Mulla Sadra
Encyclopedia
Ṣadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī also called Mulla Sadrā (c. 1572–1640) was a Persian
Shia Islamic philosopher
, theologian
and ‘Ālim
who led the Iran
ian cultural renaissance in the 17th century. According to Oliver Leaman
, Mulla Sadra is arguably the single most important and influential philosopher in the Muslim world in the last four hundred years.
Though not its founder, he is considered the master of the Illuminationist, or (Ishraghi or Ishraqi) school of Philosophy, a seminal figure who synthesized the many tracts of the Islamic Golden Age
, and Andalusian
, philosophies into what he called the Transcendent Theosophy
or al-hikmah al-muta’liyah.
Mulla Sadra brought "a new philosophical insight in dealing with the nature of reality
" and created "a major transition from essentialism
to existentialism
" in Islamic philosophy, although his existentialism
should not be too readily compared to Western existentialism. His was a question of existentialist cosmology as it pertained to Allah
, and thus differs considerably from the individual, moral, and/or social, questions at the heart of Russian, French, German, or American Existentialism.
Mulla Sadra's philosophy ambitiously synthesized Avicennism, Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi
's Illuminationist philosophy, Ibn Arabi
's Sufi metaphysics, and the theology
of the Ash'ari
school and Twelvers.
, in what is now modern day Iran
, to a notable family of court officials in 1571 or 1572, Mulla Sadra moved first to Qazvin
in 1591 and then to Isfahan 1597 to pursue a traditional and institutional education in philosophy, theology, Hadith
, and hermeneutics. Each city was a successive capital of the Safavid dynasty
and centers of Twelver Shi'ite seminaries at that time. His teachers included Mir Damad
and Baha' ad-Din al-`Amili
.
Mulla Sadra completed his education at Isfahan
, a leading cultural and intellectual center of his day. He was trained under the supervision of Mir Damad
.
After he had finished his studies Sadra began to explore unorthodox doctrines and as a result was both condemned and excommunicated by some Shi'i ʿulamāʾ. He then retired for a lengthy period of time to a village named Kahak near qom, where he engaged in contemplative exercises. While in Kahak, he wrote a number of minor works, including the Risāla fi 'l-ḥashr and the Risāla fī ḥudūth al-ʿālam .
In 1612, Mulla Sadra was asked to abandon his retirement by the powerful governor of Fārs, Allāhwirdī Ḵhān and invited back to Shiraz to teach and run a new madrasa devoted to the intellectual sciences. He died in Basra
after the Hajj
and was buried in present-day Iraq
.
He is buried in the city of Najaf
, Iraq.
During this time in Shīrāz, Ṣadrā began writing treatises that synthesized wide-ranging strands of existing Islamic systems of thought. The ideas of this school, which may be seen as a continuation of the School of Iṣfahān of Mīr Dāmād and Shaykh-i Bahāʾī, were promulgated after Sadrā's death by his pupils, several of whom would became sought-after thinkers in their own right, such as, Mullā Muḥsin, Fayḍ Kāshānī, and ʿAbd Razzāḳ Lāhidjī. Although Ṣadrā's influence remained limited in the generations after his death, it increased markedly during the 19th century, when his ideas helped inspire a renewed Akhbārī tendency within Twelver Shīʿism. In recent times, his works have been studied in Iran, Europe, and America.
Mulla Sadra metaphysics gave priority "Ab initio
" to existence, over quiddity
. That is to say, essences are determined and variable according to existential "intensity", (to use Henry Corbin's definition), and as such essences are not immutable. The advantage to this schema is that it is acceptable to the fundamental statements of the Qur'an, even as it does not necessarily debilitate any previous Islamic philosopher's Aristotelian or Platonic foundations.
Indeed, Mulla Sadra provides immutability only to God, while intrinsically linking essence and existence to each other, and God's power over existence. In so doing, Mulla Sadra simultaneously provided for God's authority over all things, while also solving the problem of God's knowledge of particulars, including those that are evil, without being inherently responsible for them - even as God's authority over the existence of existences that provide the framework for evil to exist. This clever solution provides for Freedom of Will, God's Supremacy, the Infiniteness of God's Knowledge, the existence of Evil, and a definition of existence and essence which leaves two inextricably linked insofar as Man is concerned, but fundamentally separate insofar as God is concerned.
Perhaps most importantly, the Primacy of Existence solution provides the capacity for God's Judgement without God being directly, or indirectly, effected by the evil being judged. God does not need to possess Sin to know Sin: God is able to judge the intensity of Sin as God perceives Existence.
One result of this Existentialism is "The unity of the intellect and the intelligible" (Arabic: Ittihad al-Aaqil wa l-Maqul. As Henry Corbin
describes:
motion
" (Arabic:al-harakat al-jawhariyyah), which is "based on the premise that everything in the order of nature
, including celestial spheres
, undergoes substantial change and transformation as a result of the self-flow
(fayd) and penetration of being
(sarayan al-wujud) which gives every concrete individual entity its share of being. In contrast to Aristotle
and Avicenna
who had accepted change only in four categories
, i.e., quantity
(kamm), quality
(kayf), position (wad’) and place (‘ayn), Sadra defines change as an all-pervasive reality
running through the entire cosmos including the category of substance
(jawhar)."
To paraphrase Fazlur Rahman on Mulla Sadra's Existential Cosmology: Existence is the one and only reality. Existence and reality are therefore identical. Existence is the all-comprehensive reality and there is nothing outside of it. Essences which are negative require some sort of reality and therefore exist. Existence therefore cannot be denied. Therefore existence cannot be negated. As Existence cannot be negated, it is self-evident that it Existence is God. God should not be searched for in the realm of existence but is the basis of all existence. It should be noted that Reality in Arabic is "Al-Haq", and is stated in the Qur'an as one of the Names of God
.
To paraphrase Mulla Sadra's Logical Proof for God:
1) There is a being
2) This being is a perfection beyond all perfection
3) God is Perfect and Perfection in existence
4) Existence is a singular and simple reality
5) That singular reality is graded in intensity in a scale of perfection
6) That scale must have a limit point, a point of greatest intensity and of greatest existence
7) Therefore God exists
Sadra also believed that a causal regress was impossible because the causal chain could only work in the matter that had a beginning, middle, and end:
1) a pure cause at the beginning
2) a pure effect at the end
3) a nexus of cause and effect
The Causal Nexus of Mulla Sadra was a form of Existential Ontology within a Cosmological Framework that Islam supported. For Mulla Sadra the Causal "End" is as pure as its corresponding "Beginning", which instructively places God at both the beginning and the end of the creative act. God's capacity to measure the intensity of Existential Reality by measuring Causal Dynamics' and their Relationship to their Origin, as opposed to knowing their effects, provided the Islamically-acceptable framework for God's Judgement of Reality without being tainted by its Particulars. This was an ingenious solution to a question that had haunted Islamic philosophy for almost one thousand years: How is God able to judge sin without knowing sin?
Iranian philosophy
Iranian philosophy or Persian philosophy can be traced back as far as to Old Iranian philosophical traditions and thoughts which originated in ancient Indo-Iranian roots and were considerably influenced by Zarathustra's teachings...
Shia Islamic philosopher
Islamic philosophy
Islamic philosophy is a branch of Islamic studies. It is the continuous search for Hekma in the light of Islamic view of life, universe, ethics, society, and so on...
, theologian
Kalam
ʿIlm al-Kalām is the Islamic philosophical discipline of seeking theological principles through dialectic. Kalām in Islamic practice relates to the discipline of seeking theological knowledge through debate and argument. A scholar of kalām is referred to as a mutakallim...
and ‘Ālim
Ulema
Ulama , also spelt ulema, refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several fields of Islamic studies. They are best known as the arbiters of shari‘a law...
who led the Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian cultural renaissance in the 17th century. According to Oliver Leaman
Oliver Leaman
Oliver Leaman is a Professor of Philosophy and Zantker Professor of Judaic Studies. He has been teaching at the University of Kentucky since August 2000, and is particularly interested in Islamic, Jewish and Eastern philosophy.". He has got his Ph.D...
, Mulla Sadra is arguably the single most important and influential philosopher in the Muslim world in the last four hundred years.
Though not its founder, he is considered the master of the Illuminationist, or (Ishraghi or Ishraqi) school of Philosophy, a seminal figure who synthesized the many tracts of the Islamic Golden Age
Islamic Golden Age
During the Islamic Golden Age philosophers, scientists and engineers of the Islamic world contributed enormously to technology and culture, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding their own inventions and innovations...
, and Andalusian
Andalusian people
The Andalusians are the people of the southern region in Spain approximated by what is now called Andalusia. They are generally not considered an ethnically distinct people because they lack two of the most important markers of distinctiveness: their own language and an awareness of a presumed...
, philosophies into what he called the Transcendent Theosophy
Transcendent Theosophy
Transcendent theosophy or al-hikmat al-muta’li , the doctrine and philosophy developed by Persian philosopher, Mulla Sadra, is one of two main disciplines of Islamic philosophy that is currently live and active....
or al-hikmah al-muta’liyah.
Mulla Sadra brought "a new philosophical insight in dealing with the nature of reality
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
" and created "a major transition from essentialism
Essentialism
In philosophy, essentialism is the view that, for any specific kind of entity, there is a set of characteristics or properties all of which any entity of that kind must possess. Therefore all things can be precisely defined or described...
to existentialism
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
" in Islamic philosophy, although his existentialism
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
should not be too readily compared to Western existentialism. His was a question of existentialist cosmology as it pertained to Allah
Allah
Allah is a word for God used in the context of Islam. In Arabic, the word means simply "God". It is used primarily by Muslims and Bahá'ís, and often, albeit not exclusively, used by Arabic-speaking Eastern Catholic Christians, Maltese Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Mizrahi Jews and...
, and thus differs considerably from the individual, moral, and/or social, questions at the heart of Russian, French, German, or American Existentialism.
Mulla Sadra's philosophy ambitiously synthesized Avicennism, Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi
Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi
Other important Muslim mystics carry the name Suhrawardi, particularly Abu 'l-Najib al-Suhrawardi and his paternal nephew Abu Hafs Umar al-Suhrawardi."Shahāb ad-Dīn" Yahya ibn Habash as-Suhrawardī was a Persian...
's Illuminationist philosophy, Ibn Arabi
Ibn Arabi
Ibn ʿArabī was an Andalusian Moorish Sufi mystic and philosopher. His full name was Abū 'Abdillāh Muḥammad ibn 'Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn `Arabī .-Biography:...
's Sufi metaphysics, and the theology
Kalam
ʿIlm al-Kalām is the Islamic philosophical discipline of seeking theological principles through dialectic. Kalām in Islamic practice relates to the discipline of seeking theological knowledge through debate and argument. A scholar of kalām is referred to as a mutakallim...
of the Ash'ari
Ash'ari
The Ashʿari theology is a school of early Muslim speculative theology founded by the theologian Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari...
school and Twelvers.
Biography
Born in ShirazShiraz
Shiraz may refer to:* Shiraz, Iran, a city in Iran* Shiraz County, an administrative subdivision of Iran* Vosketap, Armenia, formerly called ShirazPeople:* Hovhannes Shiraz, Armenian poet* Ara Shiraz, Armenian sculptor...
, in what is now modern day Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, to a notable family of court officials in 1571 or 1572, Mulla Sadra moved first to Qazvin
Qazvin
Qazvin is the largest city and capital of the Province of Qazvin in Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 349,821, in 96,420 families....
in 1591 and then to Isfahan 1597 to pursue a traditional and institutional education in philosophy, theology, Hadith
Hadith
The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
, and hermeneutics. Each city was a successive capital of the Safavid dynasty
Safavid dynasty
The Safavid dynasty was one of the most significant ruling dynasties of Iran. They ruled one of the greatest Persian empires since the Muslim conquest of Persia and established the Twelver school of Shi'a Islam as the official religion of their empire, marking one of the most important turning...
and centers of Twelver Shi'ite seminaries at that time. His teachers included Mir Damad
Mir Damad
Mir Damad , known also as Mir Mohammad Baqer Esterabadi, or Asterabadi, was an Iranian philosopher in the Neoplatonizing Islamic Peripatetic traditions of Avicenna and Suhrawardi, a scholar of the traditional Islamic sciences, and foremost figure , of the cultural renaissance of Iran undertaken...
and Baha' ad-Din al-`Amili
Baha' ad-Din al-`Amili
Bahāʾ al‐Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ḥusayn al‐ʿĀmilī was a scholar, philosopher, architect, mathematician, astronomer and a poet in 16th-century Iran. He was born in Baalbek, Lebanon but immigrated in his childhood to Safavid Iran with his father...
.
Mulla Sadra completed his education at Isfahan
Isfahan (city)
Isfahan , historically also rendered in English as Ispahan, Sepahan or Hispahan, is the capital of Isfahan Province in Iran, located about 340 km south of Tehran. It has a population of 1,583,609, Iran's third largest city after Tehran and Mashhad...
, a leading cultural and intellectual center of his day. He was trained under the supervision of Mir Damad
Mir Damad
Mir Damad , known also as Mir Mohammad Baqer Esterabadi, or Asterabadi, was an Iranian philosopher in the Neoplatonizing Islamic Peripatetic traditions of Avicenna and Suhrawardi, a scholar of the traditional Islamic sciences, and foremost figure , of the cultural renaissance of Iran undertaken...
.
After he had finished his studies Sadra began to explore unorthodox doctrines and as a result was both condemned and excommunicated by some Shi'i ʿulamāʾ. He then retired for a lengthy period of time to a village named Kahak near qom, where he engaged in contemplative exercises. While in Kahak, he wrote a number of minor works, including the Risāla fi 'l-ḥashr and the Risāla fī ḥudūth al-ʿālam .
In 1612, Mulla Sadra was asked to abandon his retirement by the powerful governor of Fārs, Allāhwirdī Ḵhān and invited back to Shiraz to teach and run a new madrasa devoted to the intellectual sciences. He died in Basra
Basra
Basra is the capital of Basra Governorate, in southern Iraq near Kuwait and Iran. It had an estimated population of two million as of 2009...
after the Hajj
Hajj
The Hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is one of the largest pilgrimages in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a religious duty that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so...
and was buried in present-day Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
.
He is buried in the city of Najaf
Najaf
Najaf is a city in Iraq about 160 km south of Baghdad. Its estimated population in 2008 is 560,000 people. It is the capital of Najaf Governorate...
, Iraq.
During this time in Shīrāz, Ṣadrā began writing treatises that synthesized wide-ranging strands of existing Islamic systems of thought. The ideas of this school, which may be seen as a continuation of the School of Iṣfahān of Mīr Dāmād and Shaykh-i Bahāʾī, were promulgated after Sadrā's death by his pupils, several of whom would became sought-after thinkers in their own right, such as, Mullā Muḥsin, Fayḍ Kāshānī, and ʿAbd Razzāḳ Lāhidjī. Although Ṣadrā's influence remained limited in the generations after his death, it increased markedly during the 19th century, when his ideas helped inspire a renewed Akhbārī tendency within Twelver Shīʿism. In recent times, his works have been studied in Iran, Europe, and America.
Existentialism
According to Mulla Sadra, "existence precedes the essence and is thus principal since something has to exist first and then have an essence." It is notable that for Mulla Sadra this was a question that specifically applied to God and God's position in the universe, especially in the context of reconciling God's position in the Qur'an verses cosmological philosophies of Islam's Golden Era.Mulla Sadra metaphysics gave priority "Ab initio
Ab initio
ab initio is a Latin term used in English, meaning from the beginning.ab initio may also refer to:* Ab Initio , a leading ETL Tool Software Company in the field of Data Warehousing.* ab initio quantum chemistry methods...
" to existence, over quiddity
Quiddity
In scholastic philosophy, quiddity was another term for the essence of an object, literally its "whatness," or "what it is." The term derives from the Latin word "quidditas," which was used by the medieval scholastics as a literal translation of the equivalent term in Aristotle's Greek.It...
. That is to say, essences are determined and variable according to existential "intensity", (to use Henry Corbin's definition), and as such essences are not immutable. The advantage to this schema is that it is acceptable to the fundamental statements of the Qur'an, even as it does not necessarily debilitate any previous Islamic philosopher's Aristotelian or Platonic foundations.
Indeed, Mulla Sadra provides immutability only to God, while intrinsically linking essence and existence to each other, and God's power over existence. In so doing, Mulla Sadra simultaneously provided for God's authority over all things, while also solving the problem of God's knowledge of particulars, including those that are evil, without being inherently responsible for them - even as God's authority over the existence of existences that provide the framework for evil to exist. This clever solution provides for Freedom of Will, God's Supremacy, the Infiniteness of God's Knowledge, the existence of Evil, and a definition of existence and essence which leaves two inextricably linked insofar as Man is concerned, but fundamentally separate insofar as God is concerned.
Perhaps most importantly, the Primacy of Existence solution provides the capacity for God's Judgement without God being directly, or indirectly, effected by the evil being judged. God does not need to possess Sin to know Sin: God is able to judge the intensity of Sin as God perceives Existence.
One result of this Existentialism is "The unity of the intellect and the intelligible" (Arabic: Ittihad al-Aaqil wa l-Maqul. As Henry Corbin
Henry Corbin
Henry Corbin was a philosopher, theologian and professor of Islamic Studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, France.Corbin was born in Paris in April 1903. As a boy he revealed the profound sensitivity to music so evident in his work...
describes:
Substantial motion
Another central concept of Mulla Sadra's philosophy is the theory of "substantialSubstance theory
Substance theory, or substance attribute theory, is an ontological theory about objecthood, positing that a substance is distinct from its properties. A thing-in-itself is a property-bearer that must be distinguished from the properties it bears....
motion
Motion (physics)
In physics, motion is a change in position of an object with respect to time. Change in action is the result of an unbalanced force. Motion is typically described in terms of velocity, acceleration, displacement and time . An object's velocity cannot change unless it is acted upon by a force, as...
" (Arabic:al-harakat al-jawhariyyah), which is "based on the premise that everything in the order of nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
, including celestial spheres
Celestial spheres
The celestial spheres, or celestial orbs, were the fundamental entities of the cosmological models developed by Plato, Eudoxus, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus and others...
, undergoes substantial change and transformation as a result of the self-flow
Flow (psychology)
Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of...
(fayd) and penetration of being
Being
Being , is an English word used for conceptualizing subjective and objective aspects of reality, including those fundamental to the self —related to and somewhat interchangeable with terms like "existence" and "living".In its objective usage —as in "a being," or "[a] human being" —it...
(sarayan al-wujud) which gives every concrete individual entity its share of being. In contrast to Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
and Avicenna
Avicenna
Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā , commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived...
who had accepted change only in four categories
Categorization
Categorization is the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated and understood. Categorization implies that objects are grouped into categories, usually for some specific purpose. Ideally, a category illuminates a relationship between the subjects and objects of knowledge...
, i.e., quantity
Quantity
Quantity is a property that can exist as a magnitude or multitude. Quantities can be compared in terms of "more" or "less" or "equal", or by assigning a numerical value in terms of a unit of measurement. Quantity is among the basic classes of things along with quality, substance, change, and relation...
(kamm), quality
Quality (philosophy)
A quality is an attribute or a property. Attributes are ascribable, by a subject, whereas properties are possessible. In contemporary philosophy, the idea of qualities and especially how to distinguish certain kinds of qualities from one another remains controversial.-Background:Aristotle analyzed...
(kayf), position (wad’) and place (‘ayn), Sadra defines change as an all-pervasive reality
Reality
In philosophy, reality is the state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined. In a wider definition, reality includes everything that is and has been, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible...
running through the entire cosmos including the category of substance
Substance theory
Substance theory, or substance attribute theory, is an ontological theory about objecthood, positing that a substance is distinct from its properties. A thing-in-itself is a property-bearer that must be distinguished from the properties it bears....
(jawhar)."
Existence as reality
Mulla Sadra held the view that Reality is Existence. He believed that an essence was by itself a general notion, and therefore and does not, in reality, exist.To paraphrase Fazlur Rahman on Mulla Sadra's Existential Cosmology: Existence is the one and only reality. Existence and reality are therefore identical. Existence is the all-comprehensive reality and there is nothing outside of it. Essences which are negative require some sort of reality and therefore exist. Existence therefore cannot be denied. Therefore existence cannot be negated. As Existence cannot be negated, it is self-evident that it Existence is God. God should not be searched for in the realm of existence but is the basis of all existence. It should be noted that Reality in Arabic is "Al-Haq", and is stated in the Qur'an as one of the Names of God
Names of God
Names of God, or Holy Names, describe a form of addressing God present in liturgy or prayer of various world religions. Prayer involving the Holy Name or the Name of God has become established as common spiritual practice in both Western and Eastern spiritual practices...
.
To paraphrase Mulla Sadra's Logical Proof for God:
1) There is a being
2) This being is a perfection beyond all perfection
3) God is Perfect and Perfection in existence
4) Existence is a singular and simple reality
5) That singular reality is graded in intensity in a scale of perfection
6) That scale must have a limit point, a point of greatest intensity and of greatest existence
7) Therefore God exists
Causation
Sadra argued that all contingent beings require a cause which puts their balance between existence and non-existence in favor of the former; nothing can come into existence without a cause. Since the world is therefore contingent upon this First Act, not only must God exist, but God must also be responsible for this First Act of creation.Sadra also believed that a causal regress was impossible because the causal chain could only work in the matter that had a beginning, middle, and end:
1) a pure cause at the beginning
2) a pure effect at the end
3) a nexus of cause and effect
The Causal Nexus of Mulla Sadra was a form of Existential Ontology within a Cosmological Framework that Islam supported. For Mulla Sadra the Causal "End" is as pure as its corresponding "Beginning", which instructively places God at both the beginning and the end of the creative act. God's capacity to measure the intensity of Existential Reality by measuring Causal Dynamics' and their Relationship to their Origin, as opposed to knowing their effects, provided the Islamically-acceptable framework for God's Judgement of Reality without being tainted by its Particulars. This was an ingenious solution to a question that had haunted Islamic philosophy for almost one thousand years: How is God able to judge sin without knowing sin?
Truth
For Mulla Sadra a true statement is a statement that is true to the concrete facts in existence. He held a metaphysical and not a formal idea of truth, claiming that the world consists of mind-independent objects that are always true and truth is not what is rationally acceptable within a certain theory of description. In Mulla Sadra's view one cannot have access to the reality of being: only linguistic analysis is available. This theory of Truth has two levels: the claim that a proposition is true if it corresponds to things in reality; and that a proposition can be true if it conforms with the actual thing itself.List of known works
- Al-Hikma al-muta‘aliya fi-l-asfar al-‘aqliyya al-arba‘a [The Transcendent Philosophy of the Four Journeys of the Intellect], a philosophical encyclopedia and a collection of important issues discussed in Islamic philosophy, enriched by the ideas of preceding philosophers, from Pythagoras to those living at the same time with Mulla Sadra, and containing the related responses on the basis of new and strong arguments. In four large volumes; also published several times in nine smaller volumes. He composed this book gradually, starting in about 1015 A.H. (1605 A.D.); its completion took almost 25 years, until some years after 1040 A.H. (1630 A.D.)
- al-Tafsir (A commentary upon the Qur'an)
- Diwan Shi’r (Collection of Poems), a number of scholarly and mystic poems in Persian.
- Si Asl, Mulla Sadra's only extant book of philosophy in Persian. Here, by resorting to the main three moral principles, he has dealt with moral and educative subjects related to scientists, and advised his contemporary philosophers.
- Sharh al-hidayah, a commentary on a book called Hidayah, which had been written on the basis of Peripatetic philosophy.
- ‘Arshiyyah, also called al-Hikmat al-‘arshiyyah, a referential book about Mulla Sadra's philosophy. As in al-Mazahir, he has tried to demonstrate the Beginning and the End concisely but precisely. This book has been translated by Professor James Winston Morris into English with an informative introduction.
- al-Mabda‘ wa’l-ma‘ad, also called al-Hikmat al-muta‘aliyyah, considered to be a summary of the second half of Asfar. He called this book the Beginning and the End, since he believed at heart that philosophy means the knowledge of the Origin and the Return.
- al-Mazahir This book is similar to al-Mabda‘ wa’l-ma‘ad, but is shorter than it. It is, in fact, a handbook for familiarizing readers with Mulla Sadra's philosophy.
- Huduth al-‘alam, on the issue of the origination of the world, which is a complicated and disputable problem for many philosophers. He proved his solid theory through the theory of the trans-substantial motion.
- Iksir al-‘arifin, a gnostic and educative book.
- al-Hashr, a theory of the resurrection of animals and objects in the Hereafter.
- al-Masha‘ir, on existence and its related subjects. Professor Henry CorbinHenry CorbinHenry Corbin was a philosopher, theologian and professor of Islamic Studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, France.Corbin was born in Paris in April 1903. As a boy he revealed the profound sensitivity to music so evident in his work...
has translated it into French and written an introduction to it. This book has recently been translated into English, too.
- al-waridat al-qalbiyyah, a brief account of important philosophical problems, it seems to be an inventory of the Divine inspirations and illuminations he had received all through his life.
- Iqad al-na‘imin, on theoretical and actual gnosis, and on the science of monotheism. It presents some guidelines and instructional points to wake up the sleeping.
- al-Masa‘il al-qudsiyyah, a booklet deals mainly with issues such as existence in mind and epistemology. Here, Mulla Sadra has combined epistemology and ontology.
- al-Shawahid al-rububiyyah, a philosophical book, written in the Illuminationist style, and represents Mulla Sadra's ideas during the early periods of his philosophical thoughts.
- al-Shawahid al-rububiyyah, a treatise not related to Mulla Sadra's book of the same name (see above). It is an inventory of his particular theories and opinions which he had been able to express in philosophical terms.
- Sharh-i Shafa, a commentary upon some of the issues discussed in the part on theology (Ilahiyyat) in Ibn-Sina's al-Shifa.
- Sharh-i Hikmat al-ishraq, a useful and profound commentary or collection of glosses on Suhrawardi's Hikmat al-ishraq and Qutb al-Din Shirazi's commentary upon it.
- Ittihad al-‘aquil wa’l-ma’qul, a monographic treatise on the demonstration of a complicated philosophical theory, the Union of the Intellect and the Intelligible, which no one could prove and rationalize prior to Mulla Sadra.
- Ajwibah al-masa’il, consisting of at least three treatises in which Mulla Sadra responds to the philosophical questions posed by his contemporary philosophers.
- Ittisaf al-mahiyyah bi’l wujud, a monographic treatise dealing with the problem of existence and its relation to quiddities.
- al-Tashakhkhus, explaining the problem of individuation and clarified its relation to existence and its principality, which is one of the most fundamental principles he has propounded.
- Sarayan nur wujud, a treatise dealing with the quality of the descent or diffusion of existence from the True Source to existents (quiddities).
- Limmi’yya ikhtisas al-mintaqah, A treatise on logic, this work focuses on the cause of the specific form of the sphere.
- Khalq al-a’mal, a treatise on man's determinism and free will.
- al-Qada’ wa’l-qadar, on the problem of Divine Decree and Destiny.
- Zad al-Musafir, demonstrating resurrection and the Hereafter following a philosophical approach.
- al-Mizaj, a treatise on the reality of man's temperament and its relation to the body and soul.
- Mutashabihat al-Qur'an, a treatise consists of Mulla Sadra's interpretations of those Qura’nic verses which have secret and complicated meanings. It is considered as one of the chapters in [Mafatih al-ghayb].
- Isalat-i Ja’l-i wujud, on existence and its principality as opposed to quiddities.
- al-Hashriyyah, a treatise on resurrection and people's presence in the Hereafter, it deals with man's being rewarded in paradise and punished in hell.
- al-alfazh al-mufradah, an abridged dictionary for interpreting words in the Qur'an.
- Radd-i shubahat-i iblis, explaining Satan's seven paradoxes and providing the related answers.
- Kasr al-asnam al-jahiliyyah (Demolishing the idols of the periods of barbarism and man's ignorance). His intention here is to condemn and disgrace impious sophists.
- al-Tanqih, dealing with formal logic.
- al-Tasawwur wa’l-tasdiq, a treatise dealing with issues of the philosophy of logic and inquiries into concept and judgment.
- Diwan Shi’r (Collection of Poems), a number of scholarly and mystic poems in Persian.
- A Collection of Scientific-Literary Notes, some short notes of his own poetry, the statements of philosophers and gnostics, and scientific issues have been left from his youth, which comprise a precious collection. This book can familiarize the readers with subtleties of Mulla Sadra's nature. These notes were compiled in two different collections, and it is likely that the smaller collection was compiled on one of his journeys.
- Letters: except for a few letters exchanged between Mulla Sadra and his master, Mir Damad, none of his letters has survived. These letters have been presented at the beginning of the 3-volume
Further reading
- Nasr, Seyyed HosseinSeyyed Hossein NasrSeyyed Hossein Nasr is an Iranian University Professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University, and a prominent Islamic philosopher...
, Sadr al-Din Shirazi and his Transcendent Theosophy, Background, Life and Works, 2nd ed., Tehran: Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, 1997. - Rahman, Fazlur, The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975.
- Morris, James (trans.), The Wisdom of the Throne, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.
- Chittick, WilliamWilliam ChittickWilliam C. Chittick is a leading translator and interpreter of classical Islamic philosophical and mystical texts. He is best known for his groundbreaking work on Rumi and Ibn 'Arabi, and has written extensively on the school of Ibn 'Arabi, Islamic philosophy, Shi'ism, and Islamic...
(trans.) The Elixir of the Gnostics, Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2003. - Rizvi, Sajjad, Mulla Sadra Shirazi: His Life, Works and Sources for Safavid Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
- Peerwani, Latimah (trans.), On the Hermeneutics of the Light Verse of the Qur'an. London: ICAS, 2004.
- Jambet, Christian, The Act of Being: The Philosophy of Revelation in Mulla Sadra, Trans. Jeff Fort, New York: Zone Books, 2006.
See also
- List of Iranian scientists
- Iranian philosophyIranian philosophyIranian philosophy or Persian philosophy can be traced back as far as to Old Iranian philosophical traditions and thoughts which originated in ancient Indo-Iranian roots and were considerably influenced by Zarathustra's teachings...
- List of Shi'a Muslims
- Al Akbariyya (Sufi school)Al Akbariyya (Sufi school)A branch of Sufi metaphysics based on Andalusian sufi gnostic and philosopher Ibn Arabi's teaching.-Definition:Al Akbariyya is a word derived from nickname of Ibn Arabi who was known as Shaykh al-Akbar which meaning is the greatest Shaykh....
External links
- MOLLĀṢADRĀ ŠIRĀZI an article by Sajjad H. Rizvi in Encyclopædia IranicaEncyclopædia IranicaEncyclopædia Iranica is a project whose goal is to create a comprehensive and authoritative English language encyclopedia about the history, culture, and civilization of Iranian peoples from prehistory to modern times...
- Mulla-Sadra an article on Encyclopædia Britannica Online
- Sadra Islamic Philosophy research Institute
- Biography
- Biography
- Mulla Sadra (Sadr al-Din Muhammad al-Shirazi) (1571/2-1640) by Allameh TabatabaeiAllameh TabatabaeiAllameh Seyyed Muhammad Husayn Tabatabaei was one of the most prominent thinkers of philosophy and contemporary Shia Islam...
- Mulla Sadra historical house