Mulla Sadra's Life, Works, and Philosophy
Prof. S. M. Khamenei
Tusi and Mulla Sadra have also made fun of Fakhr al-Din Razi's words concerning Almighty's power, and the former refers to his words about the reconciliation of philosophers and theologians as "a peace that has not been established based on bilateral consent."
Altogether, Fakhr al-Din Razi provides a good opportunity for Mulla Sadra and for any other researcher-philosopher to consolidate the foundations of philosophy by rejecting his false interpretations and unfounded objections and criticisms. In this way, they can also remove the weak points of philosophy through research and reasoning. However, being fair and avoiding religious and scientific dogma, which characterize Mulla Sadra (and most Shi'ite philosophers), make him accept the words that conform to the truth, quote them in his books, and appreciate their speaker. As we read in hadith, "Judge the truth or falsity of a statement by paying attention to its meaning not to its speaker." That is why we can observe so many direct and indirect quotations in Mulla Sadra's books from Ghazzali, Fakhr al-Din Razi, and others, which have provided an excuse for slanderers to call them instances of plagiarism.
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Khwajah Nasir al-Din Tusi (597-672 AH) was one of the philosophers and scientists that Mulla Sadra greatly respected. He referred to him as "the most knowledgeable of all the scholars of his time." Many of the cases in which Mulla Sadra has followed the suit of Tusi are related to his rejecting Fakhr al-Din Razi's criticisms, which are recorded in his commentary on Ibn Sina's al-Isharat or in his other book Naqd al-muhassal.
In some cases, Tusi's words are considered weak, and Mulla Sadra has preferred to present his own reasoning and ideas. The books of Khwajah Nasir al-Din Tusi cannot be considered as the main sources of the Transcendent philosophy, and his principles and ideas cannot, in fact, compare to those of Ibn Sina and his Peripatetic philosophy. His books can only be viewed as references for Mulla Sadra's books. However, from a historical point of view and from the perspective of the history of philosophy, since Tusi is one of the main theoreticians and primary sources of Shi'ite philosophy, we can say that he represents a trend in philosophical thought that moved from Qutb al-Din Razi, Shahrzuri, and the theologians and philosophers of Shiraz such as Dashtaki, Dawani, Seyyed Sharif, and Iji to Sammaki and, the most important of all, Mir Damad and finally led to Mulla Sadra's Transcendent Philosophy. Therefore, he can be considered as one of the pillars of this school.
Mulla Sadra smartly followed the political line of the Peripatetic-Illuminative philosophical thought advocated by Ja'fari Batinis. Under the guise of the Isma'ilites, gnosis, and mysticism, they fought against the Abbasid caliphate and tried to destroy the philosophical and cultural principles of that tyrannical and cruel dynasty. Tusi, who played a significant role in directing the Ash'arite thoughts towards Shi'ite theology and from there towards the genuine Islamic philosophy and wisdom, was greatly respected and favored by Mulla Sadra. He viewed Tusi as a true, all-knowing, and researcher philosopher, although, like other philosophers, he sometimes did not accept his ideas.
Tusi's insistence on erasing Fakhr al-Din Razi's temptations and skepticism in Sharh al-isharat and his other books, in addition to protecting the front of Islamic wisdom from annihilation, was intended to fight a policy that used the likes of Fakhr al-Din Razi to protect the caliphs of Baghdad and, in order to please them, put fire to Qaysariyyah. Those books of Tusi which Mulla Sadra has quoted in his works more than others include Sharh al-isharat, Naqd al-muhassal, and Tarjrid al-kalam. Sometimes, when discussing the subject of knowledge, he has also referred to Tusi's treatises of Problem of Knowledge and Musari' al-masari'.
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Mulla Sadra also paid attention to Ghazzali (450-505 AH). He is one of the thinkers whose influence, whether positive or negative, can be seen on Mulla Sadra's works. Ghazzali was born in a clergical family in Tus and Khorasan and was extremely talented and intelligent. He studied Kalam under Juwayni, known as Imam al-Haramayn and the Ash'arite mutikallim (theologian) and could soon become famous in the seminary of Khorasan for his knowledge and enmity with Shi'ism. As a result, he attracted the attention of Nizam al-Mulk Tusi (the Grand Vizier of the Saljuks). Like Ghazzali, Nizam al-Mulk followed the Shafi'ite school of thought and had an Ash'arite taste. He was also extremely prejudiced about Baghdad's caliphs. However, what they mainly had in common was their hostility against the Batinis, who performed their secret political and promotional activities under the guise of the Islma'ilite in Iran and were harshly pursued and suppressed by the government of the time. The caliphate of Baghdad also encouraged and supported the Iranian government in this fight.
In such conditions, the cultural and propaganda authorities of the Saljuk government and Nizam al-Mulk needed Ghazzali; one was eager for receiving help and the other was in need of giving help. Accordingly, he started serving Nizam al-Mulk Tusi in his youth and succeeded in reaching the mastership chair of the Nizamiyyah School in Baghdad at the age of 34. However, the spirit of mysticism, on the one hand, and Nizam al-Mulk's death, on the other, finally planted the seeds of doubt in his heart at the junction of the world and the Hereafter. Thus he turned from the science of Kalam to ethics. He wrote his famous books such as Ihya' al-'ulum, al-Manqaz min al-zilal, and the like during his period of confusion, and his other works such as Tahafut al-falasifa and Maqasid are related to his first period of writing.
Mulla Sadra also had his eyes on Ghazzali to some extent, perhaps, because of his interest during his adolescence and before that in ethics, hadith, gnosis, and the related books. Available evidence suggests that Ihya' al-'ulum was one of his most favorable books. That is the reason why he refers to Ghazzali as the master of all knowers or the great ocean of knowledge.
Mulla Sadra's encounter with Ghazzali can be divided into two parts: one part entails rejection and condemnation and the other entails respect. When Ghazzali steps outside his field of knowledge, enters the domain of philosophy, and, while abusing the ideas attributed to earlier philosophers, attacks philosophy and philosophers altogether and indirectly targets the Batini philosophical thoughts and ideas, Mulla Sadra attacks him and ridicules his claimed knowledge. For example, in chapter 16, Three-fold Substances, in al-Asfar, while quoting Ghazzali's words in Tahafut al-falasifa, he refers to him as follows:
... One of the people who shows enmity to the people of the truth (philosophers or the same Batinis) through verbal attacks and pretends to be a man of gnosis mainly through commotion. He is like a person who has gone to fight brave people just because he carries some war weapons. Ghazzali has said this in a book that he has called Philosophers' Controversial Ideas...
As he himself has written in his treatise al-Manqaz min al-zilal, Ghazzali did not acquire philosophy under a teacher, and, until the time he taught kalam in Baghdad's Nizamiyyah School, he was not familiar with it. During those years, when he was free from teaching and writing, he studied a few philosophy books (which even the masters of this field sometimes fail to understand). He claimed that he attained a complete understanding of philosophy in less than two years and then started philosophizing and writing Maqasid al-falasifa and Tahafut al-falasifa. In this regard, he says:
I tried to learn this science only through reading the related books by myself and without a teacher. When I was free from writing books and teaching the Shar'i sciences, I studied philosophy, and, at the same time with teaching 300 students in Baghdad, I completed my knowledge of philosophy only through self-study and with the help of God in less than 2 years. Then I continually scrutinized it for about a year.
Clearly, studying a difficult and multi-faceted science such as philosophy, which must be studied with purity in the alter, without a teacher in less than two years when he was free from teaching and writing at an age at which one is not much leady for learning is almost impossible. During a less-than-two-year period a young and serious student studying under an expert teacher does not learn much more than a few philosophical concepts, much less a complete knowledge of philosophy. It is at this point that we understand Mulla Sadra's point and learn about the real value of what Ghazzali claims to possess from philosophy.
Nevertheless, Mulla Sadra does not deal with him like an enemy and, unlike prejudiced thinkers, does not ignore all of his ideas and words for two reasons. The first is because of the principle of fairness and accepting the truth, which characterize true philosophy and philosophers and both exist in Mulla Sadra; and the second is because, by using the words of Ghazzali, who is an Ash'artie and naturally, while being a Shafi'ite, a Hanbalite, he tries to convince the Ash'arite opponents of the Hanbalite religion.
For example, Mulla Sadra quotes a sentence from him in conformity with his theory of the immateriality of imagination. Moreover, on confirming the division of pleasures into sense, imaginal, and rational pleasures he brings a quotation from him which originally belonged to Ibn Sina and Ghazzali had found favorable. Still in another place, he maintains that Ghazzali's idea concerning the legitimacy of the world's representing the best order, which is the idea of the Peripatetic and Illuminationist philosophers, is similar to his idea and accepts it. Both of them also acknowledge the reality that the creation of the world is at the height of perfection, and man is the same collection of the world or the macrocosm.
Mulla Sadra mainly pays attention to Ghazzali's books on interpretation and ethics and refers to his words without any bias in some parts of al-Asfar and his other books. None of these quotations are due to Mulla Sadra's need for ideas; rather, since he finds Ghazzali's words sufficient for the expression of his purpose, he kills two birds with one stone through quoting him.
All in all, Mulla Sadra's school is not indebted to Ghazzali or the likes of him, and if, because of open-mindedness and liberality, he quotes others, which is his habit (particularly in al-Asfar, which he basically wrote in order to compare his own ideas with those of others), we cannot and must not consider him a thief or one who needs others' ideas to write books. This truth can be demonstrated through a one-to-one comparison of the points that he has quoted from Ghazzali and others.
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Abstracts
Secret of the Evidence of the First Form of Syllogism
Gholamreza Zakiyani
What is the secret behind the evidence of the first form of syllogism? Aristotle believes that the first form is complete while the others are not. Therefore, he demonstrates them by means of the first form. He also clarifies the syllogisms of the first forms through explaining the concept of "being predicated on all" and "being predicated on none". Aristotle's syllogism is not as formal as that of Ibn Sina (we infer this from their views of subjects such as categories, example of refutation, and the fourth form). Accordingly, when explaining the first form of syllogism, the First Teacher resorts to the predicative context of "each A is related to each B", but Ibn Sina resorts to the copulative context of "each A is A". In a copulative context, the first form is considered to be evident and the equity syllogism must be referred back to it. However, in a predicative context, it becomes clear that the first form, like the equity principle, depends on the transition of relation and does not need one to refer to another.
Key Terms
Aristotle copulative context
syllogism equity
first form transition
predicative context
Intermediate World in Illuminative Philosophy and the Philosophies of the Oneness of Being
Monireh Palangi
Based on a quotation from Henry Corbin about Suhrawardi's philosophy, the writer of this paper argues that the issues related to the intermediate world are found in philosophies that believe in a kind of oneness among all levels of being. Accordingly, if we fail to observe such a typical unity between the worlds of light and darkness in the philosophy of, for example, Suhrawardi, even if, in a way, we consider him to be the founder or reviver of the issues related to the intermediate world, we will never be allowed to place the intermediate world at the basis of his ontological system. This indicates that in his philosophy a kind of duality remains in the realm of being. The role of the intermediate world is not simply to add a world to other worlds. Rather, it is to unite the other two worlds so tightly with each other that the lower world attains the principles and attributes of the higher world as much as possible, and, in this way, a kind of unity is established. Of course, we must pay attention that such a role is necessitated by the intermediary nature of this world.
Accordingly, available evidence in Suhrawardi's philosophy indicates that Henry Corbin's interpretation of Suhrawardi's philosophy as a school based on the intermediate world, or, in his own words, based on imagination, which has created a revolution in philosophical methodology and is between 'yes' and 'no', will be correct only if propounding this world causes the penetration and inclusion of the reality of the higher world into the innermost of the essence of the lower world. However, the duality of the worlds of light and darkness does not allow the portrayal of such a picture from Suhrawardi's ontology. In line with this discussion, the writer, after a brief reference to the ontologies of Ibn Arabi, Dawani, and Mulla Sadra, will deal with the assumption of the realization of the intermediate world in each of them as an objection to the oneness of being in Islamic philosophy. Nevertheless, it is presupposed that, according to Mulla Sadra himself, there is no difference between his gradational unity and Ibn Arabi's partial unity.
Key Terms
intermediate world oneness of being
typical unity typical duality
light darkness
dark substance substance
plurality in unity unity in plurality
purgatory middle world
world of imagination
A Comparative Study of the "Perfect Man" in Ibn Arabi and Rumi
Qudratullah Khayyatian
Ibn Arabi and Rumi were two well-known gnostics and poets who both lived in the 7th century, one from the West and the other from the East of the world of Islam. The significance of Ibn Arabi's works lies in his developing the system of Islamic theoretical gnosis and theorizing in this field. The effects of his teachings and thoughts have still remained with us until now. However, Rumi's significance lies in his expressing a number of profound gnostic concepts mainly in the mould of poetry in Persian. His Mathnawi is his masterpiece and the most important gnostic work in the field of Persian literature.
Both of these two prominent gnostics dealt with the fundamental issues in the gnostic worldview including "gnostic anthropology". The essence of Ibn Arabi's gnostic anthropology is the discussion of the "perfect man". He coined this term himself and used it in his important works such as in Futuhat al-makkiyyah and in the first chapter of his Fusus al-hikam. After him, Sadr al-Din Qunawi, Ibn Arabi's student, disciple, and step-son, explained it in detail in his Mafatih al-ghayb. Rumi has also spoken of gnostic anthropology - without using the term "perfect man" - in his works, particularly in Mathnawi.
In this paper, through a study of the most important works of Ibn Arabi, particularly Futuhat al-makkiyyah and Fusus al-hikam, and Rumi's Mathnawi, the writer has tried to compare their ideas concerning the issue of the "perfect man". He has also tried to examine their similar views and the possibility of Rumi's having been influenced by Ibn Arabi.
Key Terms
Ibn Arabi Rumi
gnostic anthropology perfect man
comparative study
Role of Self-Purity in Acquiring Knowledge in Mulla Sadra's View
Fatima Suleymani
The relationship between knowledge and ethics is one of the important issues that has always been discussed in epistemology. The effect of self-purity on the quality of knowledge acquisition is also one of the interesting and fundamental subjects in this regard. In this research, after a general study of the views of Muslim philosophers concerning knowledge and the quality of attaining perception, it becomes clear that the truth of knowledge is ontological in nature and is emanated from the world above to man's heart (soul). A study of Mulla Sadra's works reveals that perception is attained at three sense, imaginal, and rational stages through unity with imaginal forms and the immaterial intellect. In doing so, some obstacles such as the love of worldly affairs and soulish desires block the necessary potential for attaining true knowledge. Finally, the writer introduces the purification of the soul as the most important factor in attaining certainty.
Key Terms
self-purity sense perception
intellection active intellect
Mulla Sadra
An Analytical View of the Doctrine Part of the Avicennan Argument
Masoud Omid
This paper seeks to revise the Avicennan argument with an analytical view. On this basis, first a specific division concerning the theory of the Avicennan argument is presented based on its inclusion of doctrine, method and skill. Then focusing only on the doctrine part its contents and claims are studied by dividing it into the two conceptual (or logical) and objective (or epistemological) parts.
In this paper an attempt is made to discuss the main characteristics and the key points concerning the doctrine of argument.
Key Terms
Avicennan argument general division of the doctrine of argument
doctrine of argument logical aspect
epistemological aspect
The Relation between Concept and Referent in Mulla Sadra's Philosophy
Seyyed Majid Mirdamadi & Fayyaz Saberi
The subject of the present research is the concept-referent relation in Mulla Sadra's system of philosophy. It also aims to demonstrate the hypothesis of the correspondence of the different types of imaginative concepts and referents. Moreover, based on the principles of the Transcendent Philosophy as well as the principle of the correspondence of the worlds and the quiddative unity of realities, this research proves the conformity between imaginative concepts and their referents.
Concerning particular quiddative concepts, the representatives of natural forms in the soul are justified through the actualization of perceptive forms. However, when it comes to universal quiddative concepts, the conformity between the concepts and the referent is justified through: 1) the unity of the soul with the active intellect, 2) the observation of intellectual forms, and 3) the natural universal and individuals. Secondary logical intelligibles, which are among the accidents of primary intelligibles, have a corresponding relation to mental referents (primary and secondary logical intelligibles). In addition, philosophical secondary intelligibles, except those concepts lacking in an actualized mental and external nature, have external referents. Mulla Sadra's proof in this regard is that in the receptacle of each relation there are two sides. Therefore, a philosophical secondary intelligible bears an unveiling relation to its external object and corresponds to it.
Key Terms
relation quiddative concept
secondary logical intelligible secondary philosophical intelligible
conformity of the worlds quiddative unity of realities
the Transcendent Philosophy
A Comparative Study of Cosmological Proofs in 'Allamah Tabataba'i and Suhrawardi
Foruzan Rasikhi
The cosmological argument is one of the arguments on the demonstration of God's existence which has attracted the attention of philosophers since the time of Plato. In this paper, the writer has presented 'Allamah Tabataba'i's interpretations of the arguments on the demonstration of God, particularly the argument of cause and effect and the argument of motion and the mover. Later, he has compared Tabataba'i's ideas in this regard with those of Suhrawardi.
In order to accomplish this task, the writer has referred to the arguments that Suhrawardi has presented concerning this topic in his books. Then, following a comparative approach, he has explained the interpretations and ideas of 'Allamah and Suhrawardi concerning the cosmological arguments and pinpointed the former's adaptations of the ideas of the latter and discussed 'Allamah's related innovations in comparison to those of Suhrawardi. It is worthy of attention that most of 'Allamah's arguments are more convincing and stronger than Suhrawardi's.
Key Terms
proof cosmology
argument cause and effect
motion and the mover