philosophy has always been a very important issue for philosophers. This is, in fact, an honor for philosophy to have focused on this discipline as a principial principle in the history of philosophy. A great number of prominent philosophers have not only studied this topic but also made it the focus of their basic debates.
Key words:
politics political philosophy
Mulla Sadra Shari'ah
reality practical wisdom
Hamidreza Ayatollahi
The focus of this paper is the necessity of developing a political philosophy based on Sadrian views. This requires a more intensive study of Sadrian political thought so that we can believe in it and present it to others. The important point here is to learn about the principles of the basic political thoughts of our society. Then we should see whether these principles lend themselves to criticism and conform to our social standards.
Key words:
political thought political philosophy
western politics politics in Islam
criticizability
Mulla Sadra's philosophical approach and the originality of his philosophical thought have always been under scrutiny. Judging the epistemological determination of this philosophy depends on the different aspects of the methodology of the Transcendent Philosophy. Basically, a systematic criticism and understanding of Sadrian philosophy is only possible in the light of methodology.
Moreover, Mulla Sadra himself claimed that his philosophy is a superior one and introduced the Transcendent Philosophy as his most important work. The claim to a transcendent philosophy was made several centuries before Mulla Sadra by other philosophers such as Ibn Sina. However, the Transcendent Philosophy is a title that is commonly applied to Mulla Sadra's philosophy, as well as to those of his followers. Now, one might ask, why Sadrian Philosophy is called the superior wisdom.
Some contemporary thinkers have posed the above question, and the writer of this paper believes that it can be answered relying on the methodology of Mulla Sadra's philosophy. He has tried to reveal the secret of the superiority of Mulla Sadra's philosophy based on a review of the ideas of his critics and Sadriologists.
Key words:
Mulla Sadra methodology of the Transcendent Philosophy
eclecticism Illuminationist Ibn Sina
superior language vertical diversity
interdisciplinary approach theological philosophy
Mohsen Javadi
God has recognized man to be qualified for attaining a perfectional form of the rational soul due to his piety and balanced constitution. This soul, which is a spiritual faculty, enables man to have universal and particular perceptions and influence meanings and forms.
This rational soul has two faculties. He perceives the universals with one of them and act upon his ideas with the other. The former is called theoretical intellect. According to the common Peripatetic theory, universal knowledge is attained through connection to the Active Intellect, which contains all universal perceptual forms. In this way, in order to perceive the universals, the soul turns to its superior world, i.e., the world of separate intelligences. The faculty by which the rational soul becomes involved in though-related activities is called the practical intellect. Such activities are performed through developing particular ideas concerning practical affairs.
Key words:
Mulla Sadra particular understanding
practical intellect general opinion
universal understanding theoretical intellect
particular idea
Seyyed 'Alireza Sadr Hosseini
The demonstration of the absolute simplicity and real oneness of the Necessary Being, on the one hand, and the presentation of an explanation for the possible beings that are consistent with this oneness are among the most important challenges that Islamic philosophy has to deal with. By restricting the reality of being to the Essence of the Necessary, gnostics have solved this problem successfully; however, philosophers' confirmations of an independent and original existence for possible beings based on the principles of causality is inconsistent with the absolute simplicity of the Necessary. All the efforts of Muslim philosophers for solving this problem were unsuccessful until Mulla Sadra's time. By posing the philosophical principle of 'the Truth in its simplicity contains all things', he solved this riddle and demonstrated the individual oneness of being in the light of a new explanation of the principle of causality. In this way, he paved the way for philosophy to have access to the individual oneness of being. This paper aims to explain Mulla Sadra's significant efforts in this regard.
Key words:
philosophy simplicity
manifestation possible
causality Mulla Sadra
plurality gnosis
oneness The Necessary
Reality in its simplicity being
gradation
Qualifications and Characteristics of a Religious Politician in Farabi and Mulla Sadra
'Abdul'ali Shokr
Farabi and Mulla Sadra discussed politics in their works because they considered it to be a branch of practical wisdom. They paid particular attention to the features and characteristics of the leader of a religious society so that he could take control of the affairs and lead people in accordance with a revealed religion and pave the way for the realization of an ideal society. Therefore, for these two philosophers, unlike the common ruling systems of the world, politics is formed on the basis of spirituality and religious guidance. The six-fold conditions of the first leader are different from his twelve-fold characteristics because the former are acquired while the latter are natural and intrinsic. Mulla Sadra agrees with Farabi almost completely and grants an Ishraqi flavor to Farabi's condition of wisdom, which he poses according to the Peripatetic method.
The characteristics of the first leader of the religious society in their totality can only be found in the Prophet (pbuh). After him, the only person who deserves this position is the Infallible Imam (a). In his absence, a qualified jurisprudent (mujtahid) becomes the leader. Both philosophers agree with these three stages. However, after these three people, Farabi believes that leadership belongs to a two-person council and, then, a six- person council whose members, in addition to the necessary characteristics, enjoy one of the six-fold conditions, particularly wisdom. The leader must have these features at their highest level and is appointed to this post.
Key words:
Politics first leader
Farabi Mulla Sadra
Jurisprudent religious jurist (mujtahid)
Unity of Divine Acts in the Transcendent Philosophy
Nahid Nafisi
One of the most important issues which has long attracted the attention of most thinkers is the relation of man's voluntary acts to Almighty God.
The belief in the Unity of Divine Acts indicates that the world of being has only a single real agent and the effusion of existence and independent influence are restricted to the Holy Essence of the Almighty Truth.
Various theories have been propounded in this regard. On the one hand, a group of theologians (Ash'arites), by acknowledging the Unity of Divine Acts, totally denied the influence of intermediary causes and, by negating causality, introduced the Almighty God as the direct agent of each phenomenon. On the other hand, another group of theologians (Mu'tazilites) accepted some kind of independence in influence (at the level of delegation), particularly, concerning the above-mentioned voluntary agents and rejected the attribution of man's voluntary acts to the Almighty. They denied the Unity of Divine Acts.
There were also some philosophers who agreed with the indirect (through an intermediary) dependence of all phenomena, even man's voluntary acts, on vertical activity. Finally, Mulla Sadra explained and analyzed causality as self-manifestation or self-disclosure. He also explained creative activity and, on the basis of the principle of basit al-haqiqah (the truth in its simplicity contains all things), demonstrated that Almighty God is always with His Manifestations. He also stipulated that intermediary causes are the self-manifestations of the Almighty. Accordingly, the effusion of existence in its real sense of the word is limited to God, and the other causes, which enjoy different levels, function as the channels of effusion of existence. In fact, this analysis entails the same content as that of the famous statement, 'There is no influence in existence but God'. In other words, independent influence and effusion of existence are specifically for Almighty God.
Key words:
Acts monotheism Free will and the divine power
Mulla Sadra principle of basit al-haqiqah
divine Knowledge evils
unity of the system of creation activity of the Almighty Truth
Cause and effect
A Comparative Study of Bada' (revocation of a decree) in the Holy Qur'an, Shi'i Hadiths, and the Transcendent Philosophy
'Alireza Khwajagir
The issue of bida' is of particular importance and value to the Holy Qur'an and the Infallible Imams. That is why it has been extensively explained and analyzed in the Shi'i rational school of thought. This paper is devoted to an analysis of bada' in Shi'i traditions and Qur'anic verses. It also deals with some topics such as abrogation, the domain of bada', the reason for denying it, its relation to the issue of predestination, and its explanation in the Transcendent Philosophy.
Key words:
bada' (revocation of a decree) predestination
Divine decree abrogation
Divine knowledge
The Study of God in Plotinus' Philosophical System
Mahdi Alipour
In Plotinus' Philosophical system of the world we can see three hypostases which result from each other vertically. They include: the One, the intellect, and the soul.
There are various views concerning the genesis of the world, such as the theory of creation, which is suggested by holy books, the theory of theophany and manifestation, which belongs to gnostics, and the theory of emanation, in which most philosophers believe.
Concerning the genesis of the world, Plotinus believed in emanation. This word is derived from the Latin word "emanatio", meaning eruption from somewhere. According to Plotinus, the One is not the creator of the world so that He could create voluntarily. The world is the overflow of Divine springing. The One cannot create the world according to His free will because creation is a kind of activity, and attributing an act to God disrupts His Stability and is, therefore, a mistake. Thus Plotinus resorted to the metaphor of "emanation". He believed that God does not decrease by being emanated. He tried to follow a middle way between monotheistic creation, on the one hand, and pantheism, on the other.
Key words:
Plotinus the One (henas)
nous (the intellect) the soul
emanation monotheistic creation
unity of being Reality in its simplicity
[1]. Seyyed Mohammed Khamenei, Mulla Sadra's Life, Character, and Works, Persian version, vol. 1, p. 84.
[2]. al-Imam al-Sadiq, Seyyed Haydar, pp. 190-205.
[3]. Tadhkere-ye Nasrabadi, vol. 1, p. 226.