1 Mulla Sadra's Life, works, and Philosophy
BY: Ayatollah Sayyid Muhanimud Khanienei
Translated By: Dr.R.Khoii.
• Abstracts:
3 A Comparative study of the "Principiality of Light" in Suhrawardi
and the
"Principiality of Existence" in Mulla Sadra
3 Mulla Sadra and Othcologia
3 Pluralism and Revelation in Mulla Sadra and Paul Tilisch
4 An Epistemological Approach to Platonic
"Ideas"
4 A critical study of the Religion-Ethic
Relation in Kant's Philosophy
4 Ibn-Sina's
Innovations Concerning the Theory of Emanation
5 The Relation between Purity, and Knowledge
in Mulla Sadra's
Philosophy
5 The Relationship between Motion and Perfection and its
Conformity with Hegel's
Philosophy of History
5 Khayam and the Problem of Determinism and Free Will
Mulla Sadra's Life, works, and Philosophy
Prof .S.M.Khamenei
5 Ma'sumah
Mulla Sadra's third
daughter, and apparently his fifth and last child, was called Ma'sumah. She was born in Shawwal
1033 (A.H.lunar) in
In this regard, Mar'ashi writes: "The
knowledgeable literary woman, Ma'sumah Khatun, was the wife of al 'Allamah al-Mirza Qawam al-Din
Nayrizi. He was
one of the most distinguished
disciples of her father and wrote some glosses on al-Asfar...".1
Although the source of the above-statement is not
mentioned, historical evidence confirms it. According to these preliminary remarks, this daughter of Mulla Sadra, too, was a master of
literature and philosophy. This is not surprising because
one who has been trained in Mulla Sadra's school of philosophy should be considered a gnostic, wayfarer, and pious person. There is no doubt about this lady's knowledge and
perfections. However, it is not easy to accept that she had a comprehensive
study of philosophy under her father, since if Mulla Sadra's death was in 1050 (A.H.lunar),
she was 16 or 17 al that lime, and if his death was in 1045(A.H. lunar), she
was 12 years old. Therefore, like her
sisters, she must
have acquired some of her knowledge
in philosophy and gnosis from her husband (who was one of the
rightful successors of her father)
to have atlaincd such a highly elevated philosophical status.
Qawam al-Din Muhammad Nayrizi
Shirazi is said to be her husband. He was one
of the well-known students of Mulla Sadra, who wrote some glosses on al-Asfar,
Some have referred to him as Qutb al-Din Muhammad (or Ahmad) Nayrizi
(d. 1173 AH.lunar), who was one
of the
leaders of Dahabieh,
and one of the students of Mulla Muhammad Sadiq Ardistani (1134 A.I
I. lunar). There is a big time interval between his period and that of Mulla Sadra. In Tadhkirah-yi
Nasrabadi it is written that Mulla Sadra's third son-in-law was Mulla 'Abdul-Muhsin Kashani (the nephew of Akhund Nura Mulla Dia
al-Din Kashi). He was Mulla Sadra's student and had some degrees in
philosophy and gnosis and was involved in leaching in Kashan. Nasrabadi
writes aboul him
in this way: " Shah
Abbas sent a call for him since he had heard about
his justice.
Kashi was Shah's
companion in his journeys. After Shah's
death, he spent his time in worship or
teaching sometimes in Qamsar and sometimes in Kashan. He
left a collection of poems consisting of about 10,000 couplets". This
story does not seem to be true, and it is highly unlikely that instead of the
famous scholars of the time,
Shah Abbas invited Kashi,
who must have been very young at that time,
as the "justest man of the time". It is
also highly unlikely that Shah Abbas and most1.Ma'adin al-hihnah, introduction, P. 16.of the rulers of the Safavid Dynasty, who
spent most of their lives in indulgence, to keep company with men of justice, scholars, and scientists.
Perhaps by Shah the writer means the second Shah Abbas.
In this case the narration comes closer to reality. The weakness of this
historical quotation makes his first quotation (that he was Mulla Sadra's son-in-law)
dubious, and it can be considered rejected. In the same source, reference has been made
to a fourth son-in law for Mulla Sadra
called Muhammad
Sami'. However, it is not clear who Mulla Sadra's fourth daughter was
and why her
name has not been mentioned in any historical documents.
As we saw not much has been recorded in writing about Mulla Sadra's children. It has always been a tradition in history to view the
real men of human society and their achievements
heedlessly and not to pay them the respect they truly deserve. Those who have provided the bases for the establishment of
society, science, culture, and civilization have been cruelly kept in the periphery of history and not at its core.
Likewise, there has not much been written about the biography of the
children and heirs of the great philosopher,
Mulla Sadra, who in fact
created a new horizon in the history of philosophy. Those historians who observe everything
superficially always pay attention to the indiscreet characters of the scence
of society. They conceive of kings, court clowns and prostitutes, and coquettish, noisy, and flattering servants as
the great men of history and its
main characters. What is more, they consider
the kings' slaughter of human beings, tyrany, vinosity, womanizing and such calamities as the most
important historical events in man's process
of development.
Like children who value the sound of an empty drum higher than the voice
of knowledge and art, these historians, due to their inner blindness, have perceived
the sea and measured its depth through hearing the sound of its waves hitting
the shore. They have known the nobility and height of the mountain through listening to
the frivolous echos of sounds, and wherever there has
been silence, meaning, depth or eminence, they have perceived nothing and moved past them
leaning on their walking sticks blindly and ignorantly. In fact, they have not learned
anything from such magnificence and luminosity to record them in their mute and silent
papers.
It has always been the tradition of history to devote its chapters to
the fame and infamies of kings and to seek its food at their dinner tables. As
long as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, this will be the case with
history and historians.
If no
diaries or history books under the names of memorandum (tazkereh),
the biography of scholars (qisas al-ulama'), or any other
name had been written, or if there had been no great men rebelling against such
historians and writing books on the luminous stars of the domain of science to
record and protect their names, lives, and works, nothing would have remained of such an
invaluable treasure of the glorious historical past of science. If such was the case and we
didn't have access to what has been left to us, although not as much as it should have been,
our scientists today would be like people of unknown origins, not knowing where they
have come from or who they have descended from.
Abstracts
A Comparative study of the "Principiality of Light" in Suhrawardi and the "Principiality of Existence" in Mulla Sadra
By :Dr.R.Akbarian
As the
title suggests, this paper presents a comparative study of the commonalities
and differences between the Illuminationist philosophy and Transcendent Theosophy. The writer has tried to make a comparison between the
significance of "light" in Suhrawardi's philosophy and that of "existence" in Mulla Sadra's school of thought.
To accomplish this task, he has also made some references to Ibn-Sina's ideas and the differences between his ideas in this regard and those of these two
philosophers.
The author believes that in certain cases Suhrawardi
considers the Peripatetic principles as being valid; however, he does not favor
their fundamental principles. The most important book of this philosopher, hikmat al-ishmq, is a philosophical book,
whose principles have been devised through using a series of intellectual
reasons based on necessary propositions. The Illuminationist
philosophy, on the one hand, is in conformity with the school of the principiality of existence in denying the metaphysical
difference between existence and quiddity, and
on the other hand, it stands against
this school in emphasizing the mentally-posited nature of existence and the principiality of quiddity.
Mulla Sadra and Otheologia
By : S.Rahimeyan
In this paper
the writer presents an overview of the place of Otheologia
in transcendent philosophy. Like
other Islamic philosophers, Mulla Sadra
believes that this book belongs to Aristotle,
and considering the fact that the real author of this book is Plotinus, it would be more realistic to say that this paper
discusses the impacts of Plotinus on Mulla Sadra's school of thought.
Mulla Sadra considered
the writer of Otheologia a divine sage and
a prominent philosopher, whose thoughts were more commensurate with and closer to
those of his comparing to the thoughts of all other philosophers before and after
Islam. It is interesting to point out that according to the writer of this article, Mulla Sadra himself had become
sensitive to the glaring differences
between the contents of this book and the contents of Aristotle's other works,
and that might be why in certain cases he attributes this book to Aristotle
with doubt.
Throughout the article,
the writer
has referred to eighteen cases where we can see the traces of Otheologia'^ influence on Mulla
Sadra's philosophy.
Pluralism and Revelation in Mulla Sadra and Paul Tilisch
By: Dr.Alae Toorani
In this article, after
providing a definition for religion, the writer argues that it is about four centuries that the western world has
oppressed God, religion, and the holy prophets. The oppressors have replaced God by man, the holy prophets by
intellectuals and geniuses,and the religions by the social- philosophical
schools. Moreover, in order to wipe out the difference between the divine
religions and human schools of thought,
they have made some maneuvres, the last
of which has been a kind of pluralism.
Mulla Sadra says,
"Islam is the last religion, and is higher and more complete than others. Being the last religion
implies being the most
perfect. Since Islam is a collection
of all religions, it comprises all
perfection and is beyond time and history; it is all religions without being any of them; and it includes all the
perfections of other religions and lacks their defects".
The
essence of religion is beyond history; however, its existence is
determined through historical periods. Such a claim is another interpretation
of the issuMffieternity(,v<7rmad)and atemporality (dahr), which have been referred to in Transcendent Theosophy.
Moreover, as emphasized in different
verses and traditions, according to the philosophy of the prophet's mission and the sending down of the holy book, it
is a common and general principle that each prophet has come for a specific
period, while Islam has emerged for all human kind and times. Nevertheless,
pluralism does not agree with this interpretation of religion, nor does it agree with Islam's being the last religion, the rightfulness
of religions,
and the superiority of divine religions
over non-religions. Consequently, philosophical pluralism brings
about a kind of polytheism, and religious pluralism results in a kind of decline
in the divine position.
An Epistemological Approach to Platonic "Ideas"
By : M.Zamani
This paper is devoted to a study of the theory of Platonic
"Ideas" and its important role in
epistemology. The writer has first discussed the theory
of "Ideas" almost in delail with
reference to Plato's
different Dialogues and presents the different
interpretations of this theory. In what follows, the writer refers to the
origins of this theory in the ideas of Plato's
predecessors. Finally, he introduces the most important criticisms targeted
at Platonic
A critical study of the Religion-Ethic Relation in Kant's Philosophy
By :Dr.Y. Shaqoul
Kant's endeavours in the field of practical philosophy
or ethics are considered to be like his Copernican revolution in the speculative
field. As he did so in the field of sepeculative
philosophy, he tried to pose a new
approach in ethics which comprises the positive points of his
predecessors. In his view, this ethical
theory is universal, necessary, and humanistic. In this approach the moral agent, like the very deed itself and it's end, is more important than other elements. This
moral agent-rational being- is
both self-obligative and self-legislative;
therefore, autonomy is the most important basis of his ethics.
Ibn-Sina's Innovations Concerning the Theory of Emanation
By : S . M . Imam Jomee
In this paper, the author has tried to arrive at a convincing answer
through exploring the
The Relation between Purity and Knowledge in Mulla Sadra's Philosophy
By :GH.Sobhani Fakhr
The
present article reports
Mulla Sadra's view of the
relation between the purity of the soul and knowledge. The writer explicity
slates that in Mulla Sadra's
view, it is impossible to attain real
knowledge without first purifying the soul. Besides, it
is emphasized that according to Mulla Sadra, the
knowledge which has been aquired through intellectual delibrations, in comparison to the knowedge which has been obtained through the purification
of the soul, is like seeing the sweet comparing to tasting it. The
purity of the soul, which is the basis of knowledge, is nothing but abstaining
from secularism in all its
different forms. Basically, the purity
of the soul in itself is a non-existential affair
whose value depends on its relation to knowledge and divine wisdom.
The Relationship between Motion and Perfection and its Conformity with Hegel's Philosophy of History
By :M . Navidi
This article consists of one introduction and five parts which are
explained in brief in the introduction to the topics of problems. In the first
part, the issue of motion is extensively discussed according to Mulla
Sadra's view. In the second part, the writer tries to
provide a convincing
answer to the problem of whether there is any relationship between motion and
perfection on the basis of Sadrian principles.
The topic of the third part, which is itself divided into two other
parts, is the philosophy of history in Hegel's view. In the fourth part, the writer
makes a comparison between the concepts of motion and perfection in Mulla Sadra's philosophy
and those in Hegel's philosophy
of history, and the final part of the
study is devoted to the conclusion of the presented discussions.
Khayyam and the Problem of Determinism and Free Will
By :A .Nik-Sirat
The main purpose of this paper is to present a
short overview of Khayyam's ideas concerning the problem of determinism
and freewill in general, and the relationship
between God's eternal knowledge and
man's free will in particular. In order to present a clear picture of Khayyam's views, the writer has briefly referred to the important theological and philosophical approaches in this regard, too.