Mulla Sadra's Life, works, and Philosophy
By: Prof. Sayyid Muhammad Khamenei
Translated by: Dr.R.Khoii.
•
Abstracts:
5 Understanding God's Speech in Miilla Sadra's
5
The Application of
the Principle of
the Simple Truth
to Non-numerical Oneness
6 The Reality of Knowledge in Mulla Sadra
7 Ambiguities of the Issue
of the Principiality
of Existence and
Quiddity's
Being Mentally-Posited
8 Soul and Spirit in Philosophy and Gnosis
9 Katibi's Puzzle
in the Light of the Transcendent Philosophy
Philosophy and Gnosis
9
The Problem of Making (ja 1) in Islamic Philosophy
Mull
Sadra's Life,works,and
Philosophy
Prof.S.M.Khamenei
These groups and people are obviously
different from Mulla Sadra,
who was Fayd's spiritual master and guide all through
his life. Fays calls Mulla Sadra
as 'the master of the people of gnosis and the moon of the sky of certitude',
as well as 'the unique leader of the time in the techniques of the knowledge of
the innermost'.
The third point is that
after going through all these stages, discovering Mulla
Sadra provided Fayd with a
permanent support, secure shelter and Kaaba of hopes
for removing ignorance from his soul and training it for achieving his ultimate
goal. A study of Fayd's works and thoughts reveal
that he found his true teacher, Mulla Sadra, an ideal model and a pleasant and ultimate symbol
for himself. It also shows that it was the Divine Light of Guidance that led
him to the threshold of this great philosopher.
The sentences he uses in his treatise, al-Insaf, are pretty similar to those in Mulla Sadra's treatises of Sih asl
and Kasr al-asnam
al-jahiliyyah. Like his teacher, Fayd considers the years of his life spent on the
acquisition of exoteric sciences or those disciplines having claims to real
knowledge as wasted time and believes that all types of knowledge and true
philosophical and Gnostic realities can only be found in the Holy Qur'an, hadith, and
statements of the descendants of Prophet Mohammed (s).
The tone of Fayd's language in the introduction of al-Insaf is the same as the resonating tone of the
introduction of al-Asfar; the pain Fayd feels in his heart is the same as the pain felt there,
and his complaint is the same complaint against the people of the time and
those who pretend to religion and wisdom. He praises the teachings in the hadiths narrated by the holy Prophet (s) and
his descendants and considers them as his only hope for salvation and
happiness; nevertheless, he calls the traditionists
(scholars of hadith) and theologians of
his time as 'unauthorized people pretending to follow the path of God's
messenger'. He uses these attributes equally for Shi'ite
and non-Shi'ite scholars.
The above-mentioned words indicate that Fayd and some of Mulla Sadra's other elite students of philosophy viewed attending
their master's presence as the last step towards the completion of their
process of scientific studies and inquiries.
Finally, after finding Mulla
Sadra as his ultimate hope, Fayd
stayed in his presence for eight successive years and never left him during
this time. In addition to benefiting from Mulls Sadra's
experiences in philosophy and gnosis, Fayd was
acquainted with the language of the Qur'an and the
Divine Speech. He enjoyed the drunkenness of the wine of the world of pre-existence
and, like the ancient young magians, devoted himself
to serving the master magi and learnt the secrets of love and drunkenness from
him. He spent eight years of his life with Mulla Sadra and, in his own words, got involved in ascetic
practice and spiritual struggle.
As discussed previously (in the first volume), Mulla Sadra must have traveled from Qum to Shiraz in 1039 A.H. or a little after it.1 About one year before it, Fayd married Mulla Sadra's daughter, and in their journey to Shiraz, their first son, Mohammed, nicknamed as Alam al-huda (born in 1039 A.H.) was with them. Fayd, accompanied with his family, stayed in Shiraz for completing his studies under his gracious teacher. During his stay, he learned the last secrets of knowledge and then, carrying a heavy load of learning, including the knowledge of the Holy Qur'an, hadith, intellectual and hearty discipleship, scientific issues and intellectual intuition, and with a heart overflowing with the enthusiasm to guide and train others, returned to his hometown (1041 or 1042 A.H.)
1.
This birth of Mohammed, Fayd's son and Mulla Sadra's grandson, was at
the beginning of 1039 A.H.; therefore, it can be safely concluded that the
journey to
The Fayd who
came back to Kashan was a divine Fayd,
gifted with an in-debt knowldge of exoteric and
esoteric sciences, a Fayd who was now ahead of his
father in jurisprudence, leaving his ancestor - Zia
al-Urafa -behind in gnosis. At that time, Kashan was a populous and big town, praised by all the
explorers of the period, including the French Chevalier Tavernier.
Kashan was
called Dar al-iman (the house of faith) since long
ago, and this was because, like Qum, it was a base
for Shi'ism, and at times, when the non-Shi'ite rulers could not bear the existence of Shi'ism and people's believing in the Imamate (leadership)
of the descendants of the holy Prophet (s) and, as a result, massacred and
looted the Shi'ites for the most trivial excuses,
this city was a secure home for the followers of this religion. Moreover, the
two cities of Kashan and Qum
had always been the gathering place for Shi'ite scholars,
jurisprudents, and traditionists and, due to the nature
and culture of Shi'ism, Shi'ite
gnosis found its way into these places, and a number of prominent scientists,
specialized in all fields of knowledge, made their homes there. As mentioned
before, the last rings of these chains were Fayd's
father and ancestor, whom Fayd was going to replace.
In his biography, Fayd writes, "... I returned to Kashan and started teaching, spreading knowldge,
publicizing religion, and writing. I performed the Friday prayer and religious
services in company with some elite scholars, sometimes in the corner of Qamsar village and sometimes in the middle of the city of Kashan. Except for me, none of the scholars believed in the
objective necessity of the Friday prayer, and finally I was invited by Shah Safi to go to Isfahan".
The triangle of teaching, publicizing
religion, and writing comprised the three important duties of scholars in those
days, particularly in cities where they had not turned into specialized tasks
yet, and the residents of those places required an expert scholar to take care
of these duties.
Fayd's
writings and books are available to us today, and we are well aware of their
historical backgrounds. More than one hundred and forty books, treatises,
commentaries, glosses, translations, summaries, compositions, and
interpretations have been attributed to him.
A glance at his list of works not only
reveals his expertise in different branches of knowledge and mastery over them,
but also introduces his spiritual characteristics and thoughts.
His efficiency, taste, and supreme ambitions
and endeavors are only a few examples of his unique qualities.
In addition to possessing knowledge,
scientific perfection, a high station in narrating hadith,
interpretation, jurisprudence, philosophy, theology, gnosis, and so many
other areas, Fayd had such high aspirations that
resulted in his prolific writings. His being a humanitarian and paying
attention to ordinary people's needs are apparent from
his writings in Persian, translations of Arabic texts, and ordinary or
scientific works. A scholar who only thinks about accumulating and storing
knowledge .within the confinements of his mind and memory, according to Sa'adi Shirazi, is like a recluse
pious person or gnostic who only tries to save
himself from the waves of the tide (only thinks about himself), while a scholar
who shares his dominion of knowledge with ordinary people and generously
presents his knowldge, like milk oozing from a mother's
breast, to those who need it, reminds us of the verse saying, 'he tries to save
the drowning'.
Apart from his writings and
books, which require an independent chapter and an extensive discussion, his
teaching method requires special attention. His writings reveal that he
possessed an attractive and pleasant way of explaining things, in line with his
beauty of taste and delicacy of nature, and resulting in a poetic use of
language. Eloquence of speech and beauty of exposition are among the necessary
tools for teachers and professors. His master, Mulla Sadra, was also
equipped" with such perfections. Like a laden cloud arising from
the ocean and longing for satiating thirsty desert people, Fayd
returned to his town to offer his overflowing knowledge to the enthusiasts.
Abstracts
Understanding
God's Speech in Mulla Sadra's
Prof.S.M.Khamenei
Mulla Sadra's interpretaion or
hermeneutic of the Divine speech, which is inspired by the hermeneutic
interpretation of the Holy Qur'an, can be considered
as a bridge reconciling philosophical and traditional hermeneutics with each
other, as well as a foundation for philosophical hermeneutics.
Man's understanding is a
complex process which cannot be restricted to a general principle. Concerning
the study of man's understanding and interpretation of the Divine Words and
Revelation (genetic or religious), Mulla Sadra believes that the best proof for demonstrating the
relation between understanding or interpretation and man's existence is
tantamount to the existential relation between the macro anthropo
and micro anthropo. And the best method for proving
the relation of language, being, and the manifestation of being in language to
each other is the perception of the classification of the grades of being -
from objective existence to verbal existence. This is because on the basis of
the fact that the reality of existence enjoys vertical and horizontal levels
and grades, the genetic and religious forms of the Divine Language are two
existential forms of the same reality.
The Application of the Principle of the
Simple
Truth
to Non-numerical Oneness
Mohammed
Bidhendi
Imam Ali (a) has presented an accurate and subtle
definition for Oneness in Nahj al-balagah.
Reference has also been made to this definition in the Quran; however, it has been totally ignored and abandoned
not only before Islam, but also one thousand years after it. There is an
abundance of evidence indicating that the emergence of Sadrian
Transcendent Philosophy paved the'ground for a better
perception of this Alawite thought.
Briefly speaking, Mulla
Sadra states that the Oneness of the Glorified is a non-numerical
one, since numerical oneness which is an accidental attribute is rooted in the
limitations of things. Accordingly, The Pure is* One in the sense that His
existence and attributes are free from any kind of limitation or defect.
In this paper, the writer, while discussing the viewpoint of Nahj al-balaqah in this regard, and explaining the concepts of numerical and non-numerical oneness in the light of the principle of "The Truth in its Simplicity Contains all Things", has tried to provide a rational and philosophical account of the issue.
The Reality of Knowledge in Mulla Sadra
Nasir Mumini
In order to solve the problem of the
correspondence of knowledge with the external reality, it seems necessary to
discuss issues such as the union of the soul with the active intellect and
immutable archetypes, knowledge by presence, and the problem of correspondence
when inquiring into the reality of knoweldge from Mulla Sadra's viewpoint.
Like other Muslim
philosophers, Mulla Sadra
believes that the verisimilitude of knowledge and the correspondence between knowldge and the known are based on knowledge by persence. However, a review of his ideas concerning
knowledge and his words about knowledge by presence cast suspicion on the truth
and strength of this problem.
Accordingly, following a
critical approach, the writer intends to discuss the above-mentioned topics in
this paper and, at the same time, clarify their
role in solving the problem of the reality of knowledge
with respect to Mulla Sadra's
views.
Ambiguities of the Issue of the Principiality of
Existence and Quiddity's Being Mentally-Posited
Monireh Palangi
Although the issue of the principiality
of existence is introduced as one of the innovative and most fundamental issues
of Sadrian philosophy, it seems to suffer from
certain ambiguities. The effects of such ambiguities are sometimes so great
that they cause problems in clearly interperting some
of the other principles and positions adopted by this school of philosophy.
To explain this issue, we
should first see whether Mulla Sadra
has presented a clear and accurate definition for the concept of principiality, so that in the light of which we could
understand the quiddity's being mentally-posited. We
should also inquire if external quiddity, alongside
with mental quiddity - whose existence he assumes
necessary in his discussion of mental existence - has any realization, and
explore its relation to the principial existence. On
the other hand, one might ask how we could consider something which possesses
external realization in some way, although through a kind of union with
existence as being mentally-posited.
By clarifying the relation between principial
existence and the external quiddity, the meanings of
the principiality of existence and quiddity's being mentally-posited can be re-evaluated.
Undoubtedly, the best way for doing this is to resort to Mulla
Sadra's own words to prove that this ambiguity is in fact
rooted in his own words. Ultimately, one might conclude that the main source of
this ambiguity is his confusion of conceptual or mental quiddity
with the external quiddity.
Soul and Spirit in Philosophy and Gnosis
Mukhtar Tabaah
Izadi
The evaluation and clarification of the
nature and reality of man's soul are among the most important problems
philosophers and gnostics deal with. At the beginning
of the section of the knowledge of the soul (Urn al-nafs)
of philosophy, philosophers always refer to this issue and try to analyze
it. Philosophical issues follow a specific logical order in both form and
content. However, in gnostic books, the problems
which are related to the soul - like many other ones - are not only vaguely
treated, but also scatteredly presented-in different
chapters. In fact, in spite of the prime importance of the problem of spirit in
gnosis, no specific chapter has been devoted to it, while it has been mentioned
in most of the chapters in their books.
Gnostics, as the science of gnosis
necessitates, follow a completely divine and metaphysical approach in their
analysis of the reality of the soul and study it from its reflexive (being like
a mirror) aspect, while philosophers pay attention to the mental aspect of the
soul and its connection to nature as well.
The most important point occupying the
minds of philosophers succeeding Aristotle, concerning his definition of the
soul, pertains to Mulla Sadra's
arguments with the Peripateric philosophers as to
whether Aristotle's definition is related to the reality of the soul or its
connective mode. Some of the ideas -concerning the reality of the soul are
possibly too strange. The reason for having a tendency towards such ideas could
be the complexity of this issue, so that some thinkers believe that the reality
of the soul can never be known, and some of them, in confirming this claim,
have resorted to one of the verses in the Holy Qur'an
(Al-Isra Chapter: 85).
Katibi's
Puzzle in the Light of the
Transcendent Philosophy
Ali Asghar gafari
The presentation of a
comprehensive report of all available criticisms and their evaluation will be
greatly revealing concerning logicians' methodology and epistemology. Their
deliberations and insights concerning the issue of relation and criticizing the
inferential principles that are based on this concept, as well as the
evaluation of the efficiency of the issue, have appeared in different forms.
Conceptual criticisms lead to new conceptualizations, and the posing of
contradictory examples for inferential principles consolidates the principles themsleves and, in certain cases, leads to the discovery of
new ones. Some of the criticisms in the history of logic are known as logical
puzzles. It should be emphasized that in their process of historical
development, a lot of responses have been given to such puzzles, and that they
have been good targets for a host of objections; however, all the responses and
objections have been at the service of merely strengthening their forms of
ambiguity or paradox, such as Katibi's Puzzle'.
Such criticisms are targeted at the problems
and issues related to the field of relation. If these issues are discovered, the
pervious research studies, which are each relatod to
a specific topic, will continue in a focused line of activity. It goes without
saying that studies of this kind possess undeniable advatages
in practice in the mould of logical deliberations and criticism.
The Problem of Making (ja /) in Islamic Philosophy
Ali Shahbazi
The focal point of the discussion of making (ja I) is the possible thing, since
it requires a cause for being realized. This issue is related to discussions related
to cause and effect, existence and non-existence, and quiddity
and existence; therefore, Islamic philosophers have referred to it under
different titles.
Philosophers have dealt with this issue with reference to
the general philosophical and theological movements, and particularly from the viewpoints
of two important philosophical positions, namely, the" Peripatetic and Illuminationist schools of thought. Perhaps one of the most
important reasons that the idea of the making of quiddity
or existence has been attributed to the Peripatetcis
or Illuminations is that, concerning the issue of the principiality
of existence or quiddity, it is normally stated that Illuminationists believe in the principiality
of quiddity and the Perpaterics
believe in the principiallity of existence. And since
the problem of making is to some extent based on the problem of the principiality of existence or quiddity,
they have implicitly referred to the necessity of discussing these issues at
the same time.
Accordingly, the problem of
making (ja' l), like many other philosophical
problems, turned into a controversial issue, arousing a great number of
arguments and, as a result, different groups, following different ideas,
proposed different proofs in this regard. Finally, Mulla
Sadra redefined the issue of making and presented it
in a new and orderly fashion.